Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 32:534–553, 2015

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

ISSN: 1054-8408 print / 1540-7306 online
DOI: 10.1080/10548408.2014.918925

EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING AND LONG-TERM

SALES
Steven S. Cuellar
Robert C. Eyler
Rich Fanti

ABSTRACT. This study investigates the ability of winery tasting rooms to create brand awareness
and build long-term brand loyalty. Specifically, we test the conjecture that if tasting rooms create brand
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015

awareness and a pleasurable tasting room experience, then those visitors are more likely to recognize
and seek out those brands once they leave the tasting room. To measure these effects, we exploit
differences in tasting room characteristics to conduct a series of natural experiments from which we
analyze differences in off-premise retail sales away from the tasting room. We use scan data on wine
sold off-premise through traditional retail outlets to then test for differences among tasting room
characteristics. Our results indicate that tasting rooms act as a form of experiential marketing for
wineries, creating brand awareness and generating greater growth in off-premise retail sales. Finally,
we address issues of endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity as potential sources of bias.

KEYWORDS. Pooled cross section time series analysis, quasi-experiments;brand effects, Tasting
rooms

1. INTRODUCTION sales opportunity, bypassing distributors and tra-

Tasting rooms provide wineries a unique
opportunity to accomplish several goals.
Strategically placed tasting rooms generate
opportunities to increase winery brand exposure
and create brand awareness. Additionally, by
allowing patrons to sample wines without pur-
chasing, tasting rooms also allow wineries to
overcome the problem of asymmetric informa-
tion in quality (Akerlof, 1970). Tasting rooms
also act as on-site, direct-to-consumer retail
sales outlets. This role is especially attractive
since direct-to-consumer sales through tasting
rooms provide wineries with a high-margin
ditional off-premise retail outlets such as grocery
and liquor stores. Tasting rooms also provide a
contact point from which to solicit wine club
memberships, another long-term, high-margin
direct-to-consumer sales opportunity. Finally,
tasting rooms act as a form of experiential mar-
keting in which wineries can shape the brand’s
image through the tasting room experience. In
this context, the goal of the winery is to convert
tasting room patrons into long-term, repeat cus-
tomers who purchase wines away from the tast-
ing room at retail outlets.
The role of the tasting room experience in
terms of brand marketing is confounded by

