I didn't cross post this at first because it is so intrinsically tied up with the restaurant industry, but decided I would just do it anyway since I promised to cross post and there is absolutely nothing going on poker-wise for me. Feel free to skip this...

This is something I have been pondering for a long time now, and it comes up every Monday when I do inventory with my manager. We are coming up on a menu change with the end of the quarter soon upon us. I had heard lots of talk from two of my managers about what would stay on the wines by the glass (WBTG) list and what would go. Every three months I am confronted with this, and I have to say, I am still not exactly exactly sure on what basis these decisions are being made. I was insistent that we begin the decision making process by looking at the numbers though, and I am going to make that my mantra for the next two weeks whenever the subject comes up. There seem to be a few mental traps that are easy to fall into.

Personal bias is a big one, and it comes in many forms. It could be for or against a certain varietal. It could be against the representative for this wine. It could be against the people who drink it, even. There is one wine in particular that I don’t understand the success of on our BTG program. People absolutely love it, and I think it is some of the most horrible dreck to pass over my tongue. Well, I am exaggerating a bit, but it is certainly not very good. I caught myself actually being upset at its success, and bemoaning the need to order another two cases. I like to think that I have since made my peace with it, and we sell more glasses of this particular wine than any other at nineteen dollars a glass. Incredible, but thank God people are choosing to drink it at our restaurant. We also have, by my count, three unnecessary cases of Sauvignon Blanc. I think my superior just has a penchant for it.

I find myself personally biased against wines that aren’t fitting in to their “classic” characteristics. I think this has come out of my involvement with the guild and really trying to concentrate on identifying classic wines in blind tastings, or if not concentrating on it, then at least fixating neurotically on it. What can I say, it has become the standard for me. And while it seems like a good idea to have standards, I don’t necessarily think that my idea of what someone else’s standards may or may not be is a particularly healthy habit to fall in to. I am very dismissive of Sauvignon Blanc that has been fermented or aged in oak barrels in particular. I think this kind of swallowing whole of other people’s value systems, of talking through an empty skull, really just gets in the way of evaluating a wine, honestly, as tasting a wine blind and identifying it seems to be something that requires a zen-like openness and olympian caliber concentration. And a lot of practice, obviously.

Lastly, the cogs percentage weighed against the dollar amount of profit is presenting a little bit of a puzzle to me. In actuality, I think I have it figured out, but I am not aware of the “industry standard,” if there is one, and if you put that much stock in that sort of thing. There was talk of removing a particular wine, which was expensive at $21 per glass. We don’t sell a huge amount of it, but it is certainly not under performing in the turn over department. I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, and wouldn’t publish them even if I did, but let’s say that we are getting a little over 26 % cost on this particular selection, which is above what we want to deliver on average in our BTG program. However, since it is a higher end wine, when I look at the sales for the quarter, it is ranked in the top 15 % of wines on our list in terms of profit for the quarter. (In fact, all of the wines that deliver the most on the bottom line are at 26 % cost or above with one exception.) This wine was presented to me as a candidate for removal. At first I just didn’t understand. And then I looked at the numbers, and I really didn’t understand. It seemed like a winner to me. So I pointed to the profit column and said, “but isn’t a little bit higher cogs acceptable if we are making a decent amount of profit?”

My manager said, “This isn’t really profit,” as he pointed to the column clearly marked ‘Profit.’ ”This has nothing to do with the bottom line. We are actually losing money when the Cogs are too high.” He seemed pretty convinced, passionate even, about this. So I excused myself with a copy of the sales report and said I would look it over during the weekend.

There are a few high end wines we don’t have published on our wine list. I absolutely do not understand this. Actually, there are a few single bottles that we have in which I do understand this. 1986 Cos d’Estournel. Must be screaming good, and once we sell it we have to reprint because we can’t just order it again as we got it from someone who buys from auctions of private cellars (I would love to do that, by the way). I guess I can understand that, but part of me thinks we get a lot of advertising impact by listing that on our menu and it only enhances our reputation for those in the know about wine. Give them something to ooh and ahh over. Let them know that we are that kind of restaurant and they should be coming here when they decide to drop that kind of money on a bottle of wine. Someone on the guildsomm website made the point that it is actually cheaper than many of the other expenses for keeping the ambiance in a restaurant nice (flowers, linens, etc.) and the guest experience impressive.

