Wine Lists That Sell: Curating for Margin and Memory

A restaurant wine list sells when the prices climb in a sensible ladder, the page is easy to read at the table, and a few wines have a story the team can tell in one sentence. Margin comes from the bottom of the ladder. Memory comes from the top. The craft is deciding which wines do which job.

How should you price a wine list?

Price it as a ladder, with a higher mark-up on cheaper bottles and a lower one on expensive ones. A 2016 working paper by Livat and Remaud surveyed sommeliers worldwide, mostly members of the international sommelier association, and found mark-ups fell as the purchase price rose. The authors read it as a rule of thumb based on the price paid for the bottle.

The paper has limits. It is not peer reviewed, 267 sommeliers completed the survey, and the mark-ups were self-reported. Still, the pattern makes commercial sense. A guest will accept a larger percentage on a modest bottle because the cash amount is small. On a premium bottle, the same percentage becomes a large figure, and the guest will notice it.

The same paper reports higher mark-ups in fine dining and in hotel-attached restaurants than in casual or independent ones, and lower ones in Asia. The authors suggest hotel guests may be captive, and that competition from bring-your-own and entry-level wine may play a part in Asia. These are their explanations, not proven causes.

Margin pays the rent. A memorable bottle brings the guest back.

What does the research say about list design?

Less than people claim, and it shows association rather than cause. A Cornell study by Michael Lynn and Sybil Yang tested 46 list attributes across 270 restaurants in 2009. Four were linked with higher wine sales:

• Putting the wine list on the food menu.
• Showing prices without a currency symbol.
• Featuring wines from wineries with a strong quality reputation.
• Including reserve wines or a special section.

One was linked with lower sales: organising the list by wine style, such as sweet, bold or dry. In casual restaurants, sales fell as prices rose, while in fine dining price showed no relationship with sales. List length helped only in casual restaurants, and only up to about 150 wines.

The authors are clear that these are correlations, and that some tactics may work but be too subtle to detect. So treat each as a test. If your list is organised by style and sells slowly, try regrouping by food pairing for one season and compare.

How long should the list be?

As long as your team can describe well. A list of 150 wines is no target. The research above applies to casual restaurants, and it describes a ceiling for the relationship rather than a recommendation.

A short list is easier to cost, easier to count, quicker to train and kinder to cash flow. A long list is a commitment to storage, to staff knowledge and to wines that may sit for a year. Ask for each wine: what job does it do?

A useful way to structure a list:

1. Anchors. A few easy wines that suit your main dishes at a fair price.
2. Margin wines. Approachable bottles at the lower end, priced on the steep part of the ladder.
3. Stories. A handful of wines from named producers, with a line on why they are here.
4. Treasures. A small section for bottles you are proud of, priced with a gentler mark-up.

What does a priced ladder look like?

Here is an invented example, to show the shape rather than a target. Imagine a list where the bottles cost 8, 15, 30 and 60 to buy. A ladder might sell them at three times, two and a half times, two times and one and three-quarter times cost. That gives 24, 37.50, 60 and 105.

The guest sees prices that rise in steps they can follow. The business earns 16, 22.50, 30 and 45 in cash on each bottle, so the cash margin still climbs even though the percentage falls. That is the point: you give up percentage at the top to keep the bottle moving.

For scale, the Livat and Remaud paper reports implied mark-ups for the cheapest bracket, wines bought below 5 euros, of about 162% in casual restaurants and 237% in fine dining. For wines bought at 16 to 20 euros, the figures were about 136% and 185%. The figures are self-reported and for 2014, so use them to see the slope, not to copy the numbers.

Two checks keep a ladder honest. Look at your second-cheapest bottle, because guests who want to spend modestly will look there. And look at the gaps between steps: if a jump is steep, add a bottle in between.

How do you handle wine by the glass?

Standardise the pour first, because you cannot cost what you do not measure. Provi's guide notes that wine is hard to cost accurately unless the pour is fixed, and quotes a pour cost range for wine of 22% to 45%, a gap that shows how much depends on the list and the pour.

Glass size is a separate decision. A 2019 set of studies by Clarke and colleagues rotated glasses of 290, 350 and 450 ml in restaurants and bars. The summary says larger glasses sometimes increased sales, but not consistently, and it found no significant drop. So test it, and do not assume.

A by-the-glass list works best when:

• Each glass fits a dish or a mood, not just a price point.
• Every glass is one your staff has tasted and can describe.
• You use preservation that actually keeps the wine in good shape, or pour fewer wines.
• The cost of a poured-off bottle is tracked as waste.

The bar pour cost guide covers the counting and variance side.

How do you make a wine list memorable?

Give guests a reason to remember one bottle. A list is a menu of choices, but a visit is remembered through a story: a producer the sommelier visited, a grape you rarely see, a bottle that suited one dish perfectly.

Practical ways to do it, none of which cost much:

• Write one honest line per featured wine, about the place or the people, not adjectives.
• Train every server to recommend one wine they love and can explain.
• Keep a small rotating section so regulars see something new.
• Offer a taste before a guest commits to a glass, when the system allows it.

Do not oversell. A claim on the list you cannot back up at the table costs more than it earns.

Does a non-drinker belong on the same page?

Yes, because the person who is not drinking is often sitting next to the person ordering the wine. Guests who skip alcohol still want a considered choice, and a thoughtful page keeps the table together instead of splitting the order in two.

Moderation also changes who the wine list is for. Trade coverage of 2025 trends in The Drinks Business notes Waitrose's observation of guests alternating between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, and the same piece reports that about 86% of UK pubs serve a no- or low-alcohol beer but only 8% serve one on draught. A wine drinker who pauses mid-meal is a guest the list can keep, if it has somewhere for them to go.

Three practical moves:

• Put an alcohol-free line beside the glass pours. Two or three drinks under the by-the-glass list, in the same type and with the same kind of one-line description, tell the table the page includes everyone.
• Pair, don't segregate. If you suggest a wine for a dish, offer an alcohol-free alternative for the same dish. A dry, bitter or sparkling option can sit beside a white or a rosé without apology.
• Price it as part of the ladder. A drink that took the same work as a cocktail should not sit at soft-drink prices, and a guest pacing themselves is still ordering a second round.

Brief servers to offer the page's alcohol-free choices when they take the wine order, not as a rescue after the table has declined. The zero-proof menu guide covers how to build the drinks themselves.

What should you test first?

Pick one change per season. Move the list onto the food menu, remove currency signs, add a short story section or regroup by food pairing. Record average wine spend per table before and after, and keep other things steady. The research suggests ideas worth trying, not rules worth following.

Key takeaways

• Price the list as a ladder: steeper mark-ups on entry wines, gentler ones on premium bottles.
• Design research shows association, not proof, so test one change at a time.
• Length is not a goal. Build the list around what your team can explain and your cellar can hold.
• Standardise the glass pour before you cost it, and test glass size.
• Give guests one bottle worth remembering, and a server who can say why.