How Restaurants Select their Wine Lists

Have you ever noticed that your favorite restaurant offers the perfect wine pairings for almost every dish on the menu? This doesn’t happen by accident. Restaurants take careful measures to select the best wines that will compliment their dishes and make your dining experience the perfect balance between the two. If you have ever wondered what steps restaurants take when selecting their wine list, you will definitely find the details below very interesting.

• Concept – It all begins with the concept of the restaurant and the menu. Restaurant owners have to quickly decide if their restaurant menu requires a wine list or not. For example, if the restaurant is a casual burger hangout, then a wine list might not be necessary. However, if the restaurant serves gourmet burgers with exquisite side dishes, a wine list will be a complement to the menu.
• Taste Tests – Restaurant owners invite distributors to their restaurant to examine their selection and have taste testings. During this process, the restaurant owner will choose a specific wine selection and place the order.
• Variety – Restaurant owners order a wide selection of wines that consumers will enjoy sipping at the bar while dining on appetizers. The restaurant owner also keeps a good working relationship with the distributor and discusses new wines that are on the market in order to choose new selections that will serve as great consumer choices.
• Creation of the Wine List – The wine list is created and printed on a menu of its own or added to the main menu. Restaurant owners will host tasting events to attract consumers in addition to offering guests a taste testing during their visit.

While the steps of creating a wine list may seem short, the thought and time that goes into the process is time consuming. Restaurant owners understand that a wine list needs to be precise, fit their concept and dishes, plus offer guests a variety to choose from. The next time you visit your favorite restaurant, speak to the wine sommelier to learn more details about the wine list and how they created they created it.