Has the Tasting Room Lost Its Way?

I'm old enough to remember when the tasting room was a plank across a couple of barrels in a corner of the actual winery. You walked in, got a small, cheap excuse for a wine glass, the tasting list was on a chalkboard on the wall, and you tasted while standing at the bar. You either purchased or you didn't, but you went on your merry way after a half hour, no charge. The purpose, like the tasting room, was simple, to introduce you to their wines and hope to make you a customer.

Things have changed. It's not everywhere, but the Disneyland style is spreading.

Tasting rooms: Iron Horse (L), Joseph Phelps (R)

The modern tasting room/saloon/experience is some part bar, coffee shop, activities center, entertainment center, maybe restaurant, and most of all a sales room for wine and club memberships.

Visitors want:

• to sit and be waited on
• have a nice printed menu for wines and bites
• have a great view of hills and vineyards
• be able to lounge around and soak up that wine country atmosphere
• a guy on a guitar singing some old Crosby, Stills, and Nash
• have something to entertain their children, assuming they're allowed
• play some bocce ball afterward with a glass of wine 
• be open late as a wine bar

Are you still wondering why wine tasting isn't ten bucks anymore?

Wineries want: 

• to sell you a bunch of wine
• to sell you a wine club membership so you'll buy more wine

They are willing to keep you there for a while to make this happen. It's all about the experience, damn the wine (sometimes). There are plenty of overhead expenses for training a staff to sell wine, to build that nice tasting room and the bocce court, to be able to ship your wine home for you, and to have food available. 

You know who's paying for all that, right?

Rather than getting people in to introduce them to your wine, the tasting room has now become a profit center.

Every winery wants something new, something different to entice you. This something is not wine, it's the experience. It's an arms race to see who can entertain you well enough so you'll surrender your credit card. Something new can be exciting. It's also kind of depressing that it's not about the wine anymore. Should there be a shift back to the actual product? Or will the Disneyland effect continue? You'd think it would be about wine appreciation.