On an overcast morning in June, five local wine experts met at COPIA for a roundtable discussion. There was no set agenda and no subject was off limits.
Conversation was lively—especially once the bottles were opened—and soon, nothing was safe. Topics ranged from food and wine pairings and favorite varietals to distributors, corkage, allocation and all those damn ratings scales.
What follows are some of our favorite excerpts.
—Alexandra Russell
Our Participants
Peter Marks, MW,
Director of Wine, COPIA
Chris Sawyer, sommelier/wine educator, Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar, Sonoma
Scott Tracy, sommelier, La Toque, Napa
Traci Dutton, sommelier, The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone
Walter Inman, wine and beverage director/head sommelier,
John Ash & Co., Santa Rosa
Escape the cult
Chris: At my restaurant and, I’m thinking maybe in Walter’s case, too, we’re basically hotels. So we get a lot of people from all walks of life: some who don’t know anything about wine and some who know a lot: some who know the cult wines and some who just need a lot of education as far as wines are concerned. Many aren’t used to doing a set, prix fixe menu—have never seen it before in their lives. Just because of that I have to be very diverse in what I pick up.
I only do Sonoma County and Carneros wines, but I have 250 of them on my list. And each one of them is selected to fit different profiles, and each must go with food, which is first priority.
Scott: I think we’re all spoiled in the context that people who come to dinner have often been drinking wine throughout the day. They’re on vacation; they’re with their sweethearts. They make the assumption that we’re experts. So they’re going to trust us to do a wine pairing. They’re going to listen to us when we make a recommendation.
And because there are so many wines they can’t get back home, they want to know what little surprises we have. That’s really special. Even if they’re just in town for a wedding and they normally drink beer, they’re still curious about wine in a way they wouldn’t be back home.
Walter: Sometimes we’re seen as a “special occasion” restaurant, so going through the book, you’ll see all these anniversaries and birthdays and graduations and other celebrations. In that situation, a lot of customers don’t want to be adventurous because it’s a one-time shot for them. So they look for what we call the “blue chip brands.” They’re not always the best wines on the page, but they recognize the name and know it has a reputation. They order those because they know them and they don’t want anything to be “off” on their special occasion. It’s sometimes hard to get those people to try the new, really cool thing they’ve never heard of.
But then, we also get people who are there because they know we have this huge wine list, and they’re ready to explore and go through it. It’s an odd mix at times. You really never know what you’re going to get.
Peter: I’m the odd guy out because I’m not on the floor like you all are, but I do know we get a lot of winemakers and people in the industry who are really ready to explore. Whereas a lot of the tourists might be more conventional and pick out the recognizable wine they feel safe with.
Traci: I envy those people sometimes. I think we tend to take a lot of the classics for granted. More so in California than I think we would in a European setting. If you go back and revisit some of those wines, you realize there’s a reason they’re classic to begin with.
I think the Wine Auction last week [Napa Valley Vintners 26th Annual Wine Auction, June 2-3] was a really good example of this because we had 17 sommeliers from all over the country and of all of the wines that had been donated to the VIP section, they were all over anything new or that they hadn’t tasted. I’m sitting there with a case of Heitz Martha’s Vineyard and a case of ’92 Rubicon, and there was no interest whatsoever.
And I was thinking, “Oh my God, why aren’t you selling these wines? Who cares about…”
Scott: Go ahead, say it!
Traci: …that stupid *%#@!! Chardonnay.
[GROUP LAUGHS]
ALL: Off the record!
The home team
Walter: I have a lot of imports on my list. The bulk of it is Sonoma and Napa, but we do sell a lot of imports as well.
Traci: In the restaurant it’s all California, but in the next year it’s going to change to be from all over the United States. But I buy a lot of imports for special events and wine classes. So in purchasing, it’s probably about 60 percent California right now.
Chris: In my wines by the glass list, which I have about 30 at any time, I bring in some imports there, but I don’t do them by the bottle. So I have an Olivier LeFlaive [2004 Chardonnay, “Les Setilles,” A.O.C. Bourgogne, France] right now and a Keller Estate un-oaked Chardonnay and the Acacia Chardonnay: that’s a flight, right there, with Old World, New World and New World un-oaked. That’s my style. That’s where I bring in imports, and I usually go in a theme.
Peter: We do the same. People are always surprised that we don’t just have American wine. We have to tell them we’re the American Center for Wine and not the Center for American Wine, which means we’re influenced by other cultures and countries.
