7 Sommelier Secrets: How to Build a Restaurant Wine List for Profit (Even If You're Not a Somm)

Let's be brutally honest for a second. That $100 bottle of Cabernet sitting on your shelf isn't just a drink. It's an asset. And most restaurants, cafes, and bars are managing their most liquid assets... well, terribly.

I’ve seen it a hundred times. A passionate founder or chef sinks $50,000 into wine inventory because they love a certain region, or because they want to look "prestigious." Six months later, that inventory is still sitting there, collecting dust, while they're struggling to make payroll. It's a cash-flow nightmare disguised as a trophy case.

The problem is we think of a wine list as an art project. It’s not. A profitable wine list is a data-driven sales tool. It's an elegant, high-margin machine designed to do one thing: separate customers from their cash, happily, so they come back and do it again.

A great sommelier isn't just a "wine expert." They are the Chief Revenue Officer of your entire beverage program. They understand menu engineering, inventory velocity, psychological pricing, and brand storytelling. They're a growth marketer who just happens to know the difference between Burgundy and Bordeaux.

If you're a startup founder, an SMB owner, or a creator in the hospitality space, you don't need to be a Master Sommelier. But you absolutely must understand how they think. Because the principles they use to build a profitable wine program are the same principles you use to build any successful business.

So let's grab a coffee (or, fine, a glass of something) and break down the system. Forget the snobbery. This is a practical guide to turning your wine list from a cost center into a cash-flow engine.

---

What a Wine List Really Is (And What It Isn't)

First, let's clear the decks. A wine list is not:

• A list of your personal favorite wines.
• A PhD dissertation on obscure grape varieties.
• A place to show off how much expensive Burgundy you could afford to buy.
• A static document that you print and laminate once a year.

A profitable wine list is:

• A marketing document: It reflects your brand, speaks to your target customer, and tells a story.
• A sales funnel: It guides guests from low-resistance "By the Glass" (BTG) options to higher-margin bottles.
• An inventory management system: It's a dashboard that tells you what's selling (velocity) and what's dying (dead stock).
• A profitability tool: Every single line item is priced intentionally to balance guest value with your target margin.

If you're a founder, think of your wine list like your SaaS pricing page. You have your entry-level plan (BTG), your core business plan (mid-range bottles), and your enterprise-level (the "Grand Cru" section). Each serves a purpose, and each has a specific customer and margin target. Viewing it through this lens changes everything.

---

The Core Principles: 7 Steps to Build a Restaurant Wine List for Profit

Alright, let's get into the system. This is the 7-step framework that smart sommeliers and beverage directors use to build lists that actually make money.

Step 1: Deconstruct Your Concept (Brand Alignment)

You cannot build a wine list in a vacuum. The list must be an extension of your restaurant's core concept, price point, and audience.

• Who is your customer? Are they 25-year-old growth marketers looking for a $14 glass of natural wine? Or are they 60-year-old lawyers closing a deal over a $300 bottle of Napa Cabernet?
• What is your food? If you run a spicy Thai restaurant, a list full of heavy, high-alcohol Zinfandels is going to be a disaster. You need high-acid, off-dry Rieslings and crisp lagers. Your beverage list must support your food, not fight it.
• What is your brand's price point? If you're a fast-casual taco shop, your most expensive bottle should probably cap out at $60. If you're a high-end steakhouse, a $60 bottle might be your cheapest. A mismatch here creates confusion and kills trust.

Actionable Tip: Write a single sentence describing your restaurant's identity. Example: "We are a casual, loud, neighborhood Italian joint serving comfort food to young families and couples." Good. Now, your wine list should be: 80% Italian, tons of options under $50, and focused on food-friendly grapes like Sangiovese and Barbera. See? The brand dictates the buy.

Step 2: The Math Before the Myth: Cost of Goods (COGS) vs. Margin

This is where so many operators fail. They price things based on "feel." You cannot build a business on "feel."

You need to understand two key numbers:

1. Pour Cost (or Beverage Cost): This is the cost of the wine divided by its selling price. If you buy a bottle for $10 and sell it for $40, your cost is $10 / $40 = 25%.
2. Gross Margin: This is the profit in dollars. In the example above, your Gross Margin is $30.

Here's the secret: Stop obsessing only over pour cost. Start obsessing over Gross Margin.

A sommelier knows that a 25% pour cost on a $40 bottle yields $30 in profit. But a 35% pour cost on a $100 bottle yields $65 in profit. I would much rather have the $65! Don't be afraid to take a "worse" percentage on a more expensive bottle, because you make more actual dollars. Your bank account doesn't care about percentages; it cares about dollars.

Industry Standard Targets:

• By the Glass (BTG): 18-25% pour cost. (This is where you make your margin).
• By the Bottle (BTB): 30-40% pour cost.

