Setting up Your Wine Section: Keys to Success

How to set up a wine section? It's a valid question to ask, and rightly so, as your customers will be very receptive to it. To successfully organize your wine section, it's crucial to consider the consumer's perspective while also understanding certain fundamental rules. Here are some tips.

Key Questions Before Establishing Your Wine Section

What does the consumer look for when entering a wine section? The answer to this essential question will guide your subsequent decisions.

When someone decides to purchase wine, they generally know two things:

• the format they are looking for: most often, bottle or bag-in-box®.
• the wine color they are looking for: red, white, or rosé.

We will see later that these two criteria form the basis for organizing your wine section.

What space do I have available? Area, number of shelves, length, fixtures... What resources do you have for establishing your wine section? Your decisions will differ significantly whether you need to fill 5 meters of shelving or 15.

What is my product offering? Do you already have in mind the wines you wish to offer your clientele? How many references have you sourced? What are the appellations, bottle formats, different grape varieties... Take inventory, prepare lists.

Various In-Store Merchandising Strategies

The simplest approach: meeting consumer needs

As we noted earlier: what customers generally know when entering a wine section is the format and/or color of the wine they are seeking. To effectively begin setting up your wine section, start by organizing it by format. Separating bottles from bag-in-box products will create a highly effective visual presentation.

Next, within each category, arrange the wines by color: red, white, rosé, and sparkling. Then, within each color, further categorize by region. Bénédicte Coyon, Retail and B2B Commercial Director at Les Grappes, reminds us that this organizational structure is found in the vast majority of existing wine sections.

Regarding pricing, the classic gondola shelving organization follows this model: lower-priced items at the bottom, higher-priced items at the top, and core target products in the middle, at eye level.

The more advanced method: a regional layout

If you prefer not to organize your section by color, you can arrange your bottles directly by region, and within each region, classify wines of the three colors (red, white, rosé). This method is effective only if your section is large enough to create clear subdivisions by region and color.

This highly qualitative method is better suited for an already informed and knowledgeable clientele. Indeed, not everyone is familiar with the various wine regions of France (let alone abroad), and even fewer with the specific appellations found within them. Should I choose a Loire wine or a Bordeaux to pair with my ribeye this weekend? These are the kinds of questions your customers might ask. And they won't necessarily have the answer!

If you choose this layout, consider offering ample informational materials to help your customers make their selections. We will discuss the tools you can leverage later.

Suggesting Food and Wine Pairings

Another approach is to organize your section based on the food and wine pairing the customer is seeking. Wine purchases are very often linked to a specific culinary occasion. What will we drink to accompany our Sunday roast chicken? Our Friday aperitif with friends? Our romantic dinner?

Please note, this arrangement is best suited for limited wine selections and should be avoided for large wine sections. It requires a solid foundation in wine knowledge and a thorough understanding of the proposed range. Also, ensure that food and wine pairings are kept simple for universal understanding: for example, “poultry” rather than “chicken with morels.”

What about sweet white wines?

Within white wines, a distinction is made between dry wines and sweet or luscious white wines. The latter can be considered a distinct category, given their significantly different flavor profiles. Sweet and luscious wines, such as Sauternes, Jurançon, Gewurztraminer Vendanges Tardives, or Coteaux du Layon, can be given a specific placement so that customers instantly know the wine they are buying is sweet.

In such cases, we recommend grouping them within the white wine section with specific signage.

Alcohol-free and flavored wines: what to do?

Like sweet white wines, alcohol-free and flavored wines should be displayed separately to avoid unintentionally misleading the customer and to help them locate this type of product if that is what they are looking for.

Following Bénédicte Coyon's advice, in mass retail, these two types of wines are generally grouped together by placing them at the junction between white and rosé wines.

POS Advertising and Signage: Guiding Your Customer

POS Advertising and Information Panels

To organize and enhance your wine section, it is important to utilize display materials that provide information to the customer. Faced with a considerable selection, buyers need guidance.

POS (Point of Sale) advertising provided by winemakers can, for example, highlight a product for a limited period. Posters, display stands, roll-up banners – many formats are available.

Regional dividers (these small vertical or horizontal panels attached to the shelves) are essential for highlighting the various wine regions offered. They will help emphasize each section you have organized.

The End-Cap Display

Highly effective, the end-cap display, located at the end of an aisle, allows for showcasing a specific selection of wines. Beyond being a promotional space, it's an experiential display area designed to help consumers who are unsure what to buy leave with a bottle. Depending on the period, you can name this space "Our Favorites," "Seasonal Wines," "Bargain Corner," "Last Bottles," etc.

Digital Solutions

Purchasing wine in supermarkets can be a stressful experience for most consumers. Without extensive wine knowledge and faced with an often very broad selection, they frequently feel lost. This is why offering an advisory service can prove very useful.

If you don't have dedicated staff year-round, numerous digital tools are available today to leverage. QR codes, applications, virtual assistants – these solutions, while admittedly somewhat costly, will significantly enhance your section.

Regulations to Know

In addition to the rules related to the Evin Law and the mandatory warnings about the dangers of alcohol consumption, there is one rule to adhere to: within VSIG (Wines Without Geographical Indication), it is prohibited to mix Spanish origin and French origin. You risk a potential fine if you do not pay attention to this point.