Steven S. Cuellar, Ph.D., Department of Economics, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CAUSA,
Phone (707) 664–2305, Fax (707) 664–4009, Steve. (E-mail: Cuellar@Sonoma.edu).
Robert C. Eyler, Ph.D., Department of Economics, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CAUSA,
(707) 664–4256. (E-mail: Eyler@Sonoma.edu).
Rich Fanti, Sonoma Research Associates, Glen Ellen, CAUSA, Richie. (E-mail: Fanti@gmail.com).
Address correspondence to: Steven S. Cuellar, PhD., at the above address.
534
 Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti
tasting room workers’ incentives to sell at the
winery. As brand ambassadors, tasting room
workers are tasked with dual roles. On one
hand, they must create a pleasant and informa-
tive wine-tasting experience. On the other hand,
as sales people often incentivized through com-
missions, tasting room workers must also sell
wine and increase club memberships. Although
a similar conflict exists in many retail outlets, it
is especially contentious in winery tasting
rooms where visits to wineries and wine tour-
ism in general are as much about the “wine
country experience” as about the wine (Beteta,
2011). The wineries’ ability to balance these
dual roles ultimately determines the success of
tasting rooms and to some extent the brand.
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
While there is no question that tasting rooms
provide a high margin, direct-to-consumer sales
opportunity, the ability to create brand aware-
ness and brand loyalty resulting in long-term,
repeat customers from tasting room activity has
not been empirically established.
It is here that we turn our attention by
answering two questions: First, are tasting
rooms an effective means of increasing on a
winery’s long-term off-premise sales away
from the tasting room? Second, if tasting
rooms are effective in promoting long-term
retail sales, what type of tasting rooms are
most effective? The paper proceeds as follows:
Section 2 provides a review of the related lit-
erature, while Section 3 discusses the data used
as well as our sample areas. Section 4 presents
our empirical analysis, Section 5 summarizes
our results and Section 6 discusses the short-
comings of the study as well as suggestions of
future research.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Experience goods constitute a large portion of
the retail market. As a result, issues that character-
ise experience goods such as asymmetric informa-
tion (Akerlof, 1970; Nelson, 1970) and how firms
resolve this asymmetry through the use of price
and advertising (Milgrom & Roberts, 1986;
Nelson, 1974), warranties (Grossman, 1981) and
expert opinion (Cuellar & Claps, 2013;
Eliashberg & Shugan, 1997; Reinstein &
535
Snyder, 2005) have been widely covered.
Perhaps the most obvious means of overcoming
information asymmetries of experience goods is
through sampling. Sampling not only allows con-
sumers to discern quality, it also serves as a means
of increasing brand exposure and awareness
(Freedman, 1986; Heilman, Lakishyk, & Radas,
2011; McGuinness, Bernnan, & Gendall, 1995;
McGuinness, Gendall, & Mathew, 1992; Meyer,
1982). While the use of sampling has been exam-
ined for a variety of products, we are unaware of
any similar studies of winery tasting rooms.
In addition to allowing visitors the opportunity
to sample its wines, tasting rooms provide an
opportunity for a winery to shape the brands’
image through the tasting room experience.
While Keller and Lehmann (2006) provide an
excellent review of brands and branding, shaping
brand image through the tasting room experience
falls under the broader rubric of experiential mar-
keting (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982; Schmitt,
1999; Senthil, Chandrasekar, & Selvabaskar,
2012; Terblanche & Boshoff, 2006) which has
recently seen a significant increase in use (Clark,
2012). Perhaps the highest profile example is that
of the Apple store, whose success was soon fol-
lowed by other technology firms Microsoft and
Dell (Duncan, 2012). Best Buy’s decision to
reduce store size and create more of a “show-
room” atmosphere where consumers can come
in and experience products but purchase online,
or elsewhere, is another example (Bustillo, 2012).
Tourism and experiential marketing are
tightly linked. Diesbach (2012) suggests that
persuasion and place are linked and that the
use of icons (brands) and place link that place
to the consumer as a way to cognitively connect
for future trips with the visitor acting as a desti-
nation (brand) ambassador to others. Because
tasting rooms are destinations and themselves
tourism points of interest, the winery can use
this mix of experience, geography, and brand
icons as ways to market sales in the tasting
room and later (repeat consumers).
Clarkson, Janiszewski, and Cinelli (2013)
provide experiments for consumers that are
seeking breadth and depth knowledge as con-
sumers. The wine industry uses tasting rooms to
provide both experiences, and attract consumers
to reserve tastings as “depth” versus the general
 536 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING
tasting room which provides more breadth. In
specific, the experience provides a tie to future
consumption. Clarkson et al. (2013) mentions
wine tasting indirectly as a way to consider such
experiences.
“For example, prior experience with a
diversity of food flavors, as opposed to a
single food flavor, should allow a person
to better appreciate the flavors of foods
that are eaten on future occasions.
Similar claims can be made about the con-
sumption of any experiential good that is
frequent, varied, and subjectively appre-
ciated (e.g., wine appreciation, art appre-
ciation, music appreciation).”
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
