How many wines should be on a restaurant list?

Written by Marco Azzari on 16 September 2026

There is no sacred count. There is a number this room can explain, pour, and turn. An 80-line list with sticker prices is not "serious." It is inventory with fonts.

What "too long" actually costs

Guests stall. They take a famous name or the second-cheapest bottle. The floor learns two safe pours and ignores the rest. Busy season arrives and nobody updates a line for months. Bottles sit 90 days. Cash sits with them. Research on wine inventory often puts spoilage and dead stock in a range that should scare anyone who personally guarantees a loan. Treat "up to around 8% of wine inventory" as a warning from the literature, not as your audit until you count.

Short is not virtuous if it is random. A 12-bottle list that does not sit with the food is still a bad list. A 24-bottle list that matches the kitchen and turns is a program.

A usable test

For each line, can someone on tonight's shift:

• find it in the cellar or the walk-in,
• pour it without a meeting,
• say one true sentence about it,
• name a dish it sits with?

If the answer is no, it is storage. Storage can exist. It should not occupy the guest page. Reserve lists and off-menu bottles are for rooms that have someone to sell them.

Cutting without a scene

Move a slow bottle onto glass for two weeks (BTG program). Re-pair it to a dish that actually sells. If it still sits, take it off the list and run it as a one-night feature or a staff education pour. Discounting on the guest page teaches people to wait.

Independent rooms: start from without a sommelier and add lines only when a plate needs them. Groups: inherited lists are how 80 lines happen. Schedule a cull the way you schedule a menu change, or the wine program will freeze until January.