Making the move from one restaurant to another can be a challenging task for any sommelier. And the difficulty of that move can be compounded if you are moving to a restaurant in a new geographic location, or to a restaurant with a completely different food menu than your previous location. The good news is that there are several strategies for sommeliers to take on their new job that can help to ensure that the transition is as seamless as possible.

Take stock of your new situation

At the outset, the tendency for many sommeliers is to try too hard. They immediately go to work changing the wine program, booking tasting sessions, and generally trying to prove that the restaurant made the right decision by hiring them as a new sommelier. However, say sommeliers who have taken on new posts, a more effective strategy is to take stock of your new situation before rushing headlong into any new moves. Take the first two to three months to familiarize yourself deeply with the restaurant’s current wine inventory, and to understand how these wines are currently presented on the restaurant’s wine list.

Create an overall vision for what you are trying to accomplish

Your goal as sommelier should be to come up with an overarching strategy or vision for your restaurant’s wine program. If you are planning to extend the current wine program, in what new direction are you going to take it? If you are planning to re-focus the current wine program, which wines are you going to include and which wines are you going to exclude?

An important part of creating an overall vision of what you are trying to accomplish is to understand the current market situation. Just how progressive can you be? For example, if you are taking over as the sommelier at a restaurant with a long, storied tradition in your city, it might be a lot harder to make any major changes to the wine program without upsetting long-time patrons. In many cases, you simply have to accept the practical limitations of what is possible, and what is not. For example, if you are the sommelier at a steakhouse, you might find it very difficult to move beyond any type of wine program that does not feature big, bold reds and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Put your personal stamp on the wine program

Once you’ve decided on an overarching vision and strategy for your wine program, that is when you can start to put your personal stamp on the program. The first thing that you can do, for example, is to decide which bottles of wine you plan to re-order. It’s often the case that you will be limited in how many new bottles of wine you can add to the program until you sell off many of your old bottles. This might take a little creativity on your part, but you will need to think of ways that you can get to the point where you have plenty of flexibility to re-order.

As you go about putting your personal stamp on the wine program, also give some thought to the overall composition of wines from certain regions or wines made from certain grape varietals. For example, if you are the new sommelier of an Italian steakhouse in Los Angeles, you will need to accept the fact that many of your wines will need to be Italian reds and California Cabs. One benchmark composition might be 70% Italian reds/20% California reds/10% wines from the rest of the world. In much the same way, if you are the sommelier of a French restaurant in Shanghai, many of your wines will need to be French reds, with a mixing in of domestic Chinese red wines and wines from elsewhere in the world (such as Chile or Australia).

Alter, expand and re-focus the wine program

There are many subtle ways that you can re-focus the wine program without causing wholesale changes to the overall wine list. For example, you could introduce esoteric local varieties to the wine list to give the wine program more of a “local” feel. A sommelier in the Pacific Northwest, for example, might decide to complement the wine list with local Oregon Pinot Noir or Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon.

Another tactic is to make your restaurant known for a certain wine that none of your restaurant competitors are currently offering. For example, you might decide to make your restaurant known for having one of the great Champagne lists in the city. Or, you might opt for a grape varietal – such as Syrah – that might not be as popular as other similar grape varietals, but that give you much more flexibility in creating some truly unique food-wine pairings.

Grow the wine list

With more months in your new post as sommelier, you can begin to grow the program. This might include introducing more wines at a wider range of price points, styles or varieties. You might also decide (if capacity allows) to create a cellaring program that enables you to collect and store back-vintage wines.

And, of course, you can help to highlight these changes to your wine program by changing the presentation of your wine list. For example, in order to highlight a wider range of wine varietals on offer, you might choose to re-order the wine list in terms of wine varietals rather than by geographic region.  Or, just as easily, you could choose to highlight the new “international” wine list at your restaurant by re-ordering the wine list in terms of geographic regions. This, for example, would enable you to show customers that your previous wine program featuring only French and Italian wines now includes notable selections from Australia or Chile.

If you have passion and purpose, you can really make a lasting impression with your new vision as wine sommelier. After a brief period of time familiarizing yourself with the current wine program, you can then turn your attention to putting your own unique mark on the program. With time, your restaurant will soon have a well-deserved reputation for having a world-class wine program.