I sold one of these wines that are not listed over the weekend to a regular who has a taste for more expensive bottles and the means to purchase them when he comes in. Usually my GM helps him, but my GM wasn’t there that night. So I volunteered myself to be the Sommelier. I did not see it listed on our menu (which may have been a selling point), but I compared it to what he said his “standard” was in terms of price and quality, sold him on it, and decanted it and poured it for him once he sat down. We would never sell this wine at 30 % Cogs. At 60% (and probably a wee bit underpriced in my opinion) it is already one of the most expensive bottles on our list, but we (…I) have managed to sell five in the last two and a half months. People are deliriously happy with it. So I mentioned to my manager during inventory that we should actually put it on the list. He said, “No, no, that is a hand sell. We lose money when we sell that, and if we put it on the list we would probably sell more of it and I would have to raise the price.” I pointed out that we made over a hundred dollars with every bottle we sold, but again, I was confronted with this idea that we were losing money in this way. Then he said something to the effect that he didn’t care for the rep and didn’t think that the wine was worth the money we paid for it wholesale at the restaurant ($175), and he insinuated that maybe no wine was worth that much. Aha! I thought. Personal bias! Now we are getting to the crux of it. (I was pretty certain that there was something like this going on with the BTG placement he wanted to axe, too.)

I felt pretty self satisfied when he said this, even though I was somewhat incredulous at what he was actually saying. And this is where it gets dangerous. It is really easy to see, after writing all this out especially, how dangerous of a place I am going with all this. I really really really want to just say that it is the wrong decision and be done with it while making a dusting off my hands type of gesture. But then the natural following thought is that if I were in charge I would do things different (read: better). And naturally, when I am in a position to make these decisions my program will be more successful! Hah! Take that! I’ll show you! And so on and so on.

I am actually in a fairly stressful situation myself. Here I am spending all this time studying wines of the world and trying to pass this insanely difficult test. I am doing this with the aim of moving up in the industry, but it looks as if I will be keeping my current position through the end of the year, at least, for a variety of reasons. (It is probably better that way, for studying purposes, but that is a different blog altogether). And while I am acquiring all of this knowledge and getting to know people in the Sommelier community and getting picked to go on a Napa Enrichment program, it is tempting, oh so very tempting to really get a big head. To chafe under the ideas of someone who isn’t studying the greatest vineyards of the Mosel, to see his ideas as restraints. Normal to feel that way. Absolutely normal.

But in rereading that last paragraph, I think I am actually getting it wrong, and am, in fact, the source of my own stress. An MS said something to me, and I posted it in the Discussion forums on the guild site on the topic of which Italian DOC’s to study. My focus can’t be to pass the test and to move up in the industry. Read that last paragraph, and see where that focus leads. My focus, in his words, should be to be the best Sommelier I can be. And the test is designed to measure exactly that, and it is designed by people who are trying to do just that. Be the best they can be.

With that in mind, I think I can look again at my manager with a little more understanding. I believe that he has to answer to his superiors on mainly the question of Cost of Goods. And his superiors have to answer to the home office. And the home office has to answer to the investors. And the understanding of the value of guest experience that exists on the very bottom level, that thing that transpires from the moment you greet someone, that understanding is surely eroded the higher up the chain you go. In that respect (and I think respect is a key word here), perhaps I can bring myself to see things a little differently. You have to ask the question, does a 60% Cost bottle of wine even belong on the menu? If we can’t sell it at a higher price because we don’t think our market can support that pricing, then perhaps we shouldn’t be carrying it at all. Perhaps it is just there to make some people feel better about themselves. Or perhaps what we should be doing is finding out just what price the market will support.

What I don’t think I should be doing is settling for smug, holier-than-thou conclusions that come tied up in a pretty little bow of self satisfaction. If this is my chosen profession, then I will have to deal with these questions repeatedly in the future for employers with, most likely, vastly different ideas on what they want out of their wine program. As a Sommelier, I will be straddling these two worlds (the one centered on the guests and the one centered on the numbers) and trying to make them work together so everyone is happy. And lets face it, I am a relative neophyte when it comes to this stuff, and I have a lot to learn. Too much to learn to just write off other people’s opinions.

I don’t actually know what the right answer is, but that is sort of the point of this blog, isn’t it? Feel free to weigh in on the comments section as I am sincerely interested to hear from more experienced people in this regard. Perhaps I will have something to post in the next month as far as an update is concerned.

Play well. Do good work. Keep in touch.

PFJ