We have about 80 percent American wines and 20 percent imports, but where we do best with our imports is during flights. We’ve recently ramped up our flights, and they’ve just been taking off.
It gives people an opportunity to venture beyond their comfort zone without having to spend an arm and a leg. They have an opportunity to sample a variety of things. It’s an easy sell in that regard. But I think when people come to the Wine Country, at least for a special occasion, they don’t come to taste a high-end Italian wine or even a first-growth Bordeaux. They’d rather have a cult Napa wine. Of course, there are exceptions to that, but that’s the general case.
Scott: I’ll always come home to Napa in the fourth course, but usually there’ll be one wine in each course of a pairing that will come from outside California. It doesn’t happen that often, but occasionally someone will say, “Look, I just want California wine.”
Occasionally someone will be from England, for example, and they just came back from France, and will say, “That’s all I’ve been drinking. I’ve had my fill.” But people who live here want a French vacation; they’re drinking their wine and their neighbors’ wine, and they’re trading for all of that they want.
But it’s interesting because people will ask questions, and sometimes they just refuse to let go of the concept that I should only be pouring Napa wines in Napa. I don’t normally get abrupt, but I did tell one woman recently that I wasn’t the Chamber of Commerce.
[LAUGHS FROM GROUP]
Put a cork in it
Walter: Corkage is one of my biggest pet peeves. I have close to 800 wines on the list now, and it’s not that I mind people bringing wine in—to a certain point—but it seems to be becoming too much.
You’ll have a six-top or an eight-top, and everybody brings in a bottle of wine and they’re all different wines and they all want separate glasses—and they want the big glasses, too. They want the Bordeaux and Burgundy glasses. And then they want them all decanted. And then they complain about corkage. We charge $20 corkage so how does that situation make any sense? We also do a buy one/comp one, where if you buy a bottle we’ll comp a corkage.
Scott: It’s a very difficult world because once you open the door to comping someone’s corkage, that’s a lifetime pass. And yet, it’s very difficult not to comp certain people. I hear about more and more restaurants going to a bottle limit.
Whatever you choose to do, you’ll get beat up—and that’s unfortunate because that’s not the purpose of corkage. To my thinking, the purpose of corkage is to pay for the glassware that gets broken on average. I don’t look at it as an inconvenience on any other level. I just view it as, we’re decanting the wine, we’re pouring it into our glasses and every time we touch a glass there’s a chance it’s going to break, so you need to pay for that. That’s all.
Traci: I try to look on the sunny side a little bit. What is the actual percentage of bottles served in your restaurant that aren’t yours? We’ve just had this big corkage issue at work a couple weeks ago, so I asked for the numbers: How much money will the bottom line increase if you raise the corkage fee $5?
We raised it recently to $20, and I had to give in because I was told it was based on what fees were at comparable restaurants. But how much money are we really talking about—and how much good will are we losing?
I tell my staff, when a bottle of wine comes in, to look at the label and consider it an honor that they wanted to have this wine with our food. Because it’s a compliment.
Walter: Granted, there are some absolutely phenomenal bottles of wine that they usually let you try, so it’s a great opportunity.
Scott: And they’re celebrating their lives, too. If someone’s been holding on to a bottle of Latour as an anniversary wine, then your attitude is totally different than if someone’s just bringing in a…
Walter: …than if you have to scrape the $10.99 sticker off the bottle because you don’t want that showing on your table and you also have to remove the brown paper bag they carried it in.
And those are the two sides of it: I like seeing people bring in these very cool bottles of wine, but on my list, I have bottles that go from $18 and up. So there’s something in almost every category at a very reasonable price point. And if you do the math, if you’re paying $20 for the corkage on top of the $10 to $15 you spent on the wine, you could have just bought something off the list instead of stopping by the grocery store.
Chris: I think people get very lost in that. They’re trying to save money, especially regular consumers who aren’t used to coming in and buying a really good glass of wine and respecting the sommeliers and our choices.
I think a lot of people are just visiting Wine Country; they’ve been out all day tasting. They made it to five wineries so they’re getting something out of the trunk—they don’t even know if it’s going to pair with the dinner. They don’t know anything.
Walter: It’s also 80 degrees.
[LAUGHS FROM GROUP]
Chris: And they’ll see one with the cork coming out, so they figure they better drink that one first.
[MORE LAUGHS FROM GROUP]
Peter: We should cut the corkage in half for that!
[MORE LAUGHS FROM GROUP]
Chris: I don’t let them taste their wine. I’ll open it and pour it. Some people get offended by that, but hey: they brought it in, so they’re banking on it.
