Mr. Flores

Food & Beverage

Building Wine Sales in Your Hotel Restaurant

By Juan Carlos Flores, Executive Sommelier, Pueblo Bonito Hotels Resorts & Spas

You can't sell wine when the atmosphere in your restaurant puts all its emphasis on cocktails. Often we find owners, managers and professionals in the art of the table who think that wine is just one more option on the restaurant menu and that it is as simple to sell as a coke or an iced tea. We all know that selling wine in a restaurant is an important income producer if it is done in the correct way.

We must also understand that wine is not just another liquid product: It is a moment. It is culture, history, sensuality and opulence that people share while they are drinking wine. We need to respect this moment, and we do so by paying attention to the details that honor it: with correct glassware, correct temperature, correct quantity and with skill and professional attention from the people who are serving it. You can't sell wine if you and the ambiance of your location do not offer your clients the small but significant details that they normally don't have at home.

Sometimes those of us in the food and beverage business reach a point where we think we have mastered all we need to know. This can occur at the beginning of our professional lives, or when we join a new company, or have perhaps run short of new ideas after years of working with the same team. We forget to go back to the basic questions: Who are my clients? What do they want? What is their perception of my restaurant, lounge or bar? And am I really fulfilling their expectations?

During the time that I worked as a wine distributor and wine advisor for restaurants and hotels, I had the opportunity to be in contact with many different general managers, food and beverage managers and owners of restaurant-all of whom had totally different ideas of what products to sell and how to sell them. It was both fascinating and frustrating to see. Some of them wanted to sell what was in vogue, even if their atmosphere was not conducive to it. Others chose to sell only the products they knew and liked, even if their clients didn't. Some had beautiful and elegant places of business, but the service and details didn't measure up. Others wanted to serve very casual food with fancy drinks, and some had a little bit of everything to cover any request, but without style or personality. And of course none of them had the expected success. All of them worked hard to have new menus, expensive new furnishings, new servers, many hours of motivational training, new "creative" (I would say desperate) promotions. But even if the chef and manager were fired, nothing changed.

How could all this happen when next door you would find a little bar stealing all those unsatisfied clients with nothing more than good hot wings, good beer and a baseball or football game in a TV wall? Simple. Because the clients in that place got exactly what they expected. There was no confusion, no mixed signals. As elementary as it sounds, our challenge is to create the related elements that make people feel comfortable enough to stay for a prolonged period of time and consume what we are offering. The importance of understanding our clients and their wishes applies for any business. Those of us dealing with wine must be even more attentive because of the uniqueness of wine and the experience of drinking it.

For example, when a bar has great ambiance people usually expect little more from a cranberry vodka than simply to taste a flavor close to how they remember a cranberry vodka tasted the last time they tried it. If they are well-educated drinkers, at most they will try to discern whether the taste of the vodka seems to be the brand they ordered. Further information about the product is not important to them because they feel good in that ambiance. Beers, being fermented, are in a way more similar to wine. But though many of them have their own style and personality, on the American Continent people in general don't give as much importance to information about them, such as their history, the place of origin, the house that produced them, the different flavors, the proper glassware to use, and what is appropriate to eat with each of them as they do with wine. Successful selling of good wine is much more complex.

Wine is not viewed as just another liquid product. Wine is a very important business that directly influences the image of the places that sell it and those who drink it. Wine is the only product that brings a new question to our minds with every sip we drink as we savor the nuances of color and the intriguing and differing aromas that surface from moment to moment. How was this wine made, how does it differ from other wines made from the same grape variety, what are the country and region of origin and the best year of production? The answers to questions such as these, coupled with informed advice on wonderful new parings of food and wine, are why we need a knowledgeable staff and constant training to give the best service to our clients. This sophistication of knowledge is as important as the quality of the wine and will make you a standout among other restaurants. We need to remember that someone who loves wine loves learning more about it, and even if the taste of the particular wine he experienced was not the best, great stories can transform that experience into something unique.

Ambiance is very important in our restaurants, and the decor and music should be tailored to the kind of atmosphere we want to create. Wood, red and dark colors (even some elegant white), candles and jazz, piano, classical or guitar music are all appropriate settings for selling wine and showcasing it as the most sensual beverage in the world.

Providing appropriate glassware indicates to clients the importance of what they are drinking and increases their pleasure. A restaurant takes on an aura of more elegance if the sommelier or wine steward decants the wines. It flatters and showcases the clients who ordered the bottle and those that are seated at their table. In my personal experience, the more we decant wines in front of the clients, the more clients want more of the same, which produces more sales. Serving wine at the correct temperature is also very important. Wine is more pleasurable to drink at the proper temperature, which expands the possibilities for additional sales.

When we find the way to make the perfect balance between these elements and remember to ask ourselves the basic questions, we will be able to offer our clients a uniquely satisfying experience that will bring them back for more. A very educated client taught me something that I always remember "People go to a restaurant looking for something that they can not have or prepare at home. They come looking for little details that make them feel special.

Juan Carlos Flores, executive sommelier with Pueblo Bonito Oceanfront Resorts and Spas, was named Mexico’s champion sommelier in 2004, and in 2005 won the Five Star Diamond Award for best North American sommelier. Mr. Flores was educated in Mexico, France and the United States and speaks fluent English, Spanish and French. As executive sommelier, he oversees the extensive wine collections of Pueblo Bonito’s seven resort hotels and numerous restaurants, provides pairing recommendations, and serves as wine advisor and instructor. Mr. Flores can be contacted at jflores@pueblobonito.com.mx Extended Bio...

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