Newby to creating a wine list

I think many Peckerheads will weigh in on this one. You will see just how complicated a simple question can become.

I'm waiting

Steve,

Sounds like a fun project. I'd suggest that you look at the wine list in two parts.

First - take a good long look at your menu. Work with your chef to come up with a small wine list that pairs with the food, as flawlessly as you can. Here's the fun part - you and the staff get to hold mini-tastings of that menu with wines that you think will work well. Pare that list down to about four, which you (and the staff) KNOW will work well. Get your distributor to work with you on the wines for the food. Many will even comp the wines for your tasting exercise and should be invited to participate. Don't start out with a preconceived notion of varietals, or place of origin. Let the menu dictate what you try. Be brutally honest in your assessment of how well the wines work

- you want HITS, not just OKs.

Second - get to the membership and talk to them about the wines that THEY like. You might get lucky and have some overlap from your list in part I. If not, then pare down list 2 to about four wines with the most general appeal. Start with the two lists being available, but maybe add your "recommendations" for wine pairing to each dish on the menu, in hopes that the membership will try those. Monitor the sales of the wines on your two lists carefully. If the membership is still not buying the matched wines, you might even offer special pricing (loss leaders) just to make sure they are actually trying these with the food.

After you have worked with these two lists for a bit, doing everything in your power to insure that the membership is actually trying the recommended wines, start eliminating the wines that are not selling. Giving this method time to work, start replacing the no-sale wines, one, maybe two, at a time, with other wines.

Even if a food/wine match is made in Heaven, it does you no good if the members will simply NOT buy those wines.

You could possibly end up with an all Italian list, or all French. Don't worry about that. You are not the distributor - you are only trying to make the members happy. Heck, you could even end up with 8 selections of White Zinfandel (God forbid), but it THAT is what makes the members happy, so be it.

Then, you can start bringing in a "new" wine, say once a month. Offer it as a special, and monitor its sales. Replace it with another new wine, and monitor the requests for the old special.

Your list should be a living thing, very dynamic, to reflect new dishes that the chef adds, or subtracts. Go for the best pairing, and see how it goes.

Most of all, have fun, and good luck, Hunt

I didn't have to wait long at all.

Steve- There are a lot of great and inexpensive Austrian wines available in England. I'd suggest trying one Gruner Veltliner for your list, if your membership is at all adventurous. It's known for pairing well with many different foods.

-e

Salut/Hi Steve Flanagan,

le/on 12 Apr 2005 03:16:52 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

By that, do you mean you're looking to buy some wines to keep in stock so that you can offer a small choice to members at these occasions?

Yes Ian we are. Unfortunately, none of us are anywhere near being reasonably experienced when it comes to things like this, hence, my original posting.

Personally, I'm a red wine person (especially with Italian food which I adore, and steaks, etc), whilst some people prefer a white wine (not too keen on white wine myself - except for Retsina with a nice Greek Salad on a hot summer evening in the garden)

I suppose what we are looking for is a nice range of wines to have on stock at the gatherings I mentioned.

I must thank Hunt for his/her thoughts. Very interesting and very enlightning, however, we don't have a dedicated chef to be honest. The catering is provided for by a group of ladies from the local church who do a very nice meal which is usually along the lines of:

Starter - usually soup which changes all the time Main - Roast dinner seems to be the favourite with a mixture of beef and lamb, although they have done a very nice roast gammon in the past as well. Dessert - Lemon Meringue and Fruit Salad seem to be the main choices - although sometimes a trifle is added as well. Following dessert there is a cheese board (including French cheeses, Edam, Stilton and then a white and red cheese) - although personally I prefer to have a port with mine.

I should have added that to my original message - apologies.

Personally, I think it is a good idea as the only wine we sell at the moment is single measure bottles and, asically, it's 1 white and 1 red, but we are lookig to branch out a bit.

What we want is a small list of wines that will go well with the menu above, are fairly cheap to buy whilst also being good (i.e. basically we don't want to buy a bottle of "vinegar" just beacuse it's cheap). We're not looking for a massive margin on the wine, just something that the members can buy which they will probably enjoy with what's on offer.

