Food and Beverage
When it comes to wine, French vintages continue to dominate wine lists in Hong Kong’s top restaurants, according to the latest research by Entaste, developers of a revolutionary new iPad wine list being launched in Asia.
And Champagne accounts for five of the top 10 choices on restaurant wine lists. An analysis of Hong Kong’s top 65 restaurants carried out by Entaste indicates that they stock an average of 270 labels.
Fully one half of wines on wine lists at Hong Kong’s best restaurants are French, which means the average Hong Kong wine list includes more than 140 French vintage.
Out of those, 22% of wines are from Burgundy, France. Bordeaux wines are in second place, accounting for an average of 14% of wines on wine lists. French wines are also the most expensive wines on Hong Kong wine lists.
Digital Wine Lists
“The information you can give through digital [technology] is much more, much bigger than any book you could make,” says Bordeaux-based oenologist Michel Rolland.
“It’s certainly more entertaining for people to see a wine list on a digital [list] than in a big book.”
The Entaste platform is provided free of charge to restaurants, simplifying wine list management. This also saves restaurants the cost of printing new wine lists every time there is a change on the menu.
Digital wine lists can be personalized to the needs of the restaurant. And it is believed that electronic wine lists can increase wine sales by as much as 15% to 20% per month.
Just Another Passing Fad?
But is this just another fad that will soon go the way of the tamagotchi?
“Some people said the Internet was just a trend, but you know, we couldn’t live without it today,” says Andreas Larsson, Best Sommelier of the World 2007.
“So I think there’s a bright future for [digital wine lists].”
Digital wine lists should prove especially popular in China, where wine knowledge is relatively limited.
“Digital wine lists help customers because right now in China, the knowledge of staff working in restaurants is not up to international levels,” Yang Lu, Sommelier of the Peninsula Shanghai Restaurant.