French restaurants, cafes and bars have always offered wine of various kinds by the glass, but a recent survey of 1,000 establishments by Vinexposium, organisers of The Wine Paris & Vinexpo Paris exhibition, found that “83 percent of restaurant owners declare this is to be a much more popular way for people to consume it… ahead of the sale of bottles". The trend has been boosted in recent years by the increasingly strict application of drink-drive laws by French authorities.
The same study also revealed that nearly two thirds of restaurants are also continuing to give their customers the chance to buy bottles to take away and drink at home. Where just 10 percent offered this option before the pandemic, 65% of wine lists now include it.
Both these trends potentially represent marketing opportunities for wine producers to promote specific wines. France has historically seen regional by-the-glass initiatives, but few brand-specific efforts of the kind pioneered in the US by Robert Mondavi for its Chardonnay in the 1970s and adopted by others. Maybe, just as French wineries have learned lessons in wine tourism from across the Atlantic, they will now do the same when it comes to promoting their wines in restaurants.