Traci: What are you supposed to do if it’s bad?
Scott: The frustration is that it’s a no-win situation.
Walter: Most of the time it’s something we have on the list.
The sales pitch
Scott: Often people who want to sell you a wine will bring it to dinner. I always think that’s an interesting tactic. It’s an odd way to build a relationship with a sommelier.
Chris: There are so many ways of marketing. Of course, there’s distributors, but there’s also a lot of mom-and-pop boutique wineries that just start up, and they come in many different forms and faces.
Some come in and say, “Hi, can I set up an appointment with you?” Formal, nice.
Some of them come in with a cutting from Wine Spectator, and they say, “Why don’t you have this?”
Walter: That’s my favorite.
Chris: They’re the worst of the worst. Then you have the ones who do what Scott was saying. They come in with an underground way of marketing their wine to you. They’ll bring in a bottle and ask their server to send the sommelier over: “I’d like him to taste this.” Then they drop a card, and suddenly it’s a relationship.
And I’m thinking, “Oh man, are they going to call me next week?”
I think the best people who come in—if it’s not a distributor—actually study the restaurant first. That’s the most important thing. What kind of food does Greystone have? What kind of food does La Toque have? What’s applicable for those wine lists? Who should we approach?
If it’s a crazy, all-California style cuisine, then you have to figure out what kinds of wines could even match up with that food. If it’s more European-style food, then the wines will be different. People who actually study it first…
Walter: Who do their homework!
Chris: They’re the best.
Traci: But there’s only three of those people in the world.
Chris: I was going to say two and a half.
The sales pitch, part 2
Walter: There’s one other thing that’s an absolute deal killer for me when somebody’s presenting a new wine, and that’s following up their presentation by telling me who else has already purchased it. In the sense of, “They have it. You should.”
Peter: When somebody comes in and says, “This wine is already at X,Y and Z…”
So what? Different menu, different strategy. It does not apply.
Chris: That’s digging your own grave. If everyone else has it, why would I even want it on my list?
Walter: It’s as if they think that will put you over the top: “Well, I wasn’t really sure, but now that Scott’s got it, I have to have it!”
Peter: They use that in retail as well. They’ll go into a store and say, “John Ash has it.” Like that should make a difference. Retail and restaurant: totally different environments. Again, they’re just being lazy.
Let me give you a tip
Walter: I guess that would also come under the bad sales pitch category: having the winery owner come in and make a complete ass of himself at dinner then tip 10 percent.
Scott: Or throw a fit about corkage.
Traci: When you buy their wine, just pay 80 percent. Give yourself a 20 percent discount.
Scott: Tell them you tipped the driver.
Walter: We’ve also had occasions where a winery will want to have an event or stage a dinner. And they’ll call trying to negotiate. They want to bring in all their own wine, but they don’t want to pay corkage. Granted, these are all wines I’m already carrying.
What I want to say is, “Yeah, sure. And the next time your salesperson comes in, I’ll tell them I’m only willing to pay 25 percent of what you’re asking. That should be no problem, right?”
It’s the same thing. We’re a business; you’re a business. I buy from you; you buy from me.
Hard numbers
Chris: If you’re putting any type of rating scale—100 point scale, 20 point scale—on your wine list, you have some communication problems. “This is a 92-point wine; you need to buy this with your dinner.”
If it doesn’t go with the food, what’s the point? There should be the right selection of wines that are going to complement the food. That’s one of the key points of being a sommelier.
Walter: I can’t stand the “Wine Spectator gave it a 91” sales pitch.
Traci: Well, at the Wine Spectator Greystone restaurant, where we get free cases of the Wine Spectator to put in the lobby, I honestly never have time to read it.
I’ll have customers say, “Did you know this wine got a….” Or the servers will flip through pages saying, “Hey, that wine got a good rating!” And I’ll just say, “Go figure. That’s why I bought it.”
But it doesn’t come up very much. And I think that’s because there are just too many scores out there. Who can keep them all straight?
Peter: It used to seem more important when there wasn’t so much to assimilate. But now, you have so many people writing about wine—and so many wines out there. I mean, there are a few that may stand out, but it’s really information overload.
Scott: People can only absorb so much information. It’s unfortunate, because there’s information they absorb that you can’t shake out of them.
I remember the 1997: good; 1998: bad years. Where there was just no way to sell a ’98 because consumers decided it was all bad.
