Pouring one million cases
Which restaurant has 200 people a week get engaged on its premises? OK, I’ll give you a hint–it’s a chain. And it serves three million diners a week. And pours one million cases of wine a year. It is: the Olive Garden.
Those are just some of the factoids I learned at last week’s Wine Media Guild luncheon in New York City. The program included the provocative pairing of Karen King, who until last month was the sommelier at The Modern (one Michelin star) and formerly with Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, and Michelle Kern, Beverage Director for Olive Garden, a unit of Darden Restaurants.
Since many wine enthusiasts have probably never set foot in an Olive Garden, Kern’s insights were pearls before wine geeks. The national chain of 557 restaurants has a truncated list of 38 wines but includes a high-end Barolo and an Amarone. The chain offers 33 wines by the glass and any wine by the glass is available for a free sample. In fact, they pour so many free samples that they end up giving away 35,000 cases of wine a year. Once a bottle is opened it is pumped with vacu-vin and dated; if it is not consumed within four days it is deep sixed.
Wine is an important part of their dining experience: they show people enjoying food and wine in their advertisements and customer satisfaction increases in surveys when wine is served. It is undoubtedly an important part of their profits as well since the price of many of the wines by the glass covers the enitre cost of the bottle.
Providing diners a consistent experience is of course key for the chain. In an industry notorious for high staff turnover, the Olive Garden has 35 certified wine trainers who are sent to Italy every year to visit the wineries and then in turn educate the 35,000 staff. All staff are required to undertake a five day training session and a couple of hours a day are dedicated to wine service. Incidentally, screwcaps are viewed positively since then there’s no need to fumble with the cork.
Wine enthusiasts rarely consider the bottom end of the wine market. But I was pleased to learn more about the philospophy at the Olive Garden since it is the first wine experience for many Americans and the chain seems to be doing a lot right. Who knows, I might just have to find one and go see for myself?!
Technorati tags: wine | food & drink |dining | wine media guild
On December 13th, 2005 at 9:20 am ,sui generis wrote:
Except for the markup on wine, Olive Garden is cheap and the food is actually not too bad. You could do worse than to check it out.
On December 13th, 2005 at 10:30 am ,WaterintoWino wrote:
MMM all you can eat salad and breadsticks…I’ve been there a few times in the distant past and never really looked at the wine list. I suppose for a wine salesman landing their account must bring a huge bonus.
On December 13th, 2005 at 2:17 pm ,allan wrote:
Olive Garden provides a good introductory experience for many people learning about wine. I think it provides a much broader experience than most chain restaurants, and it appears that they take their wine selections seriously.
On December 14th, 2005 at 10:06 pm ,Bradford wrote:
Pretty funny that they use Vacu-vin to preserve their wine. There’s no evidence that it has such an effect, and most posts on the internet say the contrary. I remember Matt Kramer wrote an entire column on how this device does nothing years ago in the Wine Spectator. (Refrigeration is a very good preservative.)
And, not meaning to sound like a snob, but it’s kind of sad that people actually get engaged there.
On December 16th, 2005 at 12:24 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
Just saw this snippet on Bloomberg–no doubt the wine is falling to the bottom line! (maybe the Moet White Star?)
“Darden Restaurants Inc., which operates the Red Lobster and Olive Garden chains, rose $2.03 to $36.83 after the company raised its profit forecast. Darden expects per-share profit growth of as much as 20 percent for fiscal 2006 ending in May. It previously expected “low double-digit growth.”
On December 17th, 2005 at 8:41 pm ,buffooooooon wrote:
to bradford;
you do sound like a snob. Just so you know.
On July 29th, 2007 at 2:09 am ,Chelsie wrote:
I am not above enjoying an entree with a glass of “affordable” wine at Olive Garden. Being a chain, the Olive Garden is in many places that interesting wine is not. And it introduces wine-tasting to an entire array of people who might have ordered the latest cocktail on the menu. I think it’s wonderful for them to sample their wines… I wish all establishments would do that.
On September 4th, 2007 at 7:23 pm ,John wrote:
You would think that most on here should applaud the fact that they are selling so much wine and introducing it to some who just might get the wine bug and begin a life long affair with wine.
The only comment I have is that they should use their buying leverage to try and source out new and exciting wines from up and coming producers,regions…as limited as an endevour as it may be with the limited list they carry.
Trust me, if they are selling that much wine no matter the quality level or price level well they definitely weild tremendous buying leverage and should use it as such.
On May 13th, 2009 at 1:01 pm ,manager wrote:
The only Real Problem here is the fact that you would keep an opened bottle for (4) days.
That’s the true travesty here, since 1-2 days is really the max limit before the wine turns considerably although such basic wines do hold
longer and by not having special balance nuances, any quality loss is far less detectable.
CUT DOWN the offerings from 33 to 24 and improve the bottle turn-rate. the Sheep certainly will not notice.