Pinot gaining on cabernet as top red wine

If you want to ramp up your wine by the glass sales, you might want to beef up your stock of pinot noir. The popularity of pinot noir in by-the-glass wine sales catapulted it past merlot among red varieties, according to results from an annual survey by Restaurant Sciences.

Cabernet sauvignon dominates red wine sales, with 31.6 percent of the market, but pinot overtook merlot with 19.9 versus 15.3 percent shares, respectively, for the first three quarters of 2013.

“Pinot noir wine-by-the-glass sales continued to soar,” says Chuck Ellis, president and c.e.o. of the company, which tracks foodservice product sales.

Ellis noted that orders for blended reds and malbec-style wines are picking up as well.

In the white category, chardonnay claimed nearly half of all by-the-glass sales, claiming 44.8 percent of the market. Pinot grigio comes in a distant second, at 23.2 percent, followed by sauvignon blanc, at 15.5 percent.

If you’re looking for benchmarks, the Restaurant Sciences study also collected pricing trends for the wine (see charts). Average price per glass varies widely, from $5.49 for muscato at family restaurants to $13.31 for pinot noir at fine dining establishments.

The sales figures are based on analysis of 30 million guest checks from January 2013 through October.