Wine management in restaurants: how to run a wine programme

The short answer: a restaurant wine programme is a loop. You build a list for your food and your guests, buy what you can sell, store it well, price it with a clear logic, train the team to sell and serve it, count it, and then adjust. Every part feeds the next. Here is each one, with links to the detailed guides.

1. Build the list around the menu and the guests

• Start from the food. Know the dishes, the sauces and the cooking. A list for a seafood restaurant and a steakhouse should look different.
• Cover the styles: crisp whites, fuller whites, rosé, light reds, full reds, sparkling, and something sweet for dessert.
• Cover the prices: value, mid-range and premium in every section, so nobody has to choose between their budget and their taste.
• Keep by-the-glass tight: only as many wines as you can sell while they are fresh.
• Structure: an easy order for the guest, usually style, then country and region. The Court of Master Sommeliers asks Advanced candidates to know how a fine wine list and a function list are structured.

2. Buy wisely

• Buy what you can sell. A great wine that sits in the cellar for two years is cash on a shelf.
• Build relationships with suppliers. Good suppliers bring tastings, allocations and honest advice.
• Older wines: the Court's standards say to ask how the bottles were stored and when they left the winery, and to inspect them for label damage, leakage and ullage (the gap below the cork).

3. Store it properly

• A constant 10–13°C for long-term storage, according to the Court.
• Lying down, label up, so the corks stay moist and the stocktake is quick. Spirits stand up.
• Never in strong light, damp, vibration or heat, and away from strong smells.
• Organised by bin number, so the cellar matches the list. See bin numbers on a wine list.

4. Price with a clear logic

Decide the gross profit you need, then let the maths set the price: selling price = cost price ÷ (1 − gross profit). At 65% gross profit, divide the cost by 0.35. That is the method the Court of Master Sommeliers teaches. Some restaurants also use a sliding scale, with a higher multiple on inexpensive bottles and a lower one on expensive bottles, so that great wines stay within reach. Whatever you choose, apply it consistently. The full worked method, by the bottle and by the glass, is in how to calculate the true cost of a cocktail.

5. Wine by the glass

• Know your glasses per bottle: a 750 ml bottle gives six 125 ml or four 175 ml glasses.
• Protect open bottles. The Court expects Advanced sommeliers to know the main preservation systems: Coravin, Vacu Vin and Enomatic, and the vacuum or argon principle behind each.
• Date every opened bottle and taste each one before service.

6. Control the stock

• Count regularly, always in the same order, and reconcile the count with your sales.
• Set par levels so you reorder before you run out.
• Log everything that isn't a sale: breakages, faulty bottles, staff tastings, wine for the kitchen.

The step-by-step version is in wine inventory for sommeliers.

7. Train the team

• Taste with the team every week, from the list, with the food it goes with.
• Give everyone two or three sentences they can say about each by-the-glass wine.
• Role-play the hard moments. Use my 6 wine service role-play scenarios.
• Reward progress. The Court's syllabus lists staff training programmes and rewarding staff performance among the skills of an Advanced Sommelier.

8. Serve it well

Service is where the programme meets the guest. Prepare before the doors open with mise en place for wine service, and know what to do when something goes wrong with 4 common guest complaints.

9. Tell people about it

• Wine dinners and tastings bring guests in and teach the team.
• A short line on the list for a few wines helps guests choose.
• Local producers make good partners for events and good stories at the table.

10. Measure and adjust

• Gross profit by category: sparkling, white, red, by the glass.
• Best sellers and slow movers, by bin number.
• Waste from by-the-glass bottles.
• What guests say, and what they reorder.

None of this works without the human part. A guest rarely remembers the margin on a bottle; they remember how the evening felt. Sell the feeling, not the score.

Questions people ask