Bruwer and Alant (2009) discuss the wine
tourist and the role of wine tourism in sales.
They use a hedonic approach, where the plea-
sure-seeking aspect of wine tourism drives vis-
its to winery tasting rooms. From there, the
experiential aspects of the visitor’s time with
the winery may be what drives current and
future sales; the visit experience links the visitor
to the wine brand in a positive way, which
generates more consumption of the brand. As
we discuss below, Bruwer and Alant (2009)
suggests that a more relaxed, less-congested
tasting rooms that require a reservation may
have more ability to generate that positive link
through a deeper experience with the wine
brands, and thus generate more sales in the
retail chain.
In terms of retail experience, Morey (1980)
showed that store atmosphere in terms of service
and attractiveness, were effective at increasing
retail sales. A critical issue in this research, Chu
and Hess (1995) discuss the costs and benefits of
different sales strategies. More recently Arndt
and Karande (2012) note that,
“Salespeople who have a customer orien-
tation—i.e., those who attempt to learn
about and satisfy customer needs—tend
to build stronger customer relationships
than less customer-oriented salespeople.
Those stronger relationships, in turn, lead
to increased repeat sales, word-of-mouth
referrals, and a more desirable brand
image for the selling firm.”
Although this quote refers to automobile sales-
people, we seek to investigate whether tasting
room environment has a similar effect. Namely
whether customer-oriented tasting rooms result
in greater brand loyalty and long-term repeat
sales away from the tasting room than more
sales oriented tasting rooms? To be sure, however,
not everyone is as sanguine about the relationship
between customer-oriented sales strategies and
long-term brand loyalty. See Franke and Park
(2006) for an elaboration on this point.
In the wine industry, there are several
studies that examine tasting rooms in particular.
From a marketing perspective, Bruwer and
Lesschaeve (2012a) examine the sources of infor-
mation used by tourist traveling to Canadian
winery tasting rooms and find that locally based
visitors use different sources of information than
overseas-based travelers to the same region, while
Bruwer and Lesschaeve (2012b) show that the
tasting room experience is important in shaping a
wine destinations image. In a similar vein, Barber,
Donovan, and Dodd (2008) discuss marketing
strategies for wineries based on size and location.
With respect to tasting room strategies,
Nowak and Newton (2006) find that a positive
tasting room experience is more likely to lead to
future sales, while Carmichael (2005) finds that
a positive tasting room experience is a signifi-
cant factor in creating an enjoyable visit to the
Niagara wine region of Canada. O’Neil, Palmer,
and Charters (2002) show that service quality in
a winery tasting room leads to greater tasting
room sales, while O’Neill and Charters (2000)
examine the quality of service at wineries and
find that “responsiveness” of the tasting room
staff is the main service characteristic driving a
pleasant tasting room experience. Related to the
current research, O’Neill and Charters (2000)
note that “[Tasting rooms] are attempting to
achieve loyalty to their brand and not to the
[tasting room].”
Earlier papers by Dodd (1995), and Dodd
and Gustafson (1997) examine what factors
attracted visitors to winery tasting rooms in
Texas, and note that a positive tasting room
 Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti
experience provides an opportunity for wineries
to build brand loyalty, while Dodd (1999)
examines the value of repeat customers to
winery tasting rooms.
The existing research on tasting rooms makes
clear that providing an enjoyable tasting room
experience is important in building brand loy-
alty and generating long-term sales. We add to
the literature by testing this hypothesis. While
virtually all of the studies noted above rely on
survey data of tasting room visitors or profes-
sionals, our research examines actual purchase
data to examine differences in tasting room
atmosphere.
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
3. DATA
To measure the ability of tasting rooms to
create brand awareness and build brand loyalty,
we examine wine sales away from the tasting
room at traditional retail outlets using point-of-
sale scanner data of wine in the USA across
major retail channels: drug stores; food or gro-
cery stores; and liquor stores. Scanner data,
provided by proprietors such as Information
Resources Incorporated (IRI) and the Nielsen
Company (Nielsen), is increasingly becoming
the primary source of data for analytics in con-
sumer packaged goods industries. The data are
readily available at the item or stock-keeping
unit (SKU) level on factors such as price, quan-
tity, promotional activity, and sales channels. In
this paper, we use Nielsen Scantrack data to
construct a pooled, cross section of data on
point-of-sale purchases of wines from major
US retail chains, for the years 2007–2011. The
data consist of national sales of all wines, for-
eign and domestic, purchased from major retail
chain stores, defined as those with sales of over
$2 million US per year. The data are aggregated
for all markets and include the price paid, quan-
tity sold, SKU, and retail channel of each item.
For uniformity, we concentrate on wine pur-
chases of standard, 750 mL glass bottles
(approximately 84% of all purchases) and
exclude boxed wine, and other volume units.
The benefit of scan data is that it represents
actual purchases of wine by consumers and is
thus reflective of consumer demand. The
537
drawback of scan data is that it only records