You use the low-cost, high-margin BTG program to fund the "sexier" bottle list, which has lower margins but brings in more cash per transaction.

Step 3: The 3 "Buckets" of Curation (Your Sales Funnel)

Don't just build a random list of wines. Curate it like a product line. Every wine list should have three "buckets."

1. The "Bankers" (Your Cash Cows): These are the crowd-pleasers. The familiar names. Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, Malbec from Argentina, Cabernet from Napa. You must have these. They are safe, reliable, and sell at high velocity. They are the workhorses that pay the bills. They should make up 40-50% of your list.
2. The "Hand-Sells" (Your Brand Builders): These are the interesting, esoteric, story-driven wines. The Grüner Veltliner from Austria, the grower Champagne, the orange wine from Georgia. These are what your staff gets excited about. They build your brand's "expert" status and give you street cred. They make up 30-40% of the list.
3. The "Trophies" (Your Anchors): These are the "wow" bottles. The First Growth Bordeaux, the Grand Cru Burgundy, the cult Napa Cab. You might only sell one a month. That's not their point. Their point is psychological anchoring. When a guest sees a $1,000 bottle at the top of the page, the $150 bottle right below it suddenly looks... reasonable. They make the rest of your list look like a good value.

A list with only "Bankers" is boring. A list with only "Hand-Sells" is confusing and unprofitable (low velocity). A list with only "Trophies" is an ego-driven museum. You need all three, in balance.

Step 4: Mastering "By the Glass" (BTG) — Your Trojan Horse

Your "By the Glass" (BTG) program is your single most important financial tool. Period.

This is where you have the most control and the highest margins. The standard restaurant model is to get 4 (five-ounce) or 5 (four-ounce) glasses out of a single 750ml bottle. The common pricing strategy is to sell one glass for the wholesale cost of the entire bottle.

• You buy a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for $12.
• You list it for $12 per glass.
• The first glass you sell pays for the entire bottle.
• The next 3-4 glasses are 100% pure profit (minus labor/glassware, but you get the idea).

This is why your BTG list is critical. It's not just an "entry-level" option; it's the engine room of your entire beverage profit. It needs to be calibrated perfectly. You should have a BTG option that pairs with every major section of your food menu. It's your low-friction, high-conversion product.

Step 5: Menu Psychology & Design (The "Sales Page")

How your list is designed will dramatically impact what people buy. Your menu is a sales page. You need to optimize it for conversion.

• Ditch the Dollar Signs ($): Studies have shown that simply removing the "$" symbol from a menu makes people spend more. It abstracts the price and makes it feel less transactional. Use "40" instead of "$40.00".
• Avoid Columns: Never, ever list your wines in a column with the prices all lined up on the right side. This encourages "price shopping." Guests will just scan down the right side and pick the second-cheapest option. Instead, embed the price at the end of the description. Example: Château Faux-Bois, Bordeaux, France 2019... 65
• Use "Bin Numbers": This is a classic somm trick. Putting a "bin number" (e.g., "A27") next to a wine makes it feel like it's part of a larger, curated cellar. It also has a practical purpose: it makes it way easier for new staff to find the right bottle in the cellar. But psychologically, it adds a layer of professionalism.
• Guide the Eye: Use boxes, bolding, or slightly different fonts for the items you want to sell. These are typically your "Hand-Sell" bottles that have a great story and, critically, a great margin.
• Layout Matters: People's eyes tend to go to the top-right corner of a menu first. Put your high-margin, high-appeal items there. The "second-cheapest" wine (which many people default to) should be a wine you are very, very happy to sell—meaning, it should have a fantastic margin.

Step 6: Inventory as Data, Not Just Dust (Systems)

This is the part that separates the pros from the hobbyists. You must have a system to track your inventory.

You cannot be profitable if you don't know what you have, where it is, and how fast it's selling. This is called inventory velocity.

A simple "Cost of Goods Sold" formula: (Beginning Inventory + Purchases) - Ending Inventory = COGS

You should be doing this at least once a month. A good POS (Point of Sale) system like Toast or Upserve can integrate with inventory tools (like BevSpot or Binwise) to make this almost automatic. But even a simple spreadsheet is better than nothing.

Why? Because the data tells you what to do:

• High Velocity, High Margin: "Wow, we're selling 10 cases of that $15 Malbec a week." -> Put this on the "Featured" part of the list. Train all staff on it. Never run out.
• High Velocity, Low Margin: "We sell a ton of this name-brand Chardonnay, but we only make $10 a bottle." -> Find a similar-tasting alternative from a lesser-known producer that costs you $5 less. Swap it in. Your profit margin just jumped.
• Low Velocity, High Cost: "We haven't sold a single bottle of this $200 Barolo in 6 months." -> This is dead stock. Your cash is trapped. Run a "manager's special." Sell it by the glass (even at a 50% pour cost) just to get your cash back. Use that cash to buy 10 cases of the Malbec that actually sells.

