When the pop stops

When the pop stops

Champagne List Dysfunction (CLD) is a common problem for many restaurants of a certain age. Expert Fizziologist Xavier Rousset of Texture and 28°-50° tells you what to do when the bubbles go flat

Like so many other aspects of running a restaurant, there’s not just one easy answer to getting the most out of your champagne offering; there’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution. And yet it deserves more attention – it’s a section of your wine sales that could really over-perform, but seldom realises its full potential.

Since starting Texture, I’ve identified a number of things that work, and encountered no shortage of pitfalls either. I’d like to share a few of these so that, whether you’re a fine dining restaurant or a humble gastropub, both you and your customers get more out of the champagne section of your wine list.

Supply & demand
Start with where you’re sourcing your champagne. Specifically, I think it’s the most important thing in champagne to have good relationships with your suppliers. For example, if they know you’re keen in this department, whenever they have a special cuvée, they’re likely to tell you first.

This is particularly useful when it comes to wines available in small quantities. If your supplier gets an allocation of 36 bottles, he’s not going to put that on his main list, but he’ll call six of his customers. It took us a while at Texture to establish relationships like these with key suppliers, but they really do help you to stand out.

‘By the glass opens up the opportunity
to offer food and champagne pairing’

On the flip side of this, there are some things to be aware of when dealing with suppliers. For example, I never get involved in the staff incentives that some of the big houses arrange – they’re too in-your-face. I mean, when you’re in a restaurant people can hear what the staff are saying to people at the next table. This kind of thing really needs to be subtle, and not too many people know how to do that. Besides, if you do enough work in other respects, the champagne will sell itself without relying on the incentives.

Brand savvy
It’s important to be subtle in other aspects too, like when it comes to branded point of sale material. If they’re not too overt, things like glassware and ice buckets are good, but I’d never get actual branded glassware, as much as I may love those branded Bollinger glasses.

On the street we’re all flooded by branding nowadays, and I don’t think this should continue when we’re in a bar or restaurant. When we started Texture up, people were coming to us and saying, ‘Just go to one of the big groups and they’ll help you financially,’ but then they’d have owned us for 10 years. We wouldn’t have been able to have some of the champagnes by the glass that we’ve had, like Agrapart or De Sousa. Basically, I still have a good relationship with my suppliers, but they know that they can’t buy me.

Having a dedicated area on the list, or even a full
separate champagne list, really helps with sales’

We sell a lot of small grower champagnes at Texture, and by the glass helps in this respect. I also take a gentler approach when it comes to the mark up on these wines. The big guys have the budgets to sell themselves, but I think you can often get more value on the smaller producers for the same price – there’s more champagne in the bottle. So with a smaller mark-up, your customers get an even better deal.

On the list
This brings us to the list itself. Having a dedicated area on the list, or even a full separate champagne list, really helps with sales. Even if it’s just a page within your list with 10 or 20 wines on it – you’ll almost definitely see the difference.

And there are many ways to present these. We’ve been coming up with some crazy ideas for ways to list our champagnes, by style, etc, but at the end of the day, even an alphabetical listing works. This is particularly useful on a long list – it makes it easy to go through, and when you flick over it, it makes it easier to go back to a particular wine. As with so many things, it’s the customer that drives things like this, not us.

I really prefer alphabetical, or any other method, to a list done in price order. I often think that a listing that isn’t done by price not only helps to upsell, but sometimes helps customers find better value as well.

Overall, it helps them to not be price-focused. If the price in your head is £80, for example, that’s the point you’re going to go straight to on the list, and you might miss a gem at £65. We’ve all got
a budget in mind. If you spend below that and get good value, then you feel great. I can’t think of a better way to get customers to keep returning.

With this in mind, I always try to undersell for the first time, and afterwards get customers to trade up a bit. It builds confidence, so they’re happy to spend money on something like champagne. When people say, ‘Oh, you’ve got a great champagne list,’ this presents a great opportunity for you. It means they’re in a position where they can experiment, where they can think: ‘I know I like this particular champagne, but today I’ll try another one.’

It’s essential that staff know about what they’re selling
if you’re going to instil confidence in your customers’

Something to consider when creating your champagne list: the larger the list, the easier it is to add new wines to it. The shorter the list is, the harder it is to put it together because each wine has to justify its position there. I’ve got a really small list at 28°-50°, and I’ve spent a huge amount of time over it.

We don’t actually sell a lot of champagne by the glass at 28°-50°, mainly because our focus is on being a wine bar. I think it’s important to be sure of your identity as a venue. We do sell champagne by the bottle, though. I’ve put our champagnes on the top of the wine list, but we could probably make it even more obvious by circling the selection, or maybe even with a tent card on the table, provided it was subtle.

Schooling
The final element in maximising the benefits of your champagne selection lies with your staff. It’s essential that staff know about what they’re selling if you’re going to instil confidence in your customers. They need to have adequate knowledge, but not show off either. In my experience, the people who know the most are always the quietest.

The really important thing is to educate your consumers, and one of the key ways to achieve this is to have a good by the glass offering. Having a selection of blanc de blancs, rosé, etc is invaluable.

By the glass also opens up the opportunity to offer food and champagne pairing. Even though most champagne sales are as an aperitif, you shouldn’t be shy to suggest it with food. It’s an avenue to increase sales of both food and wine. We’ve done fish and champagne tastings at Texture and it really works.

As you can see, you’ll need to adopt a multi-faceted approach, with an attention to detail, if you want to get the most from your champagne list. If you create an environment where people feel confident to order champagne, in a way that’s in keeping with the style of your venue, you’re sure to see champagne start to pull its weight.

PERFECTING YOUR TABLE-SIDE MANNER

Running a restaurant or bar, you have an opportunity to influence the mood of the venue, through décor, staff, product offering, and much more. Overall, people need a place where they can feel comfortable to have a drink, and spend money on it. It’s about creating an environment that feels safe.
The crucial thing here is to reassure customers in all respects. When you’ve got the right glassware, staff knowledge, and an interesting list that mixes in some lesser known small-grower champagnes, for example... it all makes people feel safer.
Something like a champagne trolley certainly sets the scene, but in a modern restaurant it’s not always too practical. There just isn’t the space in most restaurants nowadays. But there are other ways.
People do have certain expectations from certain types of venues. In a fine dining restaurant, you can usually assume the glassware will be right, for example. When’s the last time you had champagne in a pub? I mean, if I saw Krug for £65 a bottle, but it was served in dirty glasses, I don’t think I’d take that...
So you can apply this to your establishment, so that it’s more conducive for the selling of champagne. I’ve got a friend who says that you can judge a restaurant by its glassware. You’re not going to succeed in selling champagne if you haven’t got the right glasses.
Incidentally, I use 12.5cl glasses and fill them. If you get the bigger, nicer glasses and pour the same amount then customers feel like they haven’t been given a full measure. Glassware has to work on a practical level too.
So if you want to sell more champagne, my advice is to start with the basics, and create an environment that is conducive to the drinking, and buying, of it.

Editorial feature from Imbibe Magazine – November/December 2010