Walter: I still have a couple ’98s that are basically on the list at cost—and they’re good wines. There’s nothing wrong with those wines. But you couldn’t pay somebody to take them.
Scott: The thing you need to be aware of, based on that, is the bad score rather than the good score. Whether it got 88 points or 92 points isn’t important. But if the vintage is panned, then you’ll spend too much time trying to sell them something they’ll never want to try.
Walter: I thought I was going to champion that whole thing. You know, “I can sell these wines! They’re great wines!” I bought a whole bunch of ’98s, and that was my mission for that year. I was really going to take it, you know.
I took it, but it was the wrong way. I’m still trying to get rid of some of those.
Getting screwed
Peter: I’m wondering what your reactions—and what your clientele’s reactions are—to screw caps.
Walter: I use a lot of them by the glass. We have about 30 wines by the glass, and when the bar’s really busy, we don’t have to worry about them being corked. And it’s easy for the bartenders to just crack them and go.
We don’t sell many on the floor. Occasionally, some of the New Zealand stuff will go out. It gives me a chance to talk with the customer about it, explain a little bit about it. I’ve never had anybody turn it away. Most people have never seen one—at least not on a high-end bottle.
Traci: Do you point them out on your wine list?
Walter: I have a couple of times, like when Seghesio bottled two for their Sonoma County Zinfandel. Since they’re in our backyard, I did put that in. But it’s not on there right now.
But there’s really not many that go out to the floor. Most are by the glass. It’s rarely an issue.
Traci: It’s a total non-issue for us.
Scott: I hate them. For me, it’s a big issue. It speaks of low quality, first and foremost. I think that the cork issue will be solved pretty quickly. I’m excited about the glass closures, for example. I would rather have a plastic cork than a screw cap.
Peter: [Plastic corks] are time bombs.
Traci: They do such a disservice to the wine. I would rather they all went away.
Scott: Here’s the thing: If I go to a table because they’re doing the wine pairing and I’ve got a screw cap because the wine I’ve selected is a perfect match, I’ll put a cork in it so people won’t notice it. Because I don’t want to have a conversation about screw caps. I want to talk about the food; I want to talk about the chef. I’m in the business of creating a romantic story about why we’re doing what we’re doing. I don’t want to talk about the history of corks or what percentage of wines…
It’s a sinkhole for me because I have to go to the next table and the table after that…
Traci: Well, there’s nothing romantic about a corked bottle of wine. So people who think that screw caps are taking away the romance of wine are a little misguided.
Scott: Well, Champagne on New Year’s Eve? There are wines I don’t want to see a screw cap on. Where do you draw the line? And how do you feel about it?
Walter: For me, if it’s an Australian Reisling in a screw cap, I couldn’t care less because I’m not hanging onto it for very long. Basically you throw it in the cooler and go. But you’re absolutely right. There are some things I would never bring out with a screw cap.
I think there’s going to be a certain price point where people will start saying it’s unacceptable.
Chris: Mine are pretty much the whites. I have about eight whites on my list now that are screw caps. I think they’re pretty useful. The first incident I ever had with them was when I had a Sauvignon Blanc from Carneros. Someone ordered it, and when I walked into the room with it, they were aghast at the screw cap.
I walked back out and broke the seal, then I brought it in and spun the cap gracefully into my hand before pouring and letting them taste it. Three bottles later they didn’t have a problem with it. Sometimes it’s just a perception. It’s really what’s in the bottle.
Traci: I’m a fan of whatever it takes to get a good glass of wine in front of a customer. And I also believe the cork problem can be solved. And I believe the reduction problem can be solved by the screw cap people. And I believe that, if all of the problems in the world were solved, cork would be a superior closure. But right now, whatever it takes to get good wine in front of a customer makes me happy.
If I have a class that has 100 wines in it and I have to provide back-up bottles for every one just in case something’s corked, that’s when I really want the screw cap. For me, it’s when I start dealing with volume that I start to show some favoritism toward the screw caps.
Peter: I think the screw cap is an educational issue that needs to be understood by the consumer. If we’re ever going to become a country where wine is part of the culture, then we should care about what the wine tastes like—not what score it got, not what type of closure it has.
Did you hear the one…
Scott: Here’s a question: Why are so few bottles of Champagne corked as compared to other wines? Why are so few bottles of Port corked?
Peter: What’s the number of bottles of Champagne and Port you’re opening as compared to wine?
Traci: There’s a reason Champagne corks are superior. The selection process for cutting the discs is totally different. And I have to agree with Peter. Are we opening up the same volume of vintage Port that we are vintage wines?
