Choosing a WInery to Visit

It's time to be controversial. Why? Why not? Among other things, I have writer's block today and needed a topic. This is my 188th consecutive day of writing here and since none of you have been nice enough lately to give me topics to write on, I am just stuck. So, today is my day to be disagreeable.

Let's start with all the things I really dislike when I visit a winery. First is the step up and drink mentality. I don't like it. I do not want to walk up to the "bar" and be told to give them [some number of] dollars and pick five wines to taste. I don't know their wines. I am there to learn about them and to see which ones I enjoy. They may have 25 different wines of varying qualities. I am the person who might buy something that I like. Help me.

You are there behind the bar. Make this a bit personal. Ask me a question or two. Ask me what I usually like and why. Make a recommendation based on what you have heard me say and your knowledge of your wines. You don't know anything about your wines? Get another job. It is your job to learn something and to impart that knowledge to me.

Don't charge me so much that I feel cheated. If you are giving me, for example, five one-ounce pours, do not charge me $25 unless this is really special wine. Roughly speaking, if you are charging me $25, that means you are charging me about $125 per bottle. Even building in the cost of conducting the tasting (and I'll give you $10 for that which is way more than the cost at one of these mass tasting rooms with no personal service), that's still a $75 bottle of wine. At most wineries, I am not tasting $75 per bottle of wine.

Ultimately, as a hospitality person in the tasting room, your job is to create business at the winery. Roughly speaking, you can do that three ways:

• Sell bottles of wine for people to take with them. Typically, this will happen when a customer develops a connection with the wine. They will do that better if you help them to build that connection. Tell them about the wine. Make it sound wonderful, but don't go overboard. After they have taken their first taste, get their impressions. Unless it is against the law, if there is a wine they really liked, pour them just a little extra at the end. This will connect them even more to that wine and is more likely to make them buy.
• Get them to tell their friends to come. If your customers go to three or four wineries that day, one will be their favorite and they will tell their friends to go there. You want that place to be yours. So, make the experience great. As corny as it sounds, be a Customer Service Ambassador. Be memorable in a positive way.
• Make them a member of your wine club. No customer is more valuable to a winery than their wine club members. They are profitable for the winery. They are a source of continual sales. And, they do tell their friends. They serve your wines in their homes. That is great free publicity for you. To do that, make the experience perfect. Know your wines. And, know your wine club. Know the benefits of it, know what the customer will get, know what they will get that the other customers will not get.

Over the last 15 years or so, we have belonged to a fair number of wine clubs. We tend to not stay a member of any one for all that long as some variety is nice. So, let's talk a little bit about what has caused us to join wine clubs.

Believe it or not, I don't think the primary factor has been that these have been the best wines we have ever tasted. They have to be good, at least in my opinion. But, they are likely not the best wines I have ever tasted. Those may be too expensive for my wallet.

More than that, though, the experience has to be wonderful. Make me feel like a valued customer. 

On our second ever trip whose primary purpose was wine tasting, one of the wineries we went to was fairly small and family run and owned. While the customer service people in the tasting room were not family, they might as well have been. They treated us like we were special. They made it personal.  They made us want to be a part of the family. On a future trip, we had breakfast in the family home at the winery. You can bet that we were long-time members. 

On another visit to another winery, we were greeted in the pouring rain by a smiling man. He served us all their current vintage wines and a few older ones. He asked which ones we liked and gave us a little extra. About two years later, he came to our home several thousand miles away to pour for our friends. Were we his best customer? No, not by any means. I don't even know that we were in the top half given who we know to be his typical customers. But, he treated us like we were the only ones.

At yet another winery, where the grapes they specialize in were not ones for which we had a particular affinity, our hostess asked questions to understand why. She poured us wines that were just a little but closer to our usual tastes. She asked about us. And, we asked about her. Again, we felt like family.

What all of these wineries had in common was that we felt like the only people there. We were not rushed. We were not told what we were supposed to think of their wines, but we were asked what we did think. It cost them more to serve us. We more than made it worth their while.

So, how do you know? How do you pick the wineries?

Ask others about their experiences. If the answer was something like, "The Chardonnay was great" or "Don't miss the Moscato," then my guess is that your friends got drunk. If that's what you want, you don't have to go to a winery. Go to your local wine outlet, buy some wine and enjoy with friends. It's less expensive and safer.

The right answers look more like these. "We had planned to stay there for an hour, but as we left we realized it had been three." "We felt so welcome." "Our tasting room host made us feel like the only people there." "It was important to her that we had a great time." "She knew everything there was to know about their wines and the winery. We learned so much while we were drinking really nice wine [yes, learning about what you are drinking will make it more enjoyable if you are like almost (not every) wine drinker I know]."

So, when you read the reviews, I implore that you seek out the customer service comments. I think you will have a much better experience.