The second session of the Wine Tourism Conference was started by Steven S. Cuellar, Ph.D. Department of Economics, Sonoma State University. Dr. Cuellar wanted to discover if there was a difference in direct to consumer sales between high trafficked tasting rooms and those that experienced low traffic. He studied two wine regions. The high traffic area in Sonoma County was along Rt 12. The low traffic area in Sonoma County included wineries in the Dry Creek Area. While in Napa, high traffic tasting rooms included those along Rt 29 while low traffic areas included wineries along the Silverado Trail.

Data presented indicated that wineries along the high traffic area of Rt 12 in Sonoma had greater sales than wineries in the low traffic areas. However the results were different in Napa. Wineries along the Silverado Trail in Napa had higher sales than high traffic wineries along Rt 29.

In the discussion Dr. Cuellar wondered if a high traffic winery could experience too much traffic. This may account for the lower sales of wineries along Rt 29.

Future studies need to be done looking at return on investment. It does seem that up to a point, the more visitors to a tasting room the better. A winery with 1000 visitors a year would find challenges selling wine. On the other hand a winery with 400,000 visitors may also find challenges selling wine. How does a tasting room create a memorable experience for the visitor so that the visitor will buy the wine and continue to buy the wine. This experience is difficult to provide if there are too many visitors to a winery tasting room.

Cheers,
Terry