Went to Joseph Phelps last month. $250 in total for my wife and I to taste 5 wines. One of which was the Napa Valley Cabernet which was $100 and routinely $65 at Costco. Seemed way over the top expensive for a quazi boring tasting with meh wines, especially for the tasting fee. We didn’t buy any wine. I felt bad for the host, but the wines weren’t great, were very expensive and some are at Costco for 35% less than the tasting room.
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Historically, Tasting fees have been a loss leader in order to get people to try wines. Now they have become a separate profit center and there in lies a huge problem for industry in my honest opinion.
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Totally agree Larry. I get that tasting fees are more complicated than they may seem at first glance, too. $40 - $50 discourages the crowd that just wants to hit up a bunch of tasting rooms to get hammered and probably isn’t buying many bottles. But that price level may also discourage people who are genuinely interested in trying new stuff from a winery that perhaps they haven’t heard of.
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We credit back probably 90+% of our tasting fees. The lion’s share of tasting fees we actually keep are the Group of 10 or some such thing. Not too many people don’t meet our minimum to have it waived (or are club members and don’t pay it anyway).
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I’d be curious as how Q1 compares to 2019. 2020+2021 was shut down, 2022 was crazy busy with domestic travel, so not entirely surprised to see a drop in 2023 vs 2022.
I am CERTAINLY more picky now about the tastings/experiences I do vs 5 years ago and primarily it’s cost/expectation driven. When it was free or inexpensive for a tasting, I was happy to stop in a tasting room on a whim where the wine may or may not be to my pallette and the person may or may not be the most knowledgeable about wine or the winery. It’s a fun way to explore new wines. Now that tastings are $50 to $200+ my expectations are completely flipped. I’m expecting better made wine, educated and friendly staff and a great overall experience. I’m also willing to taste at less wineries per day now than I was previously. For that reason I’m much more prepared and organized for ALL my tastings, not just one or two key ones per trip.
So in short:
1- Not surprising to see demand to the local areas drop in 23
2- I’m tasting less per day/trip due to the increased tasting costs and am much more selective
3- This is an expensive hobby, and there’s a recession looming.
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Isn’t handing over $$$$ an experience in itself? 
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Tablas Creek, whose blog post was linked in the first post, provides a very good tasting room experience. They are currently by appointment only (indoors and outdoors options), with somewhat limited capacity, started because of Covid. Their tasting fee is $25 per person, free if you’re in one of their clubs, waived with a two bottle purchase (and their wines mostly don’t have high prices). Very well-trained and knowledgeable staff, as well.
I suspect they do not recover the cost of running the tasting room through the fees. But, I think they view it as customer engagement more than a revenue center. I think a number of first time visitors buy some wine and a good percentage probably join one of their clubs, and also think there are a number of club members who taste for free. I do when I’m in town because it’s an opportunity to taste through wines I haven’t tried (it’s the only wine club I’m in).
They do need to pay the staff and for the wine they pour (some of the cellar workers take shifts in the the tasting room). Any fee revenue helps defray those costs and it’s probably partly crowd control to filter out people looking more for a buzz than wines to buy. But, it’s not a profit generator unless in leads to further customer engagement and purchases/club members.
-Al
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Given the declining interest in wine among younger folks, having this price point is short sighted.
My young relatives complain, they used to love going to Napa, now they don’t. And they buy more Spanish wines than Napa.
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Reading the blog post again, I think it appropriately highlights the points that (a) the timeframe is Jan-Mar, not exactly tourist high season, (b) CA was unusually rainy this year during that period, and (c) 2022 was still in the wake of the post-COVID spike in travel. In other words, it’s not great data to predict an actual trend, and we should see how it plays out thru the summer.
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Yes, I don’t think Jan-Mar is terribly indicative of long term trend.
Napa is a special case, it’s received way too much traffic for 30 years, I haven’t gone to a public tasting in maybe 20-25 years. They have to charge huge fees to not be overrun, and the wine prices have climbed to very high levels.
