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A new way to approach the customer
Summer 2007
The traditional categories of selling
wine (by varietal for American wines, by region for foreign
wines) has given way to an exciting new prospect –
selling to your customer based on flavor profile. Even five
years ago this would not have been possible – the
average consumer’s wine confidence just wasn’t
there. With the rise in wine knowledge (or at the very least,
curiosity), along with a quest to find ‘the next new
thing’ – no matter how obscure it might be –
you may want to consider this idea.
When you think about it, selling by taste
profile is a fascinating subject for it takes the grape
variety and the location of origin off the table. What matters
is how the wine performs on the palate, and what can be
done with that wine. And thus, anything is possible …
from strange regions to odd grapes to simply individualistic
wines.
On the retail side, we’ve seen wonderful
success with such wines as Oremus Dry Furmint, a dry Hungarian
wine made from the obscure Furmint grape, when the retailer
takes it out of the ‘Miscellaneous European’
section and instead puts it front and center with a sign
saying ‘Aromas of ripe peach and beeswax … as
wonderful as it is obscure! Try with grilled chicken or
thai stir fry.” It doesn’t take much to show
enthusiasm about a wine, but it’s often simply a matter
of putting it where the customer will see it! It’s
a win-win situation: your customer finds trust in your selections,
and you get to sell something that would’ve gathered
dust one week earlier. The goal, of course, is customer
loyalty.
On the restaurant side, a trend in New
York and San Francisco has been the arrangement of wine
lists by body, rather than grape or country. It works two
ways: the servers have an instant ‘cheat sheet’
knowing the wines on the top of the page are lighter and
crisper; and if the customer gets to know the system (maybe
it’s indicated on the wine menu itself) they are more
apt to order something they’ve never heard of, knowing
where it falls in the spectrum. If you want to take it to
the next level as well, offer ‘instant flights’
where 2 oz. pours can be had if three wines are ordered.
With the arrangement by taste profile, everybody knows what
order to sip them in.
A final thought is to use this theory
the next time we pour some wine for you. Rather than analyzing
a wine first by aroma (and forming a judgment before you
even taste it), use your mouth first. Notice acidity levels,
tannin intensity, length of the finish, sweetness and persistence,
all before smelling the wine. In the end, if you’re
at all concerned with food and wine pairings, it is the
taste profile that should receive the most attention from
you, and thus your customers as well. Think out of the box. |
