During my previous visit to Napa, I only visited commercial tasting rooms that had tasting fees associated with them. I understood that these sometimes high fees essentially covered the wine and visit costs and if I bought wine, all the better, but I didn’t really feel any obligation to do so.
I am getting ready to visit Walla Walla and am considering a Sonoma trip, but my interests and tastes have changed to the smaller producers and I really am hoping to schedule more personal visits with the winemakers. I have read several descriptions here on Wine Berserkers of the winemakers opening numerous bottles, spending a couple of hours, laying out food tastes and even hosting in their homes.
I am looking for that more personal tasting experience, but really want to understand going in whether, what and how much I should be buying where the winemaker makes that kind of personal investment in the tasting. I would feel weird walking away with nothing more than a thanks, so would appreciate more experienced views as to approach to winery visits in these circumstance.
What say you and would your answer change if you were an active member of the winery’s mailing list?
While I have never been to a tasting such as you describe, I have been to a variety of places in napa that for whatever reason didnt seem to be busy that day and tasting mangers have often spent an hour with me and gone above the “normal” tasting by providing more varieties, or quantity.
When that happened, I always felt a personal connection and bought more wine.
Afterwards however, when I had the ability to sit down and try one wine against another (vinters) I found I usually liked one much more than the other. I ended up buying wine, that in hindsight I wish I had saved my money and purchased the one I really liked.
My thoughts for me at least going forward, would be to buy at least one bottle of whatever I thought I liked at the tasting, and tell them that I want to compare it more on my own. Find out how I could reorder and what if any discounts for quantities may be available.
Then try it at home, decide what I really like and buy more.
I’ve been to one private barrel tasting and tour that I arranged with the winemaker of a small mailing list only winery. I had 5 other family members along with me. I had previously purchased about 2 cases of wine from the producer over the course of 2 years. It was about a 1 1/2 hour tour and tasting the current vintage wines from barrel. Although no wine was purchased and none was for sale, I had learned through this board that the winemaker was a fan of a certain type of wine, so I brought along a nice bottle as a gift. On other occasions where I didn’t have a private tour but was visiting a small production winery, I’ve always purchased at least one bottle, more if I was treated especially well. At larger wineries where I am among a crowd in a tasting room and have paid for the tasting, I don’t feel any obligation to purchase anything.
I’d put this in several buckets, as others have above:
1)General tasting room with the masses, you pay the fee and feel no obligation.
2)More personal tasting with someone where you’re on the list and have made consistent purchases-no real obligation to buy in the moment. In fact, in many instances where the list is based on allocations, there isn’t any wine available to buy “off cycle”.
3)More personal tasting where you are not on the list and haven’t made significant/any prior purchases (and you specifically scheduled the tasting)-I think there is a bit of an obligation here. First of all, I’m not sure I’d be asking a winemaker for 1 to 2 hours of his/her time unless I had some solid reason to believe that the wines were going to appeal to me. And even if I found them to be something different than I expected, I feel as though my request for personal attention implies a level of committment on my part to match the committment put forth by the winemaker. I would find it difficult to walk away with less than a half-case.
That’s my general approach. I tend to make appointments at wineries whose wine I have had and liked, but I’ve never vistied. Most of the time that can be wonderful. Occasionally that turns out to be a mass herd tasting with little service, and then I feel no obligation to buy anything.
Thank you to all for your responses. Between those responses and another thread I kicked up in the archives of the Wine Talk forum, I believe I have a comfort level as to the reasonable obligation and expectation.
My approach will be that I have no additional purchase obligation in a commercial tasting room, but that special appointments or requests will convey more of an obligation on my part to express my appreciation through a purchase of 2-6 bottles, absent a total washout on my enjoying the wines or a bad hospitality experience.
As a result, I will think twice before asking for an appointment or private tasting to situations where I have experience or a likelihood of appreciating the wines based on related experiences. I likely will focus on the more commercial tasting rooms for a while until I get broader experience and taste more wines.
I’m in a very similar position of the OP - i.e. making second trip to Napa but this time doing some tastings at smaller vineyards…There is some good discussion in this thread. My thoughts on purchasing are pretty much aligned with the 1-2-3 approach quoted below, but I’d add that even at the small, personal tastings I do not feel obligated to buy if there is a tasting fee that is not waived with purchase (or requires purchasing something like a case to waive the fee). In that case, I feel more aligned with option #1 - you paid a fee and thus feel no obligation to purchase, regardless of winery size.
