Wine by the glass
Almost everyone complains about the price of a bottle of wine in restaurants - and the lack of choice. Wine by the glass used to mean a "wine from the box" - but that picture's changing. Fiona McDonald investigates. You know the scene - you're out for a meal with a loved one or a mate, you don't quite feel up to doing justice to a bottle of white and a bottle of red. A glass of each for both of you would be ideal - until your see what's on offer…and order beer instead!
A scant 10 years ago a market research survey of the UK market showed that eight out of 10 people enjoyed drinking wine - yet only one in 10 would order it when eating out. The reason given for this statistic was that the wine selection was so poor.
Speak to anyone in South Africa and they will bemoan either the restaurant price of wine where markups commonly run to between 100% and 300% per bottle and the poor selection available.
"I can't stand it," said Jean-Yves Muller, one of the partners in Caveau wine bar, Cape Town. "These awful restaurant winelists and those stupid little goblets. There's no excuse for it. That and the house red and house white are dead."
As Tim James wrote in a recent column for Noseweek, replicated on his Grape website: "Most local restaurant winelists are deeply problematic. Even beyond those specializing in Distell wines (Nederburg, Fleur du Cap, etc) in exchange for substantial rewards, most selections are woeful."
"That's when I give up in disgust and order beer," said Ingrid Motteux-Chappel, a consultant to Winesense, a radical new wine shop which intends to open the wonderful world of wine to consumers throughout South Africa.
Yet with a bit of imagination, trouble, a small outlay and further investment in staff training, the situation could change dramatically for both consumers and restaurateurs. Offer a decent selection of wine by the glass. Take the example of The Meat Company in Johannesburg's vibey Melrose Arch. Eugene Nelson, finance and admin manager is quite open about how good wine by the glass has been for business.
"My nett turnover on wine this month is around R180 000 - and about a third of that is from wine by the glass sales alone." That's around R54 000 - the kind of money which should make other restaurateurs sit up and take notice.
"People told us we were absolutely nuts to open a wine bar in Cape Town," said Cathy Marston of The Nose restaurant and wine bar. "Other people had opened wine bars and shut them because of a lack of custom or because the winelands were on our doorstep. Perhaps it was a question of timing - because our business is going strong and our concept has been incredibly well received."
The Nose offers patrons a "try before you buy" taster, each glass a quarter of a bottle in terms of volume - and also a quarter of the price of a bottle.
"Give your customers the choice - don't assume they don't know enough about wine to make that choice. Everyone knows what they like - and that's enough.
"We sell over 40 wines by the glass with 12 of them changing every month. A lot of our customers are really chuffed to make discoveries at The Nose - and use what they've tasted as a buying guide when they next visit the supermarket or liquor store.
""You have to have passion to sell wine this way. From a restaurateur's point of view, you make less profit on wine than you do on a gin and tonic or beer, for example, and you certainly make less profit on a glass than a bottle."
Another Marston golden rule is not to assume that wine by the glass automatically has to be cheap. It can be a great way for people to try more expensive wines that they can't afford - or are unwilling to pay a whopping price for - by the bottle.
This last point was echoed by Mark Langlois, food and beverage manager of the Mount Nelson hotel. The Planet Champagne bar falls under his authority, the favourite haunt of visiting movie stars and celebs when visiting South Africa.
Patrons have included Robbie Williams, Sting and Colin Farrell.
"Our experience has been that people are more likely start with a top end wine, around R60 to R70 a glass - and by the fourth glass they are opting for something cheaper."
Jonathon Steyn of Belthazar restaurant and wine bar in Cape Town's popular V&A Waterfront concurs. "The natural tendency is not for people to go for the cheapest wine - they buy up because it's just a glass. People are less resistant to paying R50 to R70 for a glass than they are to paying R300 or R400 for a bottle. By the same token, we battle to sell wine at R14 a glass!
"There's no doubt in my mind that people are tired of drinking boxed wine. We took a big risk when we opened in 2003 offering 100 wines by the glass. Now we offer 196!"
Two examples Steyn cites are the Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir selling for R60 a glass and the ultra-premium Saxenburg SSS Shiraz at R300 a glass.
"That's unbelievable - it's flying! We took a bit of a chance in offering it by the glass but it's going like crazy - particularly to Americans. They love it."
