Design
How to choose wines for a small restaurant (no sommelier)
A short method for independent restaurants and gastropubs: three dishes, wines you already have, house plus a second-cheapest you chose. No full-time sommelier.
Written by Marco Azzari on
You do not need a full-time sommelier to make wine pay in a small independent or a gastropub. You need a short list that fits the food you already cook, prices that survive 20% VAT, and three answers the floor can say. A salary line you cannot justify is not a moral failure. It is the wrong tool for this tier.
Chains have a head-office buyer and a list that arrives from the centre. Independents have you. Fine dining is another sentence. If that is your room, do not use this page as a weapon against a wine director.
The method (use the cellar you have)
Step 1. Write the three plates that go out every night. Not the ones you wish went out.
Step 2. For each plate, pick one wine you already own that does not fight the dish. If nothing fits, that is a line to move or a buying note. It is not an emergency order from the last tasting.
Step 3. House wine: one white, one red, maybe one sparkling or a rosé if the room is that room. Cost the 125 ml and the 175 ml. Name it. House wine.
Step 4. Choose the second-cheapest bottle on purpose. Psychology.
Step 5. Write three pairings for the floor, in plain English your team will actually say, including the staff for whom English is a second language.
That is a programme. Ninety lines can wait.
What to do with the wholesaler
Take the van. Decline the editor. If a free "list review" always ends in their surplus, you already know the bias. Ask for specific wines that sit with your three plates. If they cannot, you do not need a longer tasting. You need a shorter list.
What not to copy from fine dining
Verticals, trophy bottles, a list that needs a head sommelier. In a 40-cover independent, those are cash in the dark and a guest who feels underdressed. Prestige does not go in the bank. Fit and true cost do.
When the three plates and the house pour are honest, design the page and price the three lines. Selection without those two is still guessing, just with better stories.
If you want this done on the list you already have, rather than as a method on a wiki page, Wine CFO runs a free Wine List Checkup. Independent. No cellar to empty. Capacity is limited because it is done by a person.
About the author
Marco Azzari
Founder of Wine CFO · Wine List Engineer for UK restaurants
I help restaurants, hotels and bars across the UK earn more from the wine they already sell. I price lists wine by wine, cost by-the-glass programmes on their real yield, rebuild selections around the food menu, and rewrite lines so guests understand what they're ordering. Every Wine Profit Checkup goes across my desk personally.
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