Temecula may also be a special case for somewhat different reasons.
Paso, SBC, Lodi, Sierra Foothills it’s a different ball game except at very large wineries. It’s about building clientele and keeping relationships “sticky”. I don’t know Larry’s tasting room policy, but I’d imagine he has a fee just because he’s in an area with a lot of tasting rooms within walking distance, and they probably all need to have modest fees or they would get all the freebie traffic.
-Al
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This is what I was thinking. Anecdotally, 2022 was like the flood gates opened and people came out in numbers. There’s an annual Santa Cruz Mountains event this weekend with dozens of wineries. Last year, it was literally the first big event many of us attended and “everybody” went. This year, to my knowledge, none of my locals friends are going (other than participants). It was looking like just the same wineries pouring (but some new ones were added very last minute), so I heard a “been there, done that” sentiment.
Anyway, there’s no way you can give 2022 numbers a normal level of credibility. The smart approach would be to assume they were inflated.
As far as the effect of gloomy weather, how much is loss and how much is deferred?
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In the last couple of years people had excess money and excess time. Now many have less of each.
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So within the sea of high fees and luxury experiences, there are still tasting rooms which charge modest fees just to taste the wines. @larry_schaffer ’s is an example of this. Even in places like Napa, Paso and Sonoma, these still exist, I think.
How do those tasting rooms fare? I know there are other variables at play (eg more expensive wineries are probably more likely to charge high fees), but do the un-fancy ones find their audience? Are they overburdened by drunks, cheapskates and undesirables (the avoidance of them being one of the chief rationalizations for high fees)?
Is there a positive opportunity out there to be a place that makes good wines and offers old-school tasting fees to walk-ins, in the midst of all the high prices and fanciness?
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Perhaps. But if the perception of a wine tourism region is that it is now more expensive than going drinking in their local beach town to the average consumer then all the wineries will lose. People will just skip wine tourism. People for the most part will not go shopping for tasting fees. That’s an enormous waste of time and not fun.
That being said, I’m with those that say one year’s worth of data is not a trend. Especially coming out of the pandemic and all of its various effects on the economy.
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Assuming the commentary on drunks is tongue in cheek, but anecdotally I’ve seen more drunks at expensive “experiences” than at low rent good wine tastings. They are just drunks with hired drivers and more money. At least us more modest degenerates have to spit here and there since we have to drive ourselves.
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How are things in Washington these days? My last visit to Walla Walla was four years ago. You could simply walk into a tasting room, put down ten dollars, chat for a half hour, rinse and repeat throughout the day. In short, exactly what it should have been.
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This makes me think……when I was in my 20’s, on a trip to Santa Barbara, it was recommended that we go to wineries. We drove north and did a winery tour on Foxen Canyon Rd. This was the late 90’s and the wineries either charged nothing or $5 which included a glass. And the wines were all $5 to $15 from what I remember. I was immediately hooked.
Now if the tasting rooms all charged $20+ and the wines were all $35-$100, we probably would have never gone as that’s too much for what we were making at the time and maybe I’d still be a beer drinker. Hence why the younger generation has less wine interest.
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On our trip to Napa we started slitting a single tasting. Mainly to cut down on the costs and alcohol consumption. Although with the lower intake of wine we visited more wineries on some days. I would say the average fees ranged from $40 to $50. We’re not sure we’ll ever go back to Napa.
On a trip to Paso in 2021 we did the same sharing after making sure it was OK with the winery. We avoided “experiences” that were too pricey, too long, or involved a vineyard tour. I despise vineyard tours: “This is a vineyard, these are vines, look at the grapes.” Boring.
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cut the price to something reasonable
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What would you say constitutes an ideal tasting room visit? Some people want the boilerplate lecture. Some are only satisfied in talking to a winemaker or grower. Some people want the cellar tour. Some want to see the vines. Some want a bottle and a picnic table. Some want to be left alone with the wines.