WEBINAR RECORDING

How To Execute Self-Pour Wine & Its Benefits

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QUestions & Answers from the live event

During the webinar, we received several questions from the audience. While we didn’t have the time to get to ask every question during the virtual event, we followed up with our guest speakers, Barclay, Thomas, and Lane, to get your questions answered!

Guest Speaker Questions

There is a personal & consultative dynamic to fine wine service between customers & servers/sommeliers/bartenders. What do you do as operators to give a similar experience to your customers who may have questions regarding regions, flavor profiles/styles, etc., while utilizing the self-pour system?

Thomas Klein: We do mainly self-service, but we also have a bar where we offer frozen drinks and some sparkling wines. We can run our entire venue with only 4 employees on a busy day. I am the sommelier for our “taste ambassadors” who open customer’s tabs, show them how the system works, and answer any questions that they may have regarding the wines on tap.

Lane Scelzi: One of the biggest benefits of our self-pour system is that you can put all the information you have about each beverage on the interactive touchscreens on your self-pour wall. You can include the vintage, tasting notes, where it’s from, etc. Customers can tap the logo on each screen to read more about the beverages on tap. All the information that guests want is on the screen, so they no longer have to rely on the server to know everything about the wine.

Are you able to do happy hour through PourMyBeer technology?

Lane Scelzi: Yes, we utilize happy hour. We like to mix it up and offer happy hour beer or happy hour wines. It’s really easy to program into the PourMyBeer system, and it draws in different kinds of guests depending on the type of happy hour we’re offering.

Thomas Klein: We have a fire sale every Thursday where it’s half off the taps, which draws in anywhere from 500-800 guests throughout the day.

Is wine stored in a typical keg like beer? What size? How long can you store it? How often do you rotate, and how do you plan for inventory to carry?

Barclay Webster: We exclusively work with reusable stainless steel kegs, just like beer. We use the 6 barrel size, which is equivalent to 26 bottles of wine. As far as storage, it’s surprising because you hear about “wine cellars,” and you would think you need to store it in a temperature-controlled environment. By all means, we don’t want wine to be stored in sunshine or excessive heat, but it’s much less sensitive than beer because we don’t have the risk of foaming and the kegs are extremely protective. You can store wine in kegs easier than beer but still need to avoid excessive heat. Somewhere around room temperature is just fine.

Thomas Klein: Wine in kegs can be stored for 12 months untapped and 3 months once tapped. For rotation, we mainly use the slim kegs (20 liters), which can rotate anywhere from a week to three weeks on the tap wall. It’s very easy to rotate them, and if you’re having trouble selling one wine, you can put it on a fire sale with PourMyBeer’s technology.

Lane Scelzi: We’re going through a lot of whites, but with every two weeks, we’re burning through a keg of rose or sparkling wine. Less reds right now, but we did find out that in the winter, we went through more reds than whites, so it’s very much dependent on season for us.

What are the most popular kegged wines or what are the best sellers?

Barclay Webster: 70% of our sales are US Wine. California Chardonnay and Cabernet are our biggest volume movers. Martin Ray, Line 39, Daou and Imager are some of our top selling brands. Imports are growing in sales led by Italian sparkling brand Tra Amici and a number of New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs such as Matua.

How has your self-pour wine program evolved since the beginning?

Barclay Webster: Our winery partnerships continue to grow and evolve. As seen in the rest of the industry, there has been a trend towards increasingly premium wines. We’ve even started kegging wines which retail for $60-70 per bottle. I think operators have noticed not only are consumers often looking for more premium options, but serving them via keg vs bottle can also save them more money as there’s no wine wasted.

How long does wine last in the keg once we hook it up to our draft system?

Barclay Webster: We guarantee our kegs for 3 months upon hooking up to the draft system. In reality, they last much longer. I’ve tried kegs more than 2 years old since they were tapped.

At what temperatures do you keep various kegged wines?

Thomas Klein: We have two separate coolers for whites and reds. 40-45 degrees Fahrenheit for white wines and 45-52 degrees Fahrenheit for red wines. We prefer a cellar-style temperature for our wines, but they technically can be kept cooler. For how long, I do not know. We haven’t tested it, but wines typically shouldn’t be stored in environments cooler than 40 degrees for very long. White wines, rose, sparkling wines, ciders, meads, sakes, and sangrias, I’m sure could be served in the same cooler as beer. Just be cognizant about how frequently you rotate that wine as it could not be in its ideal storage temperature.

Can your system handle the number of ounces per serving to do blendings? How precise could I blend?

Thomas Klein: Our system can pour any whole number of ounces of each kegged wine. Blending wines on site is something we haven’t tapped into yet (pun intended). However, we do have several blends on tap that are already kegged and ready to drink and pour from the tap wall. We ourselves aren’t going to be adding blending options in the upcoming future, as finding wines that blend well together is more tedious than just having a large variety of different wines for people to try. We prefer the smaller portions to act as samplers rather than blenders.

Who owns the wine kegs? Does the operator need to pay for it, or does the supplier (Free Flow) supply those?

Lane Scelzi: The breweries own the kegs. Some charge keg deposits, and some do not. The deposit is credited to your account when the empty keg is picked up. We use Fintech to process all payments.
- Thomas Klein: We technically own the steel kegs when purchased; however, we return them for a deposit for each new order! Steel kegs that we are no longer able to deposit we have even used as decoration in the past!

Do you find that your customers have a hard time getting used to the beverage wall?

Lane Scelzi: Our Beerista’s/hosts walk each customer through the pouring process if they are first-time guests. We also have signs above the tap handles explaining how to pour beer. The interaction and beer pouring process is more fun than frustrating, so the guests say.

How is the ideal serving temperature maintained for kegs of wine in a cooler that maintains kegs of beer at their ideal temperature?

Lane Scelzi: We keep the white wine in kegs in the same walk-in cooler as the beer kegs. We like to serve the beer as cold as possible, so we keep the walk-in at 32-34 degrees.

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