Uncorked Enthusiasm

Over the past five years, U.S. wine sales have taken a steady climb, squeezing a 5 percent increase out of grapes, from $23.8 billion in sales in 2005.  Alexander “Sandy” Block, a veteran oenophile and former wine retailer, has been a part of that change.  Last year Block became vice president of beverage operations for Legal Sea Foods in Boston, where beverages account for approximately 20 percent of their total sales, and wine more than half of that. 

Now developing wine lists for 31 locations in eight states, Block has his nose in recent trends and spoke with Boston Business Journal reporter Naomi R. Kooker about how others can reap the benefits of serving wine. 

 

It’s a question I wrestle with all the time.  I think there’s a point of diminishing returns.  My approach is, I’d rather sell the wine at a fair price, actually at a relatively low price, and put the dollars in the register rather than create a monument where everything is marked up to a certain percentage and anyone who wants a particular wine is going to have to pay a lot more for it than they would at a retail store. 

 

I think servers have to understand about the product, they have to understand a lot about their menu, and they have to understand how to describe the various wines so they create a vivid picture in the mind of the guest that is going to allow the guest to determine quickly if itis a kind of wine they think they’ll like. 

 

We-as consumers-demand better quality.  We speak up.  It’s not inexpensive to go out to dinner.  Some people vote with their pocketbooks, some people send e-mails and write letters. The last thing a restaurateur wants to hear is what a lot of them used to hear: “Oh, the food was great, but the wine list wasn’t very good.”

 

Credibility is huge; as a customer you need to believe that (retailers and restaurateurs) know what they’re doing.  They’re not just trying to sell you something.  I turn off when I get the feeling the server is trying to sell me something.  It has to be handled with finesse, and it has to be not, “I want to sell you this,” but “What do you like and what are you ordering?”

 

There are very few sommeliers in the Boston area.  Restaurants don’t know quite what to do with them, per se.  Great restaurants usually have a person dedicated, maybe a wine director, to selecting and training the staff.  That’s what they think about, that’s what they do.  You don’t really need sommelier to affect that.