Cheers

Steve

Hi Steve,

My experience with clubs is not huge, but what little I have is that by and large you should keep things simple. Most members won't want to explore or go into details, they just want a little choice. At the Bohemian club in SF most dinners are "red or white", offering IIRC Ravenswood Vintners Blend Zin and St Supery (forgive bad spellings please) Sauvignon Blanc. The Friars in NY offers a little more choice but everything is reasonable and nothing is exotic.

So advice: you personally, or your comittee or whoever, will have to taste a few bottles. Hard duty. I'd aim for 3 or 4 red and an equal number of whites. For red, say a chianti, an inexpensive fruit forward aussie shiraz, a cotes du rhone and something like the Ravenswood or something spanish to remind folks of that nice vacation. For whites, try for a NZ sauvignon blanc, an american or aussie chardonnay, an entre-deux-mers, something german and a bit sweet.

Go for friendly, supple wines without heavy tannins, that are made to drink now. Pay attention to price, going 10-20 pounds resale. Buy small enough quantities so that if a wine doesn't work you can change the list easily.

As for specifics, you'll need to see what local sales are available, from there we could advise you further.

HTH

-E

possibility

OK. What I'd suggest is to take a cue from the wine lists of restaurants and focus on the lower price range with perhaps 1-2 "splurge" wines for those so inclined. A small list might be:

sparkling wine - Spanish cava, Italian prosecco and/or NV Champagne crisp white - Sauvignon blanc from NZ or the Loire rich, dry white - Chardonnay from Oz or CA off dry white - German Riesling (maybe a kabinett and a Spätlese)

light red - Beaujolais med bodied red - Chianti or other Italian red fruit forward red - Aussie Shiraz or CA Zinfandel full bodied red - minor Bordeaux (maybe a more fancy claret as a splurge)

You might also have a sherry and/or Port for the fortified wine drinkers, especially if you can serve by the glass. For specific wines, you'd need to find a retailer who could supply you and see what they have on hand and recommend. It helps if your retailer is both knowledgable and honest, so find one who comes recommended.

HTH Mark Lipton

I'd suggest that you form a relationship with a local wine merchant. I am sure you could find one that was prepared to recommend wines and keep you supplied. Talk to a few and choose one you get along with. I'd start by contacting any small independent merchant in the area, Majestic should also be able to help I guess, or maybe Oddbins.

Where are you based? We might be able to recommend shops.

Salut/Hi Steve Flanagan,

le/on 13 Apr 2005 04:56:57 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

Thanks very much for coming back. That's a great help, as is the expanded information on the sort of food to be expected.

GREAT. That's just the sort of information that we can get our teeth into.

Soups. Most wines don't go very well, though with a clear soup, like a consommé or a french onion soup (I know, but it counts!) at a pinch a dry madeira goes pretty well. I'd not bother to get one just for that. Have a bottle of sherry - not in large quantities - and offer it by the glass as a pre-prandial which will not come to much harm when served with the soup!

For other starters, a moderate weight white will do fine, as Steve (I think) suggested, places like Oddbins or (shock horror) Tesco's will have a pretty good choice. If you want to get as much as a case (12) of wine at a time, ask about case discounts, you might just as well take an extra 10% or so if it's going. As to what... I live in France, so my choice will be fairly irrelevant to yours. Read "Good Food" and see what they recommend. There's a TON of good suggestions there. Otherwise, the specific suggestions are excellent. I like the idea of a choice of 3-4, and the types suggested are fine. You may like to look to Hungary for good vfm Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay whites, by the way. An interesting white from there if you can find it, is Tokaji Furmint.

Red meats. I'm with Mark and Emery on this. You could do a lot worse than to get a lightish red for gammon (here I drink a good quality Bergerac Pink served chilled). The gamay grape makes quite a lot, but there's plenty of other from all over.

Desserts. Forget wine. No that's not quite true - I adore sweet wines, with dessert and cheese, but it's hard to get good ones and extremely hard to get a good match. I'll get shouted at, but Bera make a wonderful sparkling Moscato d'Asti, I don't know if it's available in the UK. If not, ask around, these wines are perfect dessert wines, though bad ones are frightful. Another type of wine to look at is a sweet sherry/Malmsey madeira. They really don't go badly with trifle and they keep opened, so sell by the glass very well. Taylors LBV port is splendid for the Stilton!

Hope that helps.

And consider the BBC Good Food Mag, they usually have plenty of good suggestions.