Glass Sales at the Tasting Room?

Hey All,

Do any of you have a tip on how to figure out how many glasses of wine can be sold at the winery. We are going to be an urban winery in Missoula Montana a town of about 100,000. More of a wine bar then a traditional tasting room. There are a lot of variables to this I know. So I’m looking more for a formula then a number. Thanks
Casey

Are you looking for per day, per week, per month etc??? I do not think that there is a clear cut formula except one to determine break even costs etc. If you are trying to determine that then you need to also determine what your fixed costs are first.

Thanks for responding Mike. I 'm looking for per month or year. I do already have all my costs figured which are easier to figure for me. Of course its always easier to figure out how to spend money then how to make it. [cheers.gif]
Casey

Then you also have to determine red, white or rose? Or all together? Do you want to determine how much inventory to purchase? Not so easy in my opinion?

I was thinking more all together at this point in the game. As far as inventory I was planning on staying around 2000-3000cs. per year. Glass sales will only be a part of our sales program, but a very profitable part. Just trying to get a some what accurate assumption for my cashflow projections. Thanks
Casey

If its more of a wine bar situation and you charge for tastings equivalent to your by the glass price I would estimate you would get a sale of one or the other per customer. Basically no one goes to a tasting room or wine bar and does not taste or buy a glass.

Now how many will taste vs buy a glass may be a bit harder to determine. I would estimate that new customers and Tourists would rather taste many wines where as locals will know what they like and buy a glass. Your hours of operation will effect this as well, if you open later than 5 you may get more happy hour type crowd. Any plans for small bites?

All else being equal and based on the limited info I have to look at I estimate that 20-30% of your customers would buy a glass of wine. This is way higher than we see with a standard tasting room model (at least in Anderson Valley) where >5% buy a glass (even with picnic grounds) and 90%+ buy a bottle.

Would you offer flights? (more money to be made here) What does your competition have? What is the competition?

Thanks for the responses! We do plan on serving meat and cheese boards. We will be charging for tastings by offering tasting flights. Which is what our competition does. It seemed to be common at the urban wineries I visited in Portland and Seattle to charge for tastes. I think in an urban setting you would have too many people returning for free wine every day. We plan on being open 3-10pm weds-sun.
Casey

Another thing to think about is who is going to be doing the pouring. Seems simple enough but I believe that for flights it is about 3oz of a pour. You need to stick to this otherwise you are giving away excess wine, which over time adds up.

Mostly it’s going to be myself and my business partner. After a few years I was thinking we would hire on staff to help in the tasting room. To keep the pours consistent I was thinking of getting etched wine glasses with our logo so you can easily see the fill line. Cheers