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W i n e s & V i n e s M AY 2 0 1 4 67 The fourth tour is the off-road tour, where the guests are transported in an off-road vehicle to a remote or difficult- to-access part of your property. I recently did a proj- ect for Newton Vineyards in which they instituted a great off-road expe- rience (in addition to their regular tour). Visitors pay $85 to board a Pinzgauer off-road military vehicle that has six wheels and can hold up to 12 passengers. Guests are driven on a 15-minute ride up the mountain to a deck with a breathtak- ing view of the Napa Valley. The tour guide conducts a 20-minute stand-up tasting and photo opportunity. Guests are then transported back to the tasting room for a short, sit-down tasting. As part of my work for Newton, I went on the tour anonymously. When guests were leaving, I explained what I was doing and then polled them about the quality of the experience. The satisfaction rate was extremely high, and I noticed that sales and club sign-ups after the sit-down tast- ing were very brisk. Another impor- tant tour is the trade tour. I covered this type in "Profit- ing From Trade Vis- itors" in the May 2013 issue of Wines & Vines. Do's and don'ts for giving tours If you're doing off- road tours, be sure to have in-depth training for the tour guides. As part of the Newton project, I did comparables of other off-road tours. In some cases (Chappellet and Newton), the train- ing was rigorous. In others, it was negligent: "They let me drive the off-road vehicle by myself for a couple of hours, and I was good to go." This lack of preparation leads to acci- dents, which have occurred. Try and keep your tour sequential Introducing our Volclay® Bentonite clarif ication and purif ication products. • KNK: Krystal Klear • KNK: Food grade Extensively used to prevent cloudiness while removing heat-sensitive proteins. 847-476-0769 www.colloid.com/clear Used by the world's leading wine makers! Cloudiness removal performance WineGlass-greyscale-1 1 11/14/12 9:27 PM Hikers at Kunde Family Estate climb from the valley floor up to 1,400 feet elevation. S A L E S & M A R K E T I N G