Are all wineries open to the public a wine destination?

Are all wineries open to the public a wine destination?

Obviously not. To attract tourists the winery must be a star or it must be in an area where there are already many tourists

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini creator of Cantine aperte-Wine day

The second situation is much easier than the first

It’s worthwhile explaining that tourism moves towards areas which have three characteristics: they must be different, well known, and organized.

The diversity is the most important element, nobody goes on a trip to visit a city, a restaurant or for entertainment the same as many others. For it to be worthwhile it must be unique and to be perceived as such it must be known and desired by many people. This is what communication is for, while organization regards two business aspect: the sales network, which makes the place accessible and the offer of products and services which make up tourism consumption.

To build a destination with these characteristics is very difficult for one sole winery. The Lungarotti family in Torgiano managed to do it, but in another period, in a beautiful area, with great investments and, also thanks to Mrs Maria Grazia’s refined culture, have they succeeded in creating the most beautiful wine museum in the world. To duplicate this is surely hard to do.

The level to be reached to get visibility gets higher constantly also because of the growth in the tourism market. To understand this it is sufficient to read the data: travelers are now more than 1 billion every year and they increase at a rate of  5%, this means that every 12 months there are 43 million tourists more.

So, in 1950 there were in the world over only 25 million tourists. In a market that has reached the present dimension. Those who are alone, apart for some rare exceptions, becomes invisible. This is why I like to repeat the phrase “tourism is a team game”, in other words it is possible to reach success in a wider context with respect to  single winery. You need an extraordinary wine, a region that is intact and an offer network that is consistent made up of landscape, wineries, history, art, traditions, local dishes ……

Based on all these considerations it seems evident that it is very easy and less expensive to concentrate on the regions where this network already exists and the tourism fluxes have a certain consitency even though it means that the initial investment will be higher than in regions where visitors are scarcer.

This has been even more evident during the last few years, since the number of beautiful wineries open to the public has grown enormously  and consequently the necessary investment has grown to create something stunning, to attract attention and visitors.

This consideration is valid for both tourism and wine-tourism fluxes because visitors can belong to both. In other words if we had the possibility to move the same winery with its underground cellars full of barrels to Bagno Vignoni rather than in the nearby land of Brunello we would discover that it would have exactly the same possibility of success in both situations. Obviously with different approaches: concentrating on luxury in the first situation and excellent wine making in the second.

We will continue on this subject in a couple of days, analyzing the tourism potential of wineries.