Steyn admits the last scenario is fairly unusual, with R40 to R60 being the norm.
Langlois backs up the last point. "We've found that our international guests are a little hesitant to order a bottle of 'unknown' local wine - but are more than happy to sample both a white and red to see what it's like."
The biggest bonus for Langlois at Planet has been the reduction in wastage of top-end Champagne. "We've been able to take our wine offering of both still and sparkling wines and Champagne to another level. We don't exactly offer vintage Dom Perignon - but we do offer Laurent -Perrier and Veuve Clicquot NV by the glass - or Laurent-Perrier Rosé or vintage Champagne. And we can always offer a fresh product." Gone are the days of having to pour half a bottle of expensive Champagne down the drain because the bubbles are gone.
The most common argument against wine by the glass is the freshness of the wine - aromas and flavours need to be preserved. The two most common systems in use locally are the nitrogen flushing system and Le Verre du Vin that utilizes carbon dioxide.
The former system is used by Belthazar and a similar one, the Enomatic, is in operation at WineSense - a chain of wine tasting shops which will have five branches open by Christmas, three in Cape Town (Cavendish, Mandela Rhodes Place and Kalk Bay) and two in Johannesburg (Melrose Arch and Melville).
Boyd Hutchings said that his brief experience at the first branch of Winesense in Cavendish Square had been that younger people appreciated the technology and the chance to experiment.
The system basically comprises a cabinet accommodating a number of bottles that are open, with a small pipe inserted into the wine. As wine is drawn off, the bottle is sparged with either Nitrogen or Argon gas, preventing oxidation and allowing the wine to remain fresh for days and weeks. The drawback is that the bottle has to remain attached to the system until it's empty.
The Le Verre du Vin works differently, equalising the pressure of the wine within the bottle with carbon dioxide, vacuum- sealing it and guaranteeing the wine's freshness for at least a month or more. The stoppered bottle (which is sealed in just three or four seconds) can then be placed back in the fridge, without any need for special cabinets or connections.
Ernest Stanbury of Imvusa Technologies, the company importing and distributing the Le Verre du Vin system, said they had asked a few winemakers to test their system - one of whom was Jeff Grier of Villiera.
"When we phoned Jeff to ask him what he thought - he'd forgotten about it! The wine had been sitting in the tasting room fridge for three months - but was still OK."
But it's not just wine bars and restaurants using technology to drive wine sales. Bootleggers in Fourways, Johannesburg, are using the latter system to offer wine tastings to customers - another "try before you buy" technique which demystifies wine and makes informed buying so much easier.
The Meat Company's Nelson admitted the Verre du Vin system had been expensive initially but said that it had paid itself off by the sixth week!
"The Johannesburg experience of lunch trade is very different to Cape Town. A lot of business is done over lunch. At Melrose Arch we're surrounded by offices and big companies. Guys don't come in and do the bottle of wine or two with lunch and then write off the afternoon thing. They are more likely to go for a glass or two before heading back to the office and doing deals. But they make sure that it's a really good glass with their steak or whatever."
"Wine by the glass allows people to experiment," said Marston. "They can either try wines they have never heard of or buy a glass of a wine that would normally be too rich for their pockets."
Both Marston and Steyn said that Viognier, known as a hard sell because people don't really understand it, was selling well precisely because customers are prepared to try a glass - but not necessarily a bottle.
The matching of food and wine was a major element of Caveau's wine business said Muller. "Our style of food is tapas - small plates of food - and we've found that people like to try different wines to see how the tastes match."
Drinking and driving has become a definite consideration with many people not prepared to risk being over the limit should they be breathalysed. "That's where just one glass of really nice wine with their meal is appreciated," said Muller.
Something else to consider is that on-consumption of wine such as in a restaurant or wine bar drives the sale of off-consumption, in wine shops, liquor stores or supermarkets. That's one reason American wineries invest six times more spend on on-consumption promotion. They see restaurants as showrooms for their wines. So when Joe or Jane Average stand staring at hundreds of different labels on a retail shelf, not knowing what to buy for their next dinner party, they're more likely to opt for a wine they know or have already tasted.
The final word goes to The Nose's Marston: "You should do it because you love wine and take pride in what you sell, because if all you care about is the bottom line - then bring on the Distell wine lists and a choice of 'dry, semi-sweet or red'!"
