The Napa Valley is one of the most beautiful wine regions in the world. It’s also expensive, because a day of winery touring can cost hundreds of dollars in tasting fees.
“Many of us remember when visiting wineries was free. Tastings were free. Tours were free.” says Michaela K. Rodeno, Owner of Villa Ragazzi Vineyards and Winery in Napa Valley. “Providing food was forbidden to protect the Ag Preserve from non-agricultural activities like hotels and restaurants. There were dozens, not hundreds of wineries.”
Domaine Chandon, where she was part of the founding team, started charging for tastings in 1977 because excise taxes on sparkling wine made offering samples expensive. “Charging for tastings didn’t get to be nearly universal here until the Winery Definition Ordinance of 1990 eliminated being open to the public and required reservations for tours and tastings.”
Since then, Rodeno says, fees have now increased “to dizzy heights, often now attached to elaborate ‘experiences’.”
And it's not just Napa—many regions have embraced tasting fees. As wineries have become wine tourism facilities, the cellar door is now an important source of revenue.
But getting the pricing right is a balancing act. Charge too little, and the wines are devalued. Charge too much, and customers may walk away without buying anything, figuring they’ve already spent enough. And once the price is right, the winery must turn visitors into fans.
How do wineries navigate this balancing act—and what does the research say?
The academic evidence
This is an area that’s crying out for more study, as the evidence is mixed. One person who has looked into it is Dr Robin Back of the Rosen College of Hospitality Management in Florida, who did a research project in 2015, which he says was partly inspired by work done in Texas that compared three wineries that charged versus three wineries that didn’t.
“And concluded that if you did not charge for tasting, you would sell more wine,” he says. “They based that on the theory of reciprocity, which says if I do a favour for you, you’re going to feel obligated to do something in return. So if I give you a free tasting, I feel obligated to buy wine from you.”
Whereas if a customer has already paid for the tasting, they won’t feel it’s necessary to buy anything.
But, says Dr Back, he thought there was an issue with the study. “What if there’s a difference in the quality of the wine? What if there’s a difference in the quality of the service? There are several potentially confounding variables there.”
He worked with a single winery, which already offered two separate tastings: one involving multiple people standing at a counter, and then a more premium, sit-down tasting. In the experiment, the winery charged for a period of time, and then did everything for free.
When it came to the stand-up tasting, the purchasing behaviour didn’t change, while the people who had paid for the sit-down tasting “actually bought less wine”.
Which makes it sound as though charging for tastings is a bad idea. Not so fast. After the experiment, Dr Back spoke with the tasting room staff. They said “the customers who did not pay were much ‘greedier’, to use their words”.
Those people who had paid “realised that’s what they had paid for. If they wanted more, they would have to pay more”. So they didn’t ask for more wine pours. The people who were getting the wine for free, on the other hand, treated it more like an all-you-can-eat buffet, where “you overeat because you think ‘I’ve got to get my money’s worth’.”
Dr Back says there is still a lot of research work to be done, particularly around post-visit behaviour. Do people who paid for a tasting become more engaged customers over the long term?
The people who were getting the wine for free treated it more like an all-you-can-eat buffet, where “you overeat because you think ‘I’ve got to get my money’s worth’.”
Nicola Neumann, the owner of Champagne Characters wine store in Munich, Germany, says she believes so. People who pay for tastings in her store typically don’t buy very much, if anything, after the tasting, because they can’t take bottles on public transport. “But when you build a strong community during your tasting, at least 50% will return at the next occasion they are thinking about buying a very good bottle of wine or Champagne.” And from then on, they are regular customers.
How things have changed
In 2015 when Dr Back did his study, charging for tastings was still unusual in many wine regions. Today, they’re everywhere.
Marcell Kustos, a wine and hospitality consultant headquartered in Australia, says that he’s observed that when there are no tasting fees, people feel like they should buy something—so they typically buy either the cheapest or second-cheapest bottle. This style of buying is more like discharging an obligation rather than expressing a love of the product. “When you put a price on it, there is a value perception and people tend to be more engaged and pay more attention.”
