The in-house wine shop and bar of Zagame’s House in Carlton will soon have their wine available on demand through Uber Eats.
Zagame’s Lord Lygon has a wide selection of over 300 wines and will be launching the Uber Eats partnership with a smaller offering.
Marcus Radny, the venue’s beverage and food manager, said they will start off by trialling their menu to see what works best with locals and suppliers.
“We’d like to keep the offering quite fluid (pun intended) in order to meet a wide range of tastes, preferences and to ensure seasonality,” Radny said. “We’re interested to see the pick-up in terms of our current list.”
The Lord Lygon serves food along with their wine selection on site, but these dishes will not be in the Uber Eats offering to begin with. As the wine list is something the venue is extremely proud of, they want to showcase this first as a drawcard for locals to come in and explore the menu further.
“Ninety per cent of our wine is unique and wouldn’t be offered on any other delivery platforms,” Radny said.
“We opted to use Uber Eats as they are a well-known delivery service and we think they’re the right fit to get our boutique wines in the hands of locals.”
Another thing driving the delivery partnership is the popularity of the ‘homing’ trend, where consumers are increasingly opting to stay in and order food and drinks rather than go out. Radny said by offering on demand delivery, it’s not encouraging people to stay at home, but coaxing them out.
“We feel that by bringing the Zagame’s experience to them, our customers will be more inclined to visit and stay as they become familiar with our name and the quality of our product,” Radny said.
“We want people to feel that they have a sommelier-selection on offer for them, when they need it.”
Both the Lord Lygon and the Uber Eats wine delivery partnership are different to what the Zagame Corporation is known for and represents the exploration of a new direction for the Zagame’s brand as a whole.
Uber Eats have allowed alcohol delivery from on- and off-premise venues in Melbourne suburbs since 2017, with a number of locations available across the city to order beer, wine and spirits. However, outside of Victoria, the platform has little to no presence in liquor delivery, outweighed by other apps like Menulog and Jimmy Brings.