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Hospitality Leadership Through Learning
Faculty & Research

Wine List Characteristics Associated with Greater Wine Sales

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Vol 9 No 11
By:  Sybil S. Yang and Michael Lynn Ph.D.

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Executive Summary:

Wine lists can be powerful merchandising tools that should be thoughtfully designed. Restaurant operators and observers have offered many suggestions regarding how to present a wine list to improve sales, but few direct tests of these notions have been published. Based on design and content attributes extracted from 270 wine lists from restaurants in several major metropolitan areas across the United States, this study evaluated the extent to which thirty wine-list characteristics coincided with higher wine sales. Overall, restaurants with higher wine sales tend to have wine lists that (1) are included on the food menu, (2) do not include a dollar sign ($) in the price format, (3) include more mentions of wine from a specific set of wineries, and (4) include a “Reserve” category of wines. On the other hand, using “Wine Style” as a major organizational category was associated with reduced sales. For casual dining restaurants specifically, higher wine sales were related to extensive wine lists that have a length of approximately 150 bottles of wine as compared to lists with fewer or more bottles, and with wine lists that offer more low-cost wines. Neither of these factors showed any effect in fine-dining restaurants.

Research made possible by a grant from Southern Wine & Spirits of America, a senior partner of the Center for Hospitality Research.

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Comments

I'm responsible for the strategic development of f&b in Marriott, UK.  I thought your article was fantastic and mirrors the same work I'm doing in the UK.

During these challenging economic times Marriott UK is increasing beverage average check and margins year on year ('08/'09).  Additionally we have used selling techniques inspired by Bob Brown (US) and again these strategies are reaping significant returns.

In the UK (6 sites across the UK) we have realised increases in beverage average checks between 12% and 43% purely based around implementing Bob Brown techniques.  Recently we have implemented a wine list strategy similar to your model and again we are seeing increased results across the UK between 10% and 40%.

In this day and age these figures are not to be laughed at, and have meant Marriott UK is having one of its most successful years in f&b margin. 

Edward Harvey
Director of Food & Beverage Development and Design
Marriott Hotels Ltd

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About Michael Lynn Ph.D.
Dr. Michael Lynn is a professor of consumer behavior and marketing at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the Ohio State University in 1987, and has taught in the marketing departments of business and hospitality schools since 1988. Dr. Lynn paid his way through school by waiting tables and bartending. This experience sparked his interest in service gratuities (tipping), a topic on which he has over 35 published academic papers. His other research focuses on consumer status and uniqueness seeking. Dr. Lynn is the past editor of the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, and is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Academy Marketing Science, which gave him an outstanding reviewer award in 2006.