Step 7: Training Staff to Be Guides, Not Gatekeepers (Your Sales Team)

Your wine list is just a piece of paper. Your staff is your sales team.

A common mistake is hiring a "rockstar somm" who intimidates guests. An intimidated guest will not buy wine. They will panic and order a cocktail or a soda. You've lost the sale.

The goal is to train your servers to be confident guides, not arrogant gatekeepers. They don't need to know every grape in Piedmont. They need to know:

1. A 30-second story for 3-5 bottles. "This is one of my favorites. It's made by a female winemaker in Spain, and it tastes like liquid sunshine. It's amazing with the halibut." That's it. That's the sale.
2. How to ask the right questions. Instead of "What do you want?" try "Are you celebrating anything tonight? What do you normally enjoy drinking at home?"
3. How to "upsell" with value. "Oh, you like that $14 glass of Cabernet? For $10 more, you can get a bottle of this other one that I think you'll like even better. It's a much better value for the table."

Your team is the human interface for your sales funnel. Invest in their education, and it will pay you back tenfold.

Explore GuildSomm (Industry Body) Court of Master Sommeliers (Credentials) Cornell Hospitality Research (Academic Insights)

---

The 3 Costly Mistakes Founders Make with Their Wine Program

I see these same three profit-killers all the time. Avoid them.

1. The "Trophy Hunter" Mistake: This is the founder who builds a list to impress their friends or other chefs. The list is full of allocated, high-cost "trophy" wines. They look great on Instagram, but the velocity is zero. Cash is trapped on the wall. The Fix: Your list is for your customers, not your ego. Keep 1-2 trophy wines as anchors, and make the rest of the list a dynamic, fast-moving inventory.
2. The "Set It and Forget It" Mistake: This operator prints their list, laminates it, and doesn't change it for two years. Prices from suppliers go up, but their menu prices don't. Their margins slowly erode to nothing. They don't realize that the Malbec is a dog and the Riesling is a star. The Fix: Your wine list is a living document. It should be reviewed at least quarterly, if not monthly, based on sales data, seasonality, and supplier cost changes.
3. The "It's Just a Drink" Mistake: This is the operator who obsesses over their food cost down to the 10th of a cent but just slaps a 3x markup on all wine and calls it a day. They treat the beverage program as an afterthought. The Fix: The profit margin on a $15 glass of wine is infinitely higher than the margin on a $40 steak entree. Your beverage program is your single greatest profitability lever. Treat it with the respect (and data) it deserves.

---

A Quick Case Study: The "Steakhouse" vs. The "Farm-to-Table"

Let's see how these rules apply differently to two concepts.

Both restaurants can be wildly profitable. But they use the same 7-step system to arrive at completely different lists that are perfectly aligned with their brand.

---

Your Quick-Start Checklist for Auditing Your Wine List

Feeling overwhelmed? Here's a 10-minute audit you can do this afternoon.

• The Brand Test: Does my list feel like my restaurant? (e.g., Is my casual bistro list full of $200 bottles? Fix it.)
• The 80/20 Food Test: Do I have at least one BTG wine that pairs perfectly with my top 3 best-selling food items?
• The Markup Test: Am I using a lazy "3x everything" markup? (Switch to a sliding scale *today*.)
• The "Second-Cheapest" Test: Look at your second-cheapest bottle. Is it a high-margin, crowd-pleasing wine you *love* to sell? (If not, fix it *now*.)
• The "Dust" Test: Go to your cellar. Find the 5 bottles you've had the longest. Create a "manager's special" and liquidate them this weekend. Get your cash back.
• The "Dollar Sign" Test: Does my menu have "$" all over it? (Fire up Word and delete them.)
• The "Column" Test: Are my prices lined up in a neat column? (Redesign your menu to embed the price at the end of the description.)

---

Advanced Sommelier Insights: Moving from Profit to Enterprise Value

Once you've mastered the basics, the real fun begins. Advanced operators aren't just thinking about profit; they're thinking about enterprise value.

