As an increasing
number of Americans pop the cork,
retailers are looking to wine tastings –
either as separate events or ongoing programs
– as a way to attract clients to the
store and, eventually, the cash register.
At retail, the art of product sampling as
an enticement to buy is an old one. But
wine tastings, where a few bottles are set
out as samples for customers to try, have
the potential to be much more effective
than sausage on a stick. These events aren’t
just a way to make a fast buck on whatever
you’re pushing that week: they can produce
more knowledgeable, loyal customers, the
kind who will regard your store as a gathering
place and a resource as much as they will
rely on it as a retail establishment.
Depending on your store type, wine tasting
programs can be either a stylistic necessity
or a nice bonus for ordinary shoppers.
At Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa
Mesa, California – a family-owned store
with 24,000 square feet of retail space
and a 3,000 square-foot temperature
controlled wine cellar – it’s the former.
Tastings take place three times a
week in the store’s wine bar, featuring up to
a dozen different wines.
“There is more of a hands-on mentality, where
people really want to decide for themselves what
they like and what they want to taste,” observes
Dan Rhodes, Hi-Time’s French wine buyer.
“There is also a growing awareness of wine
matching, and that’s really good, because it gets
people off the main path. A wine bar can help to
introduce people to new things.”
Rhodes creates specific themes for each tasting,
often by region, grape variety, or wine type.
“There are a lot of different things that you can
do, and the more creative you are, the more
your clients appreciate it,” he advises. Tastings at
Hi-Times are also seasonal: Rhodes won’t,
for example, conduct a Sauvignon Blanc tasting
during the middle of winter.
BLM Wine + Spirits in Boston, Massachusetts,
holds tastings every Saturday. Usually
featuring about nine wines, a table is arranged
so that the tasting glasses are placed in front
of the bottle, enabling the customer to look at
and smell the wine. Roger Ormon, BLM’s wine
manager, provides a sheet with a two-to-three
paragraph blurb on each wine, listing grape
varieties, facts about the region, how the wine
is made and interesting highlights about the
winemaker. A tasting coordinator behind the
table focuses on how the wine tastes, but also
pushes for incremental sales by talking about
its relationship to food.
“They will draw
people out so that they can express
what they think about the wine, and what
they would serve it with,” he says, adding
that customers will also talk amongst
themselves. “It’s very informal. Some
people go through all the wines in a hurry,
while other will taste one or two. Some will
talk for half an hour to 45 minutes to leisurely
go through all of the wines.”
Servers don’t necessarily need to possess
the in-depth knowledge of a master
sommelier, but they should be equipped
with a number of basic facts on grape varieties,
regions and background on the
wineries themselves.
“The real critical component, as far as the
in-store operations go, is to make sure that
there are wine-knowledgeable people out
there selling the product,” emphasizes Scott
D. Kamp, corporate wine buyer for grocery
chain Meijer, Inc, headquartered in Grand
Rapids, Michigan. “If someone is selling
wine and they don’t understand it the
way they should, you can get into trouble
quickly because you lose credibility. People
who really like wine will quickly pick
up on it when someone doesn’t know
what they are talking about.”
Meijer works closely with its suppliers
in organizing their tastings, which
usually take place on Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons, to make the most
of high-traffic times. Those conducting the
tastings are usually supplied by the winery,
but Kamp underlines that, even if a tasting coordinator
is from outside your establishment,
they should be familiar with your store before
they hit the floor.
“They are the face of the retailer to the customer,”
he says. “It’s important that they are
knowledgeable about that entire department,
and they really should have some level of familiarity
with the store as a whole. If you are
sampling wine in the wine department, there
will always be someone who asks you where the
cheese is. That’s going to happen – especially
with a supercenter format like Meijer.”
Secondary Benefits
Kamp points out that tastings in a grocery
store environment not only boost
wine sales, but, when executed properly,
provide an opportunity to increase sales in
other departments as well.
“There are tremendous cross-merchandising
benefits,” he says. “We will pair a nice wine, a
cheese, a chocolate, or even something from the
deli area.” And, he adds, the hands-on nature of
wine tasting demonstrates to customers that the
store is committed to providing good service.
But what happens when in-store wine tastings
are illegal in your state, or require an expensive
license that you may not be willing to invest in
right now? Meijer, which has stores in Michigan,
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky, may only
conduct tastings in Illinois; it’s illegal to pop a
cork in the rest of the states except for Indiana,
which requires retailers to purchase a license.
To get around this restriction, Meijer provides
specially-trained “hand-sellers” who circulate
throughout the department, offering customers
advice and recounting various details about each
wine. If you can put a bottle into a client’s hand,
Kamp reasons, it’s 80 percent sold.
“People don’t want to, if they are going to
someone’s house, buy a bottle of wine and look
like they don’t know what they’re doing,” he
says. “If you have someone who is wine-knowledgeable,
and who can give them food pairings,
information about the winery or the history of
the wine, now you personalize that product for
them. Then, when the customer goes to somebody’s
house with that bottle of wine, they are
not only confident that they have the right bottle,
but they also have a little story to tell.”
In conjunction with tastings or hand-sellers,
special events are another good way to drive
traffic through your wine department. Kamp
recounts that, during tastings, some Meijer
locations charge several cents a glass to donate
to a local organization – solidifying the retailer’s
involvement in the community. Meijer will
also invite some of the country’s better-known
winemakers to come into a store to speak
and sign bottles. Every effort is made to have
wines bolster the store and to help the store
to sell more wine.
To encourage purchases, Ormon notes that
BLM offers a 20 percent discount on the wines
that are being tasted with a minimum purchase
of three bottles. Kamp believes that pricing
should be very aggressive during a tasting so
that customers are encouraged to try the wine
at home – and hopefully, come back to buy
more at the regular price. “My philosophy has
always been that you pretty much need to give
the product away,” he says. “I almost look at it
as a loss leader. I will sell wine at cost during a
wine tasting just to get the product into people’s
hands. If even 10 percent of the people that
tasted it come back the following week and they
buy it at full margin because they like it, or they
tell a friend or neighbor about it, it can be an
extremely powerful way to market product.”
A Bit About Beer
When it’s not staging wine tastings, Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa, California – which
also sells North American micro-brews and world-class beers – holds monthly beer tastings
based on various themes. Dan Rhodes, the store’s French wine buyer, notes that these events
differ greatly from those dedicated to wine, although both can be powerful sales boosters if
they cater to the consumer in the right way.
“It’s two different crowds,” Rhodes says. “There is a definite beer aficionado that appreciates
the subtle differences in beer, but it’s a little bit different in that it’s a little bit more
about a camaraderie between beer drinkers. There is more social interaction going
on and it’s more of a pub atmosphere. We provide snacks, such as chips, pretzels
and pizza rolls.”
During wine tastings, the store offers bread, but the focus on snacks is minimal
in order to keep the palette neutral.
Rhodes believes that this difference between the two beverages is rooted in
our social conditioning. “We are conditioned to think of wine as a more artistic
beverage and beer as a more commercial, industrial beverage,” he said. “I don’t
necessarily agree with that; I think there are some really artistic beers that are really
well done and produced in small quantities, and a lot of industrial plonk that calls
itself wine. I don’t necessarily agree with the perception, but it is the perception.”