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MARKETING 9. Wine selection A very important area to consider is the selection of wines you pour and how you pour them. First, try to have a mix of wines that will appeal to your customers. America talks dry but drinks slightly sweet. Try to have one wine that fits that category (such as a 1%-2% residual Riesling,) but make sure that you also have a Chardonnay, Cabernet or other high-end varietals for the more knowledgeable crowd. Cater to more informed guests by open- ing something special, or pour a taste of something not normally tasted that was left over with a trade buyer that morning. It's good to be generous with the number of wines you pour, but don't overdo it. Six to eight different wines is the limit to what most people can remember. Change your mix of wine to reflect the seasonal changes in the type of visitor who comes to your winery. The June-through- August crowd can be different in wine appreciation and selection from the crush crowd—which can also differ from the January- through-March visitors. That's why it's critical that the man- You are serving an alcoholic beverage, so your staff needs to have training on how to deal with intoxicated and possibly obnoxious behavior. products and join wine clubs at a higher rate. I recommend that you use a three-tiered system for tours: a. Provide a 15-minute mini-tour. You condense the half-hour tour by bypassing crushing and fermenting and focus on grape- vines and barrel aging. If you don't have vines nearby, plant one in a barrel by your visitors center. We're jaded, but for a lot of visitors actually seeing a Chardonnay vine is really fun. Some tour guides will balk at doing the mini-tour, saying, "I can't condense my tour." I find that unacceptable. I'm just asking you to focus on viticulture and barrel aging instead of the usual half-hour tour. The great advantage of the mini-tour is that it can usually Create 15- and 30-minute tours that staff can give to winery visitors on demand. Reserve one-hour tours for appointments only. ager spend time on the floor, so that he or she can assess these changes as they happen and vary the mix of wines accordingly. 10. Responsible service You are serving an alcoholic beverage, so your staff needs to have training on how to deal with intoxicated and possibly ob- noxious behavior. In many cases, your state ABC will be happy to offer your staff a meeting on this topic. 11. Tours The most under-rated part of the visitors center is the tour operation. In essence, you have visitors saying, "I'm willing to give you 30 minutes of my precious vacation or weekend time to listen to your story, your infomercial." Many wineries respond: "No, we don't do tours," or, "We only offer tours at 11 and 3," or, "All we have is our in-depth one- hour tour." Other industries would love to have this direct interaction with the consumer, and yet we frequently turn them down or force them into schedules made for our convenience—not theirs—de- spite the fact that those who go on tours traditionally buy more 80 Wines & Vines MAY 2012 be given at the drop of a hat. People are genuinely impressed when they ask about a tour and you say: "I can give you a tour right now." Remember, the staff member will only be off the floor for 15 minutes. Keep in mind that this technique requires that you have adequate staff. I frequently find tasting rooms understaffed, which is bad for sales and bad for the PR element of your facility. Also, when your tasting room is overcrowded, the mini-tour is a wonderful safety valve: 30%-50% of the people in the room will go if it is described in an engaging fashion. I've trained wineries that only have a staff of two to do the mini-tour, and it does work. b. Offer a half-hour tour as often as possible. A 30-minute tour gives a more complete view of your winery and its techniques. Also, it is about all the average visitor is ready for. c. Give in-depth tours by appointment only. These tours can vary from one to three hours and include food and wine pairing as well. One note of caution: Don't pad the in-depth tour with trivia to make it last longer. Keep in mind the idea with any of these three types of tours is to follow the old adage about any art form: It both entertains and enlightens. One excellent way to achieve this goal is to pepper your tour with analogies. Compare these two statements: "Barrel aging adds flavor to the wine," and "Barrel aging is kind of like using a cinnamon stick: It's a piece of wood, but it adds flavor to your hot chocolate. Well, it's the same with the oak barrel." Which statement is more easily grasped by the novice wine drinker? Overall, don't forget to pay attention to your tours. They are one of the most important ways to relate to the consumer. Plus, they increase sales. There are many methods by which I doubled the sales as the manager of the Beaulieu Vineyard tasting room and increased business by 70% at Trefethen. In both cases, the tour was one of the keys to these increases. Never forget the incredible PR value of your tasting room. You are not just selling wine; you are selling memories. Craig Root has more than 30 years of experience working with tasting rooms, having created more than 60 tasting rooms and 100 wine clubs throughout the U.S. and Canada. Root teaches and lectures in tasting room design and management at the University of California, Davis. Reach him through craigroot.com. honIG