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”.
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