purchases in major US retail chains and does
not represent wine sold on premise at wineries,
purchases through wine clubs, or purchases at
restaurants. Despite these limitations, the point
of sale scan data works well for our analysis.
4. ANALYSIS
Our first question of interest is whether tast-
ing rooms are effective at creating brand aware-
ness and building brand loyalty. If this is true,
then tasting rooms that experience more visitor
traffic should experience greater retail sales
away from the tasting room than those experi-
encing less tasting room traffic. To test this
hypothesis, we identify tasting rooms open to
the general public in both low and high traffic
wine-tasting corridors in Northern California’s
wine country.
Experiment no.1―Sonoma County,
California
Sonoma County provides a nearly ideal situa-
tion to test the ability of tasting rooms to create
brand awareness and build brand loyalty.
Sonoma County is a popular wine tourism des-
tination with wineries spread out throughout the
county. We used a map of Sonoma County
tasting rooms to identify clusters winery with
tasting rooms open to the public in both high
and low traffic regions based on access to main
highways and proximity to major metropolitan
areas. For Sonoma, the nearest, major metropo-
litan areas are San Francisco to the south and
Sacramento to the east. The high traffic region
we chose is located just outside of the city of
Sonoma along Highway 12 that runs through
Glen Ellen and Kenwood. This area is approxi-
mately 55 miles from San Francisco and 75
miles from Sacramento. Known as the Sonoma
Valley, this is a well-known wine tourism region
with a relatively high concentration of tasting
rooms.
Along this approximately, eight-mile stretch
of Highway 12, we were able to identify eight
wineries that both have tasting rooms and were
 538 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING
captured in the retail scan data set. A list of the
wineries is shown in Appendix Table A1 along
with a map of the tasting rooms in Figure A1.
We refer to this as the Highway 12 corridor.
Within this sample, each winery sells multiple
products resulting in a total sample of approxi-
mately 200 unique wines sold per month over
our sample time frame of 52 months for a total
sample of approximately 11,300 observed wine
sales.
Our control group of low-traffic wineries is
taken from the more distant and remote northern
Sonoma County areas of Dry Creek and
Alexander Valley, located to the west and
north of Healdsburg (North Sonoma). These
areas are approximately 80 miles from San
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
Francisco and 110 miles from Sacramento and
are an additional 30 miles from our high traffic
Highway 12 corridor. We were able to identify
10 wineries in this regions, which we desig-
nated Northern Sonoma, that both have tasting
rooms and sell through the major retail outlets.
Within our North Sonoma region, each winery
sells multiple products resulting in a total sam-
ple of approximately 100 wines sold per month
over 52 months for a total sample of 5099
observed wine sales.
As a second control, we examine retail sales
of a large Sonoma County winery (Gallo
Sonoma) with no tasting room. Gallo Sonoma
would appear to be an ideal control given that
Gallo is one of the largest wineries in the world,
with wide distribution and high brand recogni-
tion. Finally, as a third control group, we exam-
ine the overall sales of all wines (both foreign
and domestic) sold in the USA through the
retail channel.
From the Table 1 summary statistics, you can
see that on average, the wineries in our
Northern Sonoma sample are smaller, in terms
TABLE 1. Summary Statistics For Sonoma Sample
Group Mean Mean Obs Under $10 $10 to Under $20 to under $30 to under Over $40
Cases Price
HWY 12 22,412 $16.97 11,330
North Sonoma 1,630 $21.02 5,099
Gallo Sonoma 210,298 $11.37 3,714
All Wines 13,264 $13.59 1,125,295
of average monthly case volume, and produce
more expensive wines than our Highway 12
corridor wineries. The Highway 12 wines are,
however, more expensive than the Gallo
Sonoma Wines and are more expensive than
all wines on average.
Figure 1 shows indexed growth rates of off-
premise retail sales for the two Sonoma samples
for May 2007 through approximately April
2011. Throughout most of the period, the
growth in retail sales at the high-traffic
Highway 12 wineries is above the growth rate
in sales of the low-traffic Northern Sonoma
wineries. This difference is most pronounced
during the holiday months, when wineries sell
a disproportionate share of their annual sales.
While this appears consistent with the idea that
tasting rooms act as an effective means of
increasing brand awareness and creating brand
loyalty, the greater growth in retail sales of
wines from high traffic tasting room wineries
could have been caused by factors independent
of tasting room traffic. To investigate this, we
compare the growth rate in sales of Highway 12
wineries to that of all wines and to that of a
large Sonoma County winery that does not
operate a tasting room.
Figure 2 shows indexed growth rates for the
high traffic Highway 12 wineries along with
that of all wines as well as that of Gallo
Sonoma. In the first half of the period exam-
ined, the growth rate in sales of the Highway 12
sample of wineries outperforms that of all
wines. However, in the second half, the growth
rate in sales of the Highway 12 wines trend
downward, while sales of all wines trend
upward.
As a final control, we include wines sold
under the Gallo Sonoma brand. Gallo Sonoma
provides an interesting comparison because it is
$20 $30 $40
1,073 344 41 12 20
54 88 17 49 14
579 183 2 1 4
276 105 49 20 16
 Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015

