Beaches in Ventura county have been “open” for a week or more now. However, “open” means no sitting on the beach - you can walk, jog, run, swim - just no standing still. But hey, it’s a start. I understand San Diego county is similar.
Perhaps a better way to phrase it: When will patrons be comfortable/willing to go? If tasting rooms are open, but people don’t go, it’s a moot point.
Unfortunately, many people would go to tasting rooms if they were open starting today. I think what we see with the beaches is a good indication.
I agree that tasting rooms should be about the last thing opened. You have people traveling from all over, put into a situation where close socializing is the norm and the habit, and with inhibitions loosened by alcohol.
Perhaps sooner, pick-ups of wine from wineries will be allowed, with no tasting or hanging around. It is not inconceivable that some wineries could put together sample packs.
An Oregon reopening is likely to be in phases with restaurants and tasting rooms in more rural parts of the state allowed to open sooner than those in more densely populated areas.
There will be a “new normal” in terms of how people operate.
The Oregon rules under consideration include a variety of cleaning mandates, social distancing and density control. Mask requirements and detailed contact tracing are being discussed.
The state mandates will be a minimum standard; many restaurants and wineries will go beyond them to keep themselves, their employees and visitors as safe as possible. I know at Walter Scott, we will.
The situation is very fluid but current talk is that wineries in the Rogue and Umpqua Valleys and the Columbia Gorge may be allowed to resume tastings, under structured guidelines, in mid/late May with the Willamette Valley following sometime in June.
Operating like bars and playing to a high volume of alcoholic tourists is not being innovative. It’s not a first step solution.
The early reality will be travel restrictions and wineries’ limited capacity to safely execute. That should mean, for many, absolutely no need to attract non-local customers to operate at capacity. They’d then be structuring to appeal to and bring in higher volume purchasers.
Sit down appointments mean you can clean the station, set out a flight, and then direct the customers to their wines. Printed material to make it all clear and provide info about the wines. Pay when you schedule. Easy ordering and paying for purchases via smart phone. Purchases brought to your trunk and loaded for you after you’re in your car ready to leave. All designed so customers stay a safe distance from other groups and employees.
I feel like you should be able to do private tastings by appointment, which is what I preferred before, and the wines can be poured prior to the tasting and the host can be 10 or feet away. Clean before tastings and space them out enough. Sounds fairly low risk.
I can’t really tell if your post was answering mine since you quoted me yet seem to disagree yet agree or something…
In any case, what you suggest has been done all along. Private tastings for high volume buyers are always available as far as I’ve known.
The issue of course is that tasting rooms don’t make as much money this way. And most people don’t see going to wine country in these terms. People want to go “tasting”(i.e. drinking) by dropping in places and paying for some sips. Of course they’ll also make some purchases along the way, have lunch, etc.
To keep wine country tasting rooms going you need a solution that can cater to that crowd in times of pandemic recovery. Like I described above, I don’t think it’s very difficult. As Andy described folks are already working on it. It’s just going to have to be a less casual than the ‘step up and let us pour you a glass from this open bottle’ experience most are accustomed to.
My guess is sooner than later.
Robert
The CA ABC has already issued new rules allowing this. The challenge is to actually make this happen and maintain the integrity of the wines in a cost effective manner. What would you pay for 5 100ml test tubes of wine along with the possibility of a live zoom tasting with the winemaker?
Cheers
Have you read the book ‘If You Give A Mouse a Cookie’? ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
The problem is that any loosening of the rules brings up the capability of many to ‘read into this’ and do things that they consider ‘private’ even though they are not. We already saw this with the first round of ‘thou shalt not pour’ and the state and ABC came down with stricter regulations.
Now at the end of the day, are some wineries privately continuing to do this out of the public eye? My guess is yes . . . but I certainly would not condone it.
Cheers
“Just send us your credit card number along with your shipping address and we’ll send one of our Reserve Buzzkill tasting kits right on out!”
Agree with this, and maybe this is how things should be done the rest of the year? I’m your wine tasting type that enjoys getting to taste small amounts of a variety of wine and usually buy 3-12 bottles anyway, so I’m thinking this would still be profitable for the wineries? I’d have to think those wine tasters that treat it more like happy hour (which I do in some respects since I enjoy the scenery) but don’t buy much wine are not as profitable for the wineries anyway?
There’s going to be a break even point where the tasting fees of those who taste, but don’t buy cover the cost of the wines, pourer wages and other expenses. It depends on a wineries business model if they gain, lose or break even on those particular visitors, while others are buying and possibly joining a club. That model can fail if the number of buyers drops. The happy hour crowd isn’t going to cover the fixed expenses at many places. Wineries will need to be smart in figuring out how to reopen. Will being open to the general public scare away more serious buyers? Will more people who don’t have the budget to buy be on the lookout for a cheap excursion?
That’s cool, I’d pay a fair price for a tasting kit, though A crazy markup would scare me off. Obviously the winery would want to have multiple orders to ship out at the same time so there is no waste. We know it can be done because friends on the board have been sending high end wine to each other.
In reality it’s probably a job for a third party company who buys at wholesale and sets up slots from certain wineries? When the correct number of orders are in the wine ships.
I personally Wouldn’t do the Zoom so if that’s built in as a fee on top of wine costs, then it would work against me purchasing
I appreciate the response! What about a model where you sell a bottle of wine and they are able to open it and drink on site, and perhaps buy more? Is that too close to a full blown wine tasting?
yea totally. tasting rooms don’t wash glassware after one person drinks from it and then they just reuse them for someone else. just like restaurants don’t wash silver. same concept.
If you’re inside doing that, you’re likely taking space, preventing other customers coming in. But, plenty of wineries have picnic areas, and some are naturally spread out. Most should be able to allow that. That’s more an amenity that can appeal to a certain proportion of potential visitors. I’ve been places that had pretty spread out outdoor seating areas, and there are good efficient ways of bringing out flights, like multi-glass carrying racks, so some places could handle a pretty good volume of customers safely.
Been over this topic a LOT. We’ve always been by appointment and low density give our relative ability to host people. Here is the issue.
The bathroom. We have 1 that was guest dedicated, 1 for employees and 1 that was sort of there on as need basis. You know what public bathrooms are like. Even in by appointment TRs. That’s the vector and how you deal with it is important. I have no idea how they think restaurants can open up and practice social distancing when people have to piss and shit in the same place. We could do it given our situation but we’re a weird place.
We were talking about the same concept last night. Why not have small samples, for a modest tasting fee, sent out? Then, make available a YouTube virtual tasting. If people choose to order, deduct the original sample cost with a minimum purchase. Rather like when we visited tasting rooms. 2 or so bottles usually waived the fee. If not, we wouldn’t have been in that tasting room in the first place.
Of course legal issues have to be addressed. But even the takeout places are now able to sell pick-up wine and beer via a “relaxing” of the rules. Possibilities…
Could be a short-term solution, and then who knows? ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Has the traffic on 29 gotten any better? or is it still wretchedly slow moving