• Direct Relationships: A smart somm builds direct relationships with wineries and importers. This allows them to get "allocated" (hard-to-find) wines, which builds brand prestige. More importantly, it can lead to better pricing, cutting out a middleman and improving margins.
• Private Labels: The ultimate play. You work with a winery to bottle a wine exclusively for your restaurant. You buy it for $8, put your own cool label on it, and sell it for $15 a glass / $55 a bottle. Your guests feel they're getting something unique, and your pour cost is an unbeatable 15%. This is how you print money.
• Data-Driven Seasonality: "Based on last year's Q4 data, our red wine sales jump 40% when the temperature drops. We need to shift our BTG list from 5 whites / 3 reds to 4 whites / 4 reds by October 1st." This is using your POS as a predictive tool, not just a register.
• Wine Clubs & Retail: If your brand is strong enough, you can launch a "wine club" for your regulars or even a small retail program. This creates a whole new, high-margin revenue stream that isn't dependent on people filling your seats.

---

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What is the ideal pour cost for a restaurant wine list?

There's no single "ideal" number, but a healthy target for a blended pour cost (your total wine cost divided by total wine sales) is 30-35%. This is typically achieved with a 20-25% pour cost on your high-velocity "By the Glass" (BTG) program and a 35-40% cost on your "By the Bottle" (BTB) list. But always prioritize Gross Profit in dollars over a low percentage. (See Step 2)

2. How many wines should be on a beginner's wine list?

Smaller is almost always better. A big list is expensive to hold and confusing for guests. For a small bistro or cafe, a well-curated list of 30-40 total wines (or "bins") is fantastic. This could be 8-10 BTG options and 25-30 bottles. It's better to have 30 wines that you know, love, and sell quickly than 300 that just sit there. (See Step 3)

3. What's the difference between markup and margin?

This is critical. Markup is what you add on top of your cost. If you buy a bottle for $10 and sell it for $40, you have a $30 markup, or a 3x markup ($10 x 3 = $30 profit). Margin (or Pour Cost) is your cost as a percentage of the final price. In that same example, your cost is $10 and your price is $40, so your pour cost is 25% (and your gross profit margin is 75%). Smart operators price based on a sliding markup scale to maximize gross profit dollars. (See Step 2)

4. How often should you update a wine list?

Your BTG list should be dynamic. Check its sales data weekly and be prepared to change it monthly or at least seasonally. Your bottle list should be reviewed for sales velocity and pricing accuracy at least quarterly. Never let your list get "stale." It's a living document, not a stone tablet. (See Step 6)

5. What is "menu engineering" for a wine list?

This is the data-driven analysis of your menu. You categorize items into four quadrants:

• Stars: High Profit, High Popularity (Promote these!)
• Plowhorses: Low Profit, High Popularity (Try to increase the price or lower the cost)
• Puzzles: High Profit, Low Popularity (Train staff to "hand-sell" these)
• Dogs: Low Profit, Low Popularity (Delete these from your list)

This data, pulled from your POS, tells you exactly what to buy, what to cut, and what to promote.

6. Can I build a profitable wine list without a sommelier?

Yes, absolutely. You don't need a certified sommelier to be profitable. You need a smart business operator who understands the 7 steps in this guide. Focus on brand alignment, smart math, and high-velocity inventory. A great relationship with one or two key sales reps from a local distributor can be just as valuable. They can act as your "outsourced" expert, helping you find the right bottles for your concept.

7. What are the most common wine list design mistakes?

The two biggest (and easiest to fix) are:

1. Using dollar signs ($), which reminds people they're spending money.
2. Listing prices in a right-aligned column, which encourages guests to sort by price instead of by taste.

Fixing these two layout issues can measurably increase your average check. (See Step 5)

8. How do I manage wine that's opened for the "By the Glass" program?

Waste is the enemy of profit. Opened bottles of wine must be preserved. A simple vacuum pump system (like Vacu Vin) is a minimum requirement. For more expensive BTG programs, a nitrogen-based system (like Coravin) allows you to pour a glass without ever pulling the cork, preserving the wine indefinitely. You must also have a strict "first in, first out" (FIFO) policy and date every opened bottle.

---

Conclusion: Stop Guessing, Start Building

A wine list is a business system. That's it.

It’s not about magic, and it's certainly not about snobbery. It's about a 7-step process: aligning with your brand, doing the math, curating a balanced inventory, weaponizing your BTG program, designing for sales, tracking your data, and empowering your team.

If you're a restaurant owner, a founder in the space, or a marketer, I hope this pulls back the curtain. The difference between a struggling restaurant and a profitable one is very often found in the margins of its beverage program.

Don't be the founder with $50,000 of cash dying on a shelf. Be the operator who knows that a $12 bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, priced correctly and sold by a confident server, is the most powerful profit-generating tool in your entire building.

Your turn. Pick one thing from the checklist. Just one. Fix it this week. Stop guessing, and start building your profit engine.

---

wine list curation, restaurant profitability, beverage cost, menu engineering, sommelier strategies

🔗 My 7 Epic Fails & Ultimate Wins: Fine Dining Plating Techniques for Your Next Dinner Party Posted October 15, 2025 UTC