Peter: [LAUGHS] Maybe it’s because the Portuguese are keeping the best corks for themselves and shipping the other stuff here.
Traci: Did you know there’s a Portuguese wine producer who switched to screw caps?
Walter: Ouch! He’s probably not the most popular guy around.
Chris: Scratch him off your party list.
I get a kick out of you
Peter: Talking about the cult wine versus the classics, what about the ripe alcoholic movement as opposed to the more balanced and ageable wines. Do you look at the alcohol level? What are your feelings about wines that are ripened and hot, and how do they go with your food? Is that what the consumer wants? And do you buy that because you’re trying to placate them? Or do you buy what’s really best for your pairings?
Scott: I don’t pay any attention to the alcohol as a number. But I know the public does. There’s a tendency for the public to look for things they can quantify. The fact that wine is bottled poetry is delightful—but that doesn’t mean everyone understands poetry.
But people do understand a good kick in the ass. So when they get something with a higher alcohol content, they tend to respond to it.
Sherry, baby
Traci: I was in Spain a couple years ago with a bunch of New York City sommeliers who were complaining that they couldn’t sell Sherry by the glass because it’s too high in alcohol. But it’s only like a percentage more than a glass of California Chardonnay.
I could easily drink a 5-ounce glass of Fino Sherry and really, what’s the difference?
Walter: We don’t get much call for Sherry. Maybe we don’t promote it enough.
Scott: It’s not big on the West Coast.
Chris: That’s the difference: East Coast versus West Coast. The exposure to Sherry here is very minimal. It hasn’t always been that way. I mean, at the turn of the last century, most people were drinking Sherry in restaurants.
It’s just that the imports go directly to the East Coast. We’re more influenced by New World-style wines here. Except for people like us who are freaks about European wines, too. We also don’t have a lot of Sherry producers here.
Scott: Right. There’s not really anyone doing it on the West Coast to create any kind of comparison or dialog.
Peter: If we don’t make it here, it doesn’t exist.
What a pair
Traci: How many people to whom we serve these very carefully chosen wine and food pairings actually “get it?”
Chris: I’d say an easy answer is “a growing number.”
Some people get really into it, and some people are total nerds. I had a group last week that was just blown away by a dessert that I paired with a late harvest Gewurztraminer. This table was in awe. They were fawning and sharing bites and raving…
Traci: Were they drunk?
[LAUGHS FROM GROUP]
Chris: Probably a little. But the point is that, every now and then, you’ll have that one person who really gets it. And it’s one of the greatest moments of being a sommelier.
Walter: Pairings can be hard because everyone’s tastes are so different. We’ll do a dinner with 30 people, and 28 of them will think it was the absolute best thing in the entire world, but then the other two will absolutely hate it. Hate everything about it. They’ll think everyone else in the room is an idiot.
Taste is so subjective. I’d bet we’ve all thought we had the perfect food and wine pairing, at least by our tastes, and then someone will inevitably say it sucks.
Scott: But it can certainly be the most rewarding thing about my job when I see the light bulb go on. I love it when I have people come in with corkage and see what we’re doing and put their bottle on the floor and take the pairing instead.
And I must add that’s it not all about me. Our chef loves wines and is working harder than 99 percent of the chefs in the world to make food that allows wine to complete it.
It also depends not just on how focused your chef is, but also on the sophistication and age of your clientele. So for me, I would say between 85 and 90 percent of my customers get it.
Chris: It’s always easiest to quantify those who love it and those who hate it. There are so many who accept it and enjoy it without making such a to-do.
Rosés are red…
Scott: When I was in Los Angeles—this is going back a decade—I was in a restaurant called 2424 Pico, and the way I got people to get excited about the restaurant was I would greet them and give them a little taste of wine. So they’d get a little something they never would have ordered. At least half the time, people would respond by saying, “We’ll have a bottle of that.”
When the Sinskey [Robert Sinskey Vin Gris of Pinot Noir 2005, Los Carneros, Napa Valley] came out, I was just blown away by how beautiful it was. It has that beautiful rose petal quality. Very elegant.
But as I would approach a table with this wine, I would get looks from the customers, like I was going to take a picture of them in tutus and put it on the Internet. It was, “Don’t you bring that bottle of Rosé near me, buddy!”
It’s taken a long time for that to soften.
