Liquor Retail Editing and Proofreading Services

A customer stands in front of four hundred bottles wanting something for a dinner on Friday. They know roughly what they like, they have about eighteen pounds, and they do not know a single word on any of the labels. Most shelf notes tell them the wine has notes of blackcurrant and a long finish, which is true, useless, and the reason they will buy the one with the nicest label.

We edit what wine merchants, off-licences and drinks retailers produce — shelf notes and recommendation cards, range and section signage, tasting and event material, staff product briefings, gift and hamper descriptions, subscription and case selection copy, and the website descriptions that have to work without a person standing beside them. Our editors work on notes read by somebody who is not an expert and knows it.

The shelf note is where a drinks retailer either helps somebody choose or sends them to the label, and its failure is a tasting note written for people who already know. A customer who cannot map a description onto anything they have drunk has not been helped. We work through these so the note begins from something the customer already knows rather than from the bottle, since "if you usually drink Rioja and want something a bit fresher" locates a person and "notes of blackcurrant" locates nothing; so the occasion is named where it decides the purchase, because most bottles are bought for a specific meal or event and the question in the customer's head is whether this fits it; so the descriptors that survive are ones with a physical referent — sharp, heavy, sweet, dry enough to cut through fat — as flavour adjectives are unreliable and texture is not; so the price is justified in a clause where the bottle is expensive, since a customer reaching for £18 rather than £9 wants a reason; so one honest limitation is included, given that a shelf of unqualified enthusiasm reads as marketing and a note saying "too heavy for fish" is believed; so any wine that needs something — decanting, chilling, a year in a cupboard — says so, because a good bottle drunk wrong is a customer who thinks they do not like it; so a cheaper alternative is named where one genuinely does the same job; and so the note is signed. Notes written this way sell the second bottle.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including range plans, supplier terms and business documents. We are editors rather than buyers, sommeliers or licensing advisers, and we offer no view on products, tasting or licensing. What we can do is start from something the customer already knows.