SOMMELLERIE
By-the-glass pricing: the sales lever almost nobody tunes
Selling wine without asking for a bottle commitment multiplies drinking occasions — if the menu tells it well.
By VINIPAD Team
Editorial · The VINIPAD review · June 30, 2026 · 2 min read
“The glass doesn't cannibalise the bottle: it creates permission to try it.”
Ordering a bottle is a commitment: to a price, a quantity and a guess. The glass removes all three at once. That's why well-built by-the-glass programmes don't steal bottle sales — they prepare them. The guest who tries a reference by the glass today orders it by the bottle on the next visit.
The classic fear is waste: opening a great wine to pour two glasses. Preservation systems have reduced that risk, and data settles it: consumption reports show which references rotate by the glass and which don't justify pulling the cork.
On a digital menu, the glass price lives next to the bottle and cellar prices on the same card, with no typographic squeeze. Changing it — by vintage, by season, by rotation — is a gesture in the panel, not a reprint.
Start with six references: two whites, three reds, one sparkling. Adjust monthly with the reports in hand. It is the cheapest average-check lever a dining room has.
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