After auditing wine lists across Bangkok, London, and Southeast Asia, the same mistakes appear again and again. They are not exotic failures. They are predictable, fixable, and expensive. Here are the seven I see most often.
1. Letting the Distributor Build the List
The most common mistake — and the most costly. A distributor's interest is in moving their portfolio, not in building the programme that is right for your venue. When the distributor builds your list, you end up with their overstock, their margin preferences, and their brand priorities. You lose independence, negotiating power, and often quality. The list should be built by someone whose only interest is your venue's performance.
2. No Middle Tier
Lists that jump from an entry-level house wine to premium bottles with nothing in between leave the majority of your guests with two choices: cheap or expensive. The middle tier — bottles priced at 1.5x to 2.5x your house pour — is where the real margin lives. Most lists either don't have one or it's under-built. Fix this before anything else.
3. Too Many Wines, Not Enough Depth
A list of 200 wines sounds impressive. It is actually a liability. Guests are overwhelmed, staff cannot describe more than a handful, and inventory management becomes a nightmare. A focused list of 50–80 well-chosen wines, with depth in your strongest categories, outperforms a sprawling generic list every time. Edit ruthlessly.
4. Champagne in the Celebrations Section
Relegating Champagne to a corner of the list labelled "celebrations" or "sparkling" is one of the most reliably expensive decisions a restaurant makes. Champagne is one of the most food-friendly wines in the world and should be positioned as the opening pour, not an afterthought for birthdays. The revenue data on tables that begin with Champagne versus those that don't is unambiguous.
5. No Staff Training
You can build the best list in the city and it will fail if your floor team cannot describe the wines. Most operators invest nothing in wine training. The floor staff who sell the most wine are not the ones who know the most — they are the ones who have a confident, genuine opinion. One 90-minute tasting session per quarter costs almost nothing and has measurable impact on wine revenue within weeks.
6. Never Updating the List
A wine list that never changes tells your regulars — your most valuable guests — that you are not paying attention. It also means you are carrying dead stock, missing seasonal opportunities, and giving your team nothing new to talk about. Quarterly rotation of 20–30% of the list is the minimum. Every update is a marketing moment most operators miss entirely.
7. Ignoring the By-the-Glass Programme
For most restaurants, by-the-glass represents 40–60% of wine revenue. Yet it is often the least considered part of the list — usually three or four options chosen to cover price points rather than to sell. A well-constructed by-the-glass programme with one quality Champagne or grower sparkling option, trained staff who recommend it, and competitive pricing transforms how guests engage with the entire wine programme.
"The wine list is a revenue tool. Most operators treat it like a menu appendix."
Recognise any of these in your current programme? An audit session identifies exactly which ones are costing you — and how to fix them.
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