Why Zinfandel Belongs on Your Restaurant Wine List
If you're not carrying Zinfandel on your restaurant wine list, you're missing one of the most practical revenue tools available to a domestic program.
Full-bodied. Fruit-forward. Spice, oak, bold finish. Sound familiar? That's the profile your guests are already ordering — and they don't need it to say Napa Cabernet on the label to love it. Operators who understand this make more money. It's that simple.
Zinfandel is domestic, it's plentiful, and today's wine-drinking public expects it — regardless of what some sommeliers think. It belongs on the steakhouse list, the neighborhood grill list, and the red sauce joint list. It is not a consolation prize. It is a strategic selection.
Here's the operational case. A Napa Cab might cost you $30 wholesale today — probably more. A well-sourced Zinfandel from Paso Robles runs around $15. Same guest profile. Same flavor expectation. Half the cost. That margin differential is not a small thing — it's the difference between a program that bleeds and one that performs.
The industry is already seeing this play out on the floor. Wine director Alisha Blackwell-Calvert of Madrina in St. Louis told SevenFifty Daily that she regularly fields tables requesting Zinfandel — and uses those moments to introduce guests to new bottles that match the profile they're already looking for. SevenFifty Daily That's not accommodation. That's selling.
Three to five Zinfandel selections on a mid-sized list gives you something more valuable than variety — it gives you a pricing ladder. And a pricing ladder gives your staff the ability to have a real conversation.
Here's what that looks like in practice. Build your steps: a $60 entry point, a $78 mid-tier, a $96 step-up, and a $110 top selection. Adjust for your market and your guests. The specific numbers matter less than the architecture. When a server can point to four Zinfandels at different price points and say "this one's fruit-forward and easy, this one's got more structure and age" — that's not order-taking. That's selling up the ladder.
Zinfandel also functions as a gateway. A guest who came in for Cab and leaves having discovered a Paso Zin at $78 is a guest with a new reference point. You've just expanded their world and your check average in the same move.
The varietal is well-marketed, widely recognized, and — most importantly — delicious. Your guests know it. Your staff can learn it fast. Your distributor has plenty of it.
Stop treating Zinfandel like a backup plan. It's a revenue engine dressed up as a crowd-pleaser. Put it on the list and price it with intention.
Brad Nugent is co-founder of Innovative Beverage Strategies, a consulting firm built for restaurant operators running or building serious beverage programs.
