Sommelier & Beverage Manager

About the Role

Sommelier & Beverage Manager position with Epicurean Group, reporting to Owner and Director of Operations. The role involves managing wine and beverage programmes across assigned venues within the group. The position requires leading front-of-house teams, developing wine lists suited to each restaurant concept, working with chefs on wine pairings and tasting menus, and driving wine and beverage sales through various programmes. The role includes managing all aspects of wine inventory, costs, and supplier relationships. A key requirement is to deliver a minimum of one wine dinner or wine-focused programme per month in each outlet. The position focuses on achieving specific KPIs including wine sales growth, by-the-glass performance, maintaining wine cost percentage and gross profit margins, and ensuring staff training completion. The role requires maintaining accurate stock records, appropriate par levels, and full compliance with group beverage storage, service and inventory-control standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, train and coach front-of-house teams on wine knowledge, beverage service standards and upselling. Develop and maintain wine lists suited to each restaurant concept, menu, guest profile and market trend. Work with chefs on wine pairings, tasting menus, wine dinners and beverage-led promotions.
• Drive wine and beverage sales through by-the-glass programmes, guest recommendations, menu engineering and premiumisation. Manage ordering, par levels, inventory, stock rotation, cellar and beverage-fridge storage, wine maps, and inventory accuracy across wine and beverage categories. Monitor wine and beverage costs, margins, spoilage, breakages, over-pouring and slow-moving stock. Negotiate with suppliers for competitive pricing, product allocations, staff training and event support. Deliver a minimum of one wine dinner or wine-focused programme per month in each outlet.
• Track weekly sales volume and mix by red, white, sparkling and other categories. Review top-selling and underperforming bottles monthly and take menu-engineering action on slow movers. Maintain accurate stock records and timely ordering. Keep losses from corked wine, over-pouring, oxidation, breakages and expiry below 1% of inventory value.

Requirements

• Candidate should be able to deliver sustained month-on-month wine sales growth against budget and prior period. Must be capable of maintaining monthly wine COGS at or below company-set target and achieving an average wine gross profit margin of 75%. Should have the ability to host wine dinners and wine-focused events regularly.
• Must be able to achieve 100% completion of group basic wine-training programme for designated front-of-house employees. Should demonstrate full compliance with group beverage storage, service and inventory-control standards. Available to start within 1 month.

Language Requirements