Indexed Case Volume Indexed Case Volume

0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7

–0.3
–0.2
–0.1

0.1
0.3
0.5
0.7

–0.9
–0.7
–0.5
–0.3
–0.1
1-May-07 1-May-07

1-Jul-07 1-Jul-07

1-Sep-07 1-Sep-07

1-Nov-07 1-Nov-07

1-Jan-08 1-Jan-08

1-Mar-08 1-Mar-08
1-May-08 1-May-08

1-Jul-08 1-Jul-08
1-Sep-08 1-Sep-08

1-Nov-08 1-Nov-08

1-Jan-09 1-Jan-09

1-Mar-09 1-Mar-09
1-May-09 1-May-09
HWY 12

1-Jul-09 1-Jul-09
Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti

HWY 12
1-Sep-09

All Wines
North Sonoma

1-Sep-09
1-Nov-09

Gallo Sonoma
1-Nov-09
1-Jan-10 1-Jan-10
1-Mar-10 1-Mar-10
1-May-10 1-May-10

1-Jul-10 1-Jul-10
1-Sep-10 1-Sep-10

1-Nov-10 1-Nov-10
1-Jan-11 1-Jan-11
FIGURE 2. Case Volume for Highway 12 wineries, Gallo Sonoma and All Wines

1-Mar-11 1-Mar-11
FIGURE 1. Indexed Case Volumes of High-Traffic versus Low-Traffic wineries in Sonoma County
539
 540 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING

