Need quick professional opinion here.I Have a small wine brand with a few restaurant accounts on the horizon. My wines have not been fined or filtered and exhibit tartrate build up on the cork as well as sediment in the last glass/pour.
While I am comfortable explaining this issue with my DTC customers face to face or by email, I am not sure how this would be accepted or translate in a by the glass restaurant situation.
As restaurants are trying to serve every last pour it is certain that some customers will come away with feeling like they received a faulty wine. Any suggestions in handling this situation? Thanks!
Just be up front with the buyers you’re trying to sell to, and maybe bring an example of a bottle that’s almost empty. You definitely don’t want the restaurant to buy 3 or more cases of your wine, then find out by surprise on a busy night that their customers are complaining about cloudy wine with shiny crystals in it. If a buyer seems put off by this, but they like your wine a lot, try to sell to them for a wine list placement only, not a by the glass deal.
I agree with Ed. Any restaurant you want your wine in should understand how to deal with wine with sediment just let them know.
Totally agree with others - be up front and honestly. . .
I was more laissez-faire about this for a few vintages with my viognier, but there were enough times when I would forget and pour a bunch of tartrate sediment into someone’s glass at tastings to think that that’s probably happening a lot in restaurants and homes. In those cases, it’s more likely mucking up a full pour and not just a 1 oz taste. Most restaurants and aficionados understand the issue, but it’s a drag nonetheless.
Part of the reason I hadn’t cold stabilized was that when I had trialed it (sample bottle in the fridge for a few days), I thought the stabilized wine suffered. Of course, it’s stupid to think that this is avoidable – just because you don’t chill the wine to precipitate tartrates doesn’t mean that the consumer or restaurant isn’t going to do it for you by sticking it in their refrigerators. Here, I think non-intervention is pointless unless you can convince your consumers to drink their whites warm.
This year, I trialed something called Cellogum Mix from Vinquiry and liked the results. At lower rates, treated samples tasted the same as untreated wine and were preferred to the refrigerated sample. At higher levels (probably at suggested rates), this stuff started to affect flavor and mouthfeel, but this wine, at least, didn’t require that much to become completely stable for at least 3 or 4 days in the fridge. Worth a quick trial anyway.
When you go the unfined/unfiltered route you have explain why all the sefiment is there.
Then you have to ask them why most others in the last 20 years don’t have any. Be up front as others have said, but play the unfiltered card well.