Another thing I am curious about is purchasing quantity…I will most likely buy 3-4 bottles at a winery on most stops, but I do not plan on walking in anywhere and signing up for a case or more. Is that level of purchasing expected/proper at the small wineries? Or is purchasing a couple bottles to take home and taste (like my plan) more common?
I’ve been on both sides of the counter. As a visitor to a winery that I don’t really know, I prefer an up-front fee and no obligation. On a visit to a smaller, reputed producer, I’d be going with the intention to buy, not just to taste.
However, it’s more about the spend than the number of bottles. I know there are lots of “boutique” producers who don’t have anything under $75 for sale. So one bottle makes them $70. So when you say a couple of bottles, how much does that mean spending?
From the perspective of a small producer, it is pretty disheartening when visitors come to have an in-depth look-around, take up lots of your time with questions and then walk off with a token bottle of one of your cheaper wines and a “We wish you all the success in the world”.
I also think there is a different philosophy between wineries on the “wine trail” which have an endless stream of visitors, over-priced wines and other stuff to sell versus a artisanal producer off the beaten track who is more focused on making good wines and selling through the trade.
We do vineyard tours and tastings by appointment only. If you are a regular customer we have no expectation of selling wine since you are already supporting us. As a practical matter, regular customer who make an appointment always buy some wine. For folks who are not customers and spend an hour or so on our vineyard tour and tasting with us, our expectation is $100/couple. It is really annoying when some folks only buy one bottle of our Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
That’s an interesting figure Stephen.
One of the problems we have here in Southern France is that the culture of winery visits is very different to America. The locals don’t visit wineries for a look around. They visit because they are looking for wine to buy, and I mean at least a case, often several cases. If you advertise a tasting fee, they would see that as a turn-off. Also wineries sell wine at pretty reasonable prices.
So there is a mismatch of expectations with visitors, notably Americans, who expect to either pay an entry fee or see some boutique wines at 50€ or more that they can buy without looking mean.
The big question is of course how to handle this mismatch without having different pricing schemes for different visitors.
Interesting thoughts. I cannot do a tour and tasting in under an hour, usually it is closer to 2 hours as I tend to enjoy the conversations and visits. I open and taste at least 4-5 wines. I always serve some sort of tapa, chips, almonds, or other aperitifs. If people are really interested in seeing the vineyards I will take up to 4 people in our SUV up and show them around. Our hope is that they pack the trunk full, but most of the time their purchase is dependent on if they are flying in visiting the area, how long they are staying and if they’ve driven in, how hot is it outside. Fliers come in from the UK via Ryan Air in which you pay extra for everything, drivers may buy some to take home, but often are traveling to other places and plan to drink as the have their trip. We’re not on any recognized wine route and are a very small estate. Our tours and tasting is under 10 euros. If someone buys a case, I usually wave the tasting fee.
I’m very fortunate to have had plenty of those exceptional experiences that D is looking for (but only in Napa and Sonoma) and I do not recall a single occasion when the notion of purchasing wine ever came up during the visit.
I have been on a number of personal tours and, at least for Napa, many of the boutique wine makers are extremely friendly and willing to spend time with you. I plan my trips in advance and take the time to invest in some of the wines that I know I will be tasting (usually different vintages). With that said, I generally make a purchase but I know I am buying a wine I enjoy. If I find I don’t like the wine I tried before going, I cancel the tasting and do something else.
There’s a new initiative that I’m joining in 2014 called ShipItHome. The idea is that wineries who get a certain number of American visitors can hold wine in the USA and have it sent to the customer in most states for a total cost of around $80 per 12. I think that’s pretty reasonable but it will be interesting to see how many visitors take up the offer.
Jon, is $80 the shipping cost that would be charged to the buyer? From a consumer standpoint I consider that pretty high, although depending on the price of the wines might not end up being that much of a hit if $6.67/bottle isn’t a large percentage of the purchase price.
This in an interesting topic since we are going to Napa in two weeks. On our trips to Walla Walla and Paso Robles, we made appointments at places we knew we were likely to buy and dropped in a few other places as we passed by. We bought at least two bottles at each place we had an appointment, usually more like six though. This was partly due to the time they spent with us but more because based on the reviews we had read, we figured we would like the wines. The places we dropped in on we usually just paid the tasting fee and moved on. I think we bought wine at roughly one of six.
On this trip I expect to buy wine at each of the seven wineries we will go to. Some places may be just two bottles but I know at least two places will be six to nine. More if my wife will allow it.
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