He says the average spend goes up when people are engaged and the tasting fee is redeemable upon purchase.
Corrina Wright, Winemaker and Director at Oliver’s Taranga Vineyards in McLaren Vale, says the fees are sometimes a problem for older customers, who remember the days when tastings were always free. But her experience has been that the higher the tasting fee, the higher the subsequent spend.
“I think guests are very happy to pay as long as they can see the value,” says Wright. “It takes away the stress of feeling like they have to pay, which tends to mean that they actually buy more anyway.”
But, she cautions, it’s critical to make the tasting exceptional, so customers can see the value.
Maximising the tasting potential
While tastings are now a source of revenue in and of themselves, wineries have traditionally used them as a sales tool for wine clubs and subscription services. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.
Kustos says that one of the worst ways to try and turn visitors into long-term customers is to train staff to recite a sales script. “The wine club spiel comes up out of nowhere, because it’s part of their sequence of service, or because the tasting room manager told them to mention it.”
But if the service is exceptional from the start, the wine is more likely to sell itself. “You need to provide the opportunity for guests to buy something, but you have to bring it in a way that adds value to the customers.”
Mapping a customer journey
Then he begins mapping the customer journey.
Convincing website
This starts with the website, the first point of contact. “If the website doesn’t flow, or if you have to go through many different options just to find something you want, you might go somewhere else.”
Personal confirmation mail
Kustos advises wineries offering premium experiences to dispense with the automated confirmation email, and send a personal note to the person who booked. “It’s worth checking if there are any dietary or other requirements. Some people forget to mention they have a person in a wheelchair with them.”
Comprehensive offer
Next, he looks at whether the offer itself is too confusing. “If they have four offerings, is one of them potentially cannibalising the others? Could they merge them into two tastings? Do they all have a very clear value proposition?”
Matching wines
Another classic mistake is to organise tastings based on price points, rather than on how the wines go together. Or to offer too many wines at once. “This is something that Porto and Bordeaux do very well—they have no issues with offering just two or three wines in a tasting,” says Kustos. But he sees Australian wineries offering an entire range of wines, which is “information overload. It doesn’t work.”
Additional food
Kustos says providing food alongside the tasting is often too onerous for small cellar doors, which don’t have the staff, and which need to turn customers over as fast as possible. But for medium-to-large cellar doors, food can be a hugely profitable area—Kustos says that when researching the subject for his PhD, he discovered that offering food that elevates the wine experience can lead to another 22% to 24% of cellar door revenue.
“The longer people stay, the more they spend,” he says. He gives the hypothetical scenario of four people sitting down to a tasting costing $40 each that includes a charcuterie board. “And because they still have some cheese left after they taste the wines, they might order more wine. So that $160 can become $300 or more.
Welcoming atmosphere
More importantly, Kustos says the tasting experience is a significant opportunity to establish rapport, starting with the personalised email. “Imagine walking into a tasting room and being greeted by your name from someone you’ve already had a little bit of contact with. It creates a more welcoming environment from the start and it’s easier to create an exceptional experience.”
Individualised follow-up
Kustos also warns against sending automated emails afterwards, because they’re so soulless and sterile and recipients will ignore them. Instead, sending a short, personal note is more likely to get a response.
It’s building these kinds of connections that will turn customers into passionate fans, who will return again and again, and keep buying the wine.
As for those canned scripts: Kustos says wineries need to know what they stand for and to communicate that to their staff. Once wineries have a clear view of what they want to be known for, a lot of things automatically come into focus, from what kind of glassware they choose to the nature of the experiences they offer.
Does all this effort pay off? Kustos says that when he starts working with a client, he makes a forecast about future revenue and says the numbers show that improving the tasting experience typically leads to a cellar door revenue increase of between 14% to 23%.
But in deciding on the approach, the most important thing is to stay true to the winery’s core values. Back in Napa Valley, Ragazzi chooses not to charge tasting fees. “We prefer to make visitors feel welcome, love the wines and buy enough to keep the lights on—and keep buying after they get home. It seems to work.”