Chris: I think Rosé, in general, is one of the best experiments we have. I don’t think there’s any doubt we like Rosé, but getting that point across to other people is actually quite fun and entertaining. To convince them, “You’ve had your preconceptions of this because of Lancers and Mateus and White Zinfandel, but this is a different wine altogether.”
Scott: I think it’s about where Sauvignon Blanc was four years ago. That’s pretty much how I would categorize it.
Peter: If God had wanted wine to be red, He would have made the pulp red. If he had wanted wine to be white, he would not have made red grapes. So Rosé is the only logical answer.
Scott: But God made water. Man made wine.
Traci: That reminds me of something I once heard a French winemaker say about the reverse osmosis machine. He said, “God gave us the rain, and then He gave us the machine to take it out.”
What a bargain
Traci: Honestly, one of the things I’ve been most excited about recently is the 2005 La Vieille Ferme Rosé [Cotes du Ventoux]. It’s $4.50 a bottle [wholesale]—and it’s not even for work. It’s just for me to have at home. It has a screw cap; it goes with everything you want to eat all summer; I’m in heaven.
Walter: That’s another way to get into a restaurant. Find something that would never make the wine list but that the house loves. I buy a lot of stuff for myself, and then I tell the staff about it. I’ll say, “This isn’t going on our list, but it’s a really great bottle of wine for five bucks,” or whatever it is. And we’ll blow through it.
When the wineries call all excited about the volume, I sometimes don’t have the heart to tell them it’s just us.
Traci: We have the Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc [2005, Casablanca Valley, Chile]. I sell maybe a bottle of it on the floor; the staff buys it all. They even sent me a Veramonte jacket with the leather collar because I bought 46 cases last year. And I’m thinking, “My staff drank 46 cases?”
Chris: So don’t believe we’re not part of the retail business.
Take it back
Walter: I had a guy from a winery the other night—not the owner, but he worked there in some upper capacity. He ordered a $250 bottle of 2002 Paul Hobbs and then tried to send it back because it was too young.
Traci: That’s not a valid reason for sending back a bottle of wine.
Walter: Especially not if they ordered it. It wasn’t a recommendation.
Traci: When I worked at 231 Ellsworth and there was a lot of Silicon Valley money around, we would get so many young wine consumers who thought we were Neiman Marcus. They were constantly ordering bottles of wine and then sending them back for non-reasons like that. It was infuriating.
Tell me what you like
Walter: I try to describe wines as objectively as possible, because just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean a customer won’t. I try to be fair about it. If they ask which I prefer, I’ll tell them and I’ll tell them why. I emphasize that my tastes are not necessarily theirs.
Traci: I try to train my staff to describe the wines without injecting their opinions. Which is hard.
We do a lot of unconventional training with our staff. I don’t like to spend a lot of time training them on specific producers. Instead, I’m trying to build their knowledge of the theory of wine. Because I hate the “I can’t sell it if I haven’t tasted it” excuse. You’re not going to put together a great wine list and expect that every server will taste everything.
But they do need to understand the theory behind Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, and they need to understand vintages and AVAs. And they need to understand winemaking. And they need to understand these things in a bigger way instead of one wine at a time.
Initially, it bothered a lot of people when that was my idea about staff training, but we don’t have a lot of turnover and the knowledge that these people have built up over the years is incredible.
Peter: I try to turn the question back on the customer and ask, “What kind of wines do you like?” I try to take the mystique out of it. There’s no one right answer. Your palate is going to be different than theirs. It’s our job to get that information from them as nicely as we can and then suggest something within their range that maybe they haven’t had before.
Scott: For me, the most important thing about staff training is learning how to interpret the question, so they’re hearing what the customer is actually trying to say.
If someone says they like dry wine, that doesn’t mean anything. You have to ask questions in terms of what they drink at home, are they excited to try something new, things like that.
Traci: And hopefully you’re working with a group of wines that are all good choices.
Chris: That’s what we’re there to do. It’s our business to pick out only good wines. There are only a few wines on my list I don’t like, and those are there because of name recognition and brand loyalty from the customers.
It’s not my choice, but if they ask, I’ll certainly help them pair food from the menu with it. It’s using our knowledge of the wines and our menus to make them feel like they just got the best thing they could have possibly ordered—right there, at that table, right then.
Scott: It’s always about picking your battles. So those people who are happy with brand-loyal choices actually give you time to spend with someone who has real questions.
Traci: You don’t have to like every wine on your list. You just have to appreciate them for what they are.
Special thanks to COPIA for allowing us to host this event in their Founder’s Room.
