Wine wall – tasting equipment for a draft wine shop
When visiting wineries, and indeed any liquor stores, people are usually willing to taste the products before buying. Our public no longer cares about what to drink, and few people are ready to buy unfamiliar wine on tap blindly. New wine is always an interesting experience and pleasure. There are many excellent author’s and garage wines in Ukraine, they only need to be presented correctly. Now the usual format of tastings is changing thanks to new equipment.
At the winery, the question of how to organize a tasting does not even arise, if only because here you can take samples directly from the barrels. For groups of visitors, bottles are most often opened and immediately poured into glasses without residue. Another thing is holding a tasting in a company store. What is the difference? At the winery itself, tasting is a paid event, often as part of a tour. Tasting any alcohol in a store is usually either a promotion or pure charity.
“Let me taste” is a legitimate request, the buyer has the right to choose the wine to taste. But this way you lose part of the goods, and the staff – time, and with a large influx of people, these losses are very noticeable.
Of course, you can equip a special rack or even a separate tasting room if the store is popular. Set a small fee for a trial.
Make the seller a bartender and a sommelier at the same time. But in addition to that, there is another way: self-service!
Self-service turns “planned losses” from tastings at the counter into permanent income
What equipment is needed to sell wine on tap?
So, you want to present your products away from the winery or trade other producers’ wines on tap. And you are planning to buy commercial equipment for a wine store, cellar or tasting room. If the wine is on tap, you need a bottling line instead of wine bottle cabinets. There are two options depending on the method of bottling and transporting wine:
1) wine kegs in storage – intake heads – hoses and wine pump – sealed taps (add to that gas reducers, FOB detector and wine switch reducer, food nitrogen bottles);
2) bag-in-boxes – BB connectors – hoses and wine pump – sealed taps.
We recommend bag-in-box as a more economical and environmentally friendly technology that greatly simplifies logistics. If necessary, we help wineries arrange bottling in this container.
Cranes can be cut directly into a false panel, installed on beautiful columns or towers (then you get a vine machine ), dummies of wooden barrels. Add a stand with a drip tray, a separate tasting table, and that’s all the furniture. For the tasting room, you will also need tables, chairs, sideboards for dishes and other accessories.
This is where the recommendations for the selection of equipment usually end. But we have a special offer: a wine wall.
How to organize a wine tasting in a self-service store
It’s simple:
● next to the counter – a wall with cranes brought to it;
● next to each tap – an electronic tablet with information about the brand of wine and a payment terminal;
● after payment, the device automatically measures the exact dose of the drink in milliliters;
● glass rinsers are also placed here so that the buyer can wash the dishes before a new portion of impressions.
DrinkWall terminals are our development. There are three payment options:
1) with a special customer card after paying at the counter;
2) directly from the buyer’s bank card;
3) through Google Pay and Apple Pay mobile services.
In-store wine tasting is a powerful marketing tool. This develops the taste of buyers and binds them to you, strengthens brand loyalty, and increases sales.
A wine wall is the most convenient way to present the main assortment of a store or the entire line of a private winery. Select for the wall the most popular wine brands or those that you want to actively promote. The number of taps is limited only by the dimensions of the wall.
What a wine wall gives in a store: 9 benefits
- Product face: the main assortment or all products of your winery are visually presented.
- It is convenient for customers to taste wine at no extra cost.
- You can do without a bar or tasting room.
- You can do without a sommelier: all information about different brands of wine is displayed on tablets.
- The wall replaces traditional tastings and wine master classes. Now they are only needed to advertise certain brands or strengthen ties with customers.
- Sellers do not waste time to pour each “sip”.
- Fine tuning of the tasting portion.
- You do not give wine as a gift, but receive a guaranteed payment for each sample.
The obvious result is an increase in wine sales
Want to enjoy all the benefits of installing a wine wall? Contact us!
Pitfalls to be aware of
1. It makes sense to sell only your own products for testing, but not other people’s wines at a price higher than that of the manufacturer. There are examples when a liquor store burned out: buyers came there only for tasting, and they went to the suppliers to buy (at the lowest prices).
2. In Ukraine, FOP can only sell table wines (dry semi-dry and semi-sweet) for bottling. They do not include fortified and dessert wines – an important part of the assortment of any Ukrainian winery. Therefore, in any case, you will need the status of a state of emergency or a legal entity and a license to sell alcoholic beverages. In the assortment list of SES, it is mandatory to indicate: “wine for bottling”. The area of the store must be at least 20 m2 . We need certificates and hygienic permits for the containers used.
We offer not just to give wine a try, but to install special equipment for a side sale. Therefore, you may have to indicate in the SES that your store is a “catering establishment.” Or you can add a paid wine tasting to the price list as a separate service. Check with your lawyers.