“A wine list is a story, not a phone book”

When Nadia El Amrani started at Maison Séraphine three years ago, the wine list had 260 references spread over forty pages. Today there are sixty, on a single folded sheet. Wine sales rose by a quarter.

Less choice, more trust

“A thick list scares people off,” she says. “Guests leaf through it, get lost and, out of uncertainty, order the second-cheapest bottle. With sixty wines I can stand behind every bottle, and they feel that.”

Every wine has a face

Every wine on the list comes with one sentence: who makes it, and why it's there. “That's not marketing. It's what I'd tell you at the table anyway, but for people who'd rather read.”

Her advice to colleagues? “Taste everything you sell, every month. A wine you no longer know, you no longer sell well.”✦