Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - 43

A Methodology
in the madness
Covid-19
impacts
Pivots
At Poll Time

32%
Open for
Indoor
Dining

34%
52%

Open as
a Shop

Open for
Outdoor
Dining

70%
Open for
Takeout
& Delivery

Wine Sales
Percentages
At Poll Time

9%
Shop/Meal
Kits

73%
In-person
dining

18%
Takeout

For three decades, we've taken the
temperature of a small community
of restaurants, checking in on the
state of their business and reporting on the wines they sell. Our poll
started when the Zagat Guide was
a prime resource for tracking restaurants, and we built our early
list based on its 40 most popular
restaurants in each of the cities it
covered. After Zagat Guide sold to
Google, we shifted our sources, relying on Eater Hotlists, trusted local
sources and on our own research,
but maintained the same premise-searching out the most popular
restaurants across the country and
asking them to list their ten bestselling wines in the fourth quarter of
the year. The poll results are a window into a wine-and-food community, favoring democracy over elitism, honoring cultural appreciation
over all-you-can-eatism.
There have been other years
when the health of the restaurant
industry was challenged by economic pain, but this is the first year
when the industry's health was
taken down by the country's health.
As we set out to contact restaurants in January, many of those
that had persevered through the
holidays were taking a hiatus. Evan
Hansen, at Selden Standard in
Detroit, gave his staff the month off,
awaiting more lenient restrictions
from the state in February. Others,
such as NYC's Balthazar, had been
closed since March. Aware of their
varied situations, we did not require
participants share their list of bestselling wines, as our goal was to
hear from them and to report on
the current state of the industry.
More than any year in the past, we
had a flood of early respondents
who jumped at the chance to participate, sharing wine data and
stats from their year. Others told
us they had no access to data-as
they were either working remotely,
or not working at all. Others simply
declined. " I'd like to forget 2020
altogether, " Paul Botamer told us
when we called him about Fearing's
in Dallas.

By our deadline 133 restaurants
had answered the poll, with 89 of
them providing information on their
most popular wines for the fourth
quarter of the year. We thank all of
them for their courage during the
most difficult year for restaurants in
our lifetimes. On page 64, you'll find
a list of our participants, and we
encourage you to seek them out.
We have taken extra care in how
we present the data this year. We
not only have significantly fewer
respondents than in years past, but
all of those respondents are working in different ways: indoor, outdoor, takeout, retail and a myriad
of combination of all of those. So,
rather than ranking our Top 50
Most Popular Wine Brands, we have
highlighted the 48 most mentioned
brands, presenting them in a circle,
by country and region. You'll find
stalwarts of the poll, like Jordan,
Duckhorn, Heitz and Rombauer,
who have made the list ten of the
past ten years (in fact, they have
made this list for decades). You'll
also find newcomers, brands that
found an opening in this fractured
year.
In the pages that follow, our
reporting focuses not only on trends
we found in the data-a rise in rosé
sales, an interest in chillable reds,
the robust strength of cabernet and
a focus on inexpensive wines overall. We also report on the creative
approaches sommeliers and wine
directors have taken to sustain their
connections to loyal guests-and
the efforts many of these guests
have made to sustain their connections with their favorite restaurants.
Here's hoping that 2021 will be a
better year for all of us.

WINE & SPIRITS

APRIL 2021

43



Wine & Spirits - April 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - April 2021

Contents
Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - Cover1
Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - Cover2
Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - 1
Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - 2
Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - Contents
Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - 4
Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - 5
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Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - Cover3
Wine & Spirits - April 2021 - Cover4
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