In 2006, Winemetrics was founded as a resource for wine industry suppliers to ascertain trends in the on-premise arena. Focusing on national and regional chains and restaurant groups, Winemetrics quickly became the premier resource for on-premise wine market intelligence. Now in its 16th year, It has been utilized by all major wine suppliers, providing annual assessments of on-premise wine performance by region, variety, brand, supplier and price point.
The pandemic has caused a significant downturn in on-premise wine distribution. In a 2022 survey of 150 chain restaurants conducted by Winemetrics, BTG listing fell by -12% and BTB listing by -15% in the period from Q4, 2019 to Q4, 2021. This decline has accelerated an already negative trend in on-premise wine placements as identified by Winemetrics a decade ago. In a presentation to the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in 2013, Winemetrics’ founder, Charles Gill, revealed that BTB listings fell by -4% while BTG distribution rose by +7%. In 2023, Winemetrics will release a new report illustrating on-premise trends from 2013 thru 2022, a decade long retrospective. We doubt the findings of this report will provide good news to suppliers focused on restaurant wine sales.
Rebuilding Wine Distribution On-Premise
As craft beer and artisanal spirits make greater inroads on-premise, wine suppliers must act aggressively to recover distribution lost during the pandemic. To that end, Winemetrics is introducing new tools for wine suppliers to monitor and expand their portfolio’s presence in restaurant chains. These include the Wine Equity QuotientTM , which quantifies a brand/varietal’s strength on-premise, the Wine List SchematicTM, which reveals brand/variety and pricing weaknesses in wine lists, the Wine List Analysis ReportTM, which compares a specific chain’s wine list to its competitive set of chains and the Wine List Report CardTM. More information on these ground-breaking wine list management tools can be found below and on specific pages on winemetrics.com.
Wine Equity QuotientTM
Winemetrics’ Wine Equity QuotientTM (WEQ) is a far more comprehensive metric of a brand’s on-premise influence in a specific variety than number of listings alone.
Several elements are compiled to derive Winemetrics’ WEQ , these include:
Number of listings, number of chains with distribution, diversity of chain dining levels (casual, upscale casual and fine dining) and number of chains in each dining level.
Example: two brands with the same number of listings and chain presence will have a different WEQ; if one brand has its distribution spread more evenly across all three dining levels, it will result in a higher WEQ. Definition of Wine Equity QuotientTM brand categories listed below:
Wine List SchematicTM
Winemetrics’TM the Wine List SchematicTM uses Wine Equity QuotientTM data and wine list pricing to create visual analysis of a wine list based on variety/brand popularity and pricing structure by-the-glass (BTG) and by-the-bottle (BTB). It also provides recommendations for additions/changes to a chain’s wine list based on specific objective considerations. Below is a sample BTG Wine List SchematicTM for a casual dining chain. Note that brands are categorized as Super Brands, Leading Brands, High-Recognition Brands, Emerging Brands and Discovery Brands based on Wine Equity QuotientTM values determined via WinemetricsTM database.
Wine List SchematicTM BTB Utility Demonstration