a large, well-known winery but does not operate
a traditional tasting room. Gallo Sonoma did,
briefly, operate a small tasting room in the
downtown plaza of Healdsburg, from 2003–
2010. As can be seen, Highway 12 wines
grew at greater rate than Gallo Sonoma, whose
sales fell throughout the entire period.
Regression Specification
While the graphical analysis is consistent
with the hypothesis that tasting rooms act as a
brand ambassador, we measure the ability of
tasting rooms to create brand awareness and
build brand loyalty by estimating the following
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
Where Casesit is the indexed, 9L equivalent
volume for region “i” in year t. The variable
“Time” is a trend in indexed case volume.
“Region” is a vector of dummies and interaction
terms for each region time. “Holiday” is a vec-
tor of dummy and interaction variables for the
months October, November and December and
region. The holiday dummy picks up any addi-
tional variation in the data during the retail
chain’s major sales season for wine.
The first column of Table 2 presents the
regression results for the data represented in
Figures 1 & 2. In particular, Table 2 shows
that sales of the Highway 12 wines fell slightly
more than sales of the North Sonoma and all
wines. However, if we examine early period of

regression:
the data, the Highway 12 wines grew at a
X greater rate than the North Sonoma wines. In
Casesit ¼ β0 þ β1 Timeit þ θ Region addition, the Highway 12 wines experienced a
X
þ γ Holiday þ uit (1) statistically significant greater increase in sales

TABLE 2. SonomaCounty Regression Results

All Under $10 $10 to Under $20 $20 to under $30 $30 to under $40 Over $40
Cases Cases Cases Cases Cases Cases

Time 0.004 0.004 0.005 0.003 0.008 0.008

[0.00]** [0.00]** [0.07] [0.44] [0.20] [0.12]
Highway12*Time −0.008 0 −0.009 −0.013 0.016 −0.019
[0.00]** [0.88] [0.03]* [0.01]** [0.08] [0.01]**
North Sonoma*Time −0.004
[0.00]**
Gallo*Time −0.018 −0.01 −0.024 −0.039
[0.00]** [0.00]** [0.00]** [0.00]**
Holiday 0.266 0.234 0.325 0.564 0.823 1.012
[0.00]** [0.00]** [0.00]** [0.00]** [0.00]** [0.00]**
Highway 12 0.127 −0.013 0.042 0.274 −0.061 0.176
[0.01]** [0.82] [0.74] [0.06] [0.83] [0.41]
North Sonoma −0.003
[0.95]
Gallo Sonoma −0.045 −0.11 0.293 0.084
[0.32] [0.05] [0.02]* [0.57]
Highway12*Holiday 0.118 0.203 −0.095 −0.119 −0.28 −0.19
[0.02]* [0.00]** [0.52] [0.47] [0.38] [0.44]
North Sonoma*Holiday −0.001
[0.98]
Gallo*Holiday −0.14 0.002 −0.561 −0.06
[0.01]** [0.97] [0.00]** [0.74]
Constant −0.017 −0.055 0.089 0.096 0.064 0.076
[0.60] [0.17] [0.33] [0.35] [0.74] [0.61]
Observations 208 156 156 141 104 104
Adjusted R-squared 0.85 0.75 0.44 0.61 0.27 0.42

Absolute value of t-statistics in brackets

*significant at 5% level; **significant at 1% level
North Sonoma Group excluded from price segment regressions due to small sample
 Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti
during the important holiday months than the
North Sonoma and all wines. Finally, Highway
12 wines also grew faster and experienced a
greater holiday boost than the Gallo Sonoma
wines.
Both results are statistically significant.
While early trend in the data is consistent with
the idea that tasting rooms act as an effective
means of increasing brand awareness and creat-
ing brand loyalty that results in greater off-pre-
mise sales through traditional retail outlets, the
latter half appears inconsistent with that hypoth-
esis. We provide an explanation for this appar-
ent conflict later.
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
Experiment no. 2―Napa County,
California
The second question we wish to investigate
is “which type of tasting room atmosphere is
most effective at creating brand loyalty and
increasing long-term sales away from the tast-
ing room?” Specifically, among high traffic tast-
ing rooms, we examine the difference in retail
sales between wineries that create retail oriented
tasting rooms emphasizing tasting room sales
and club sign-ups versus those that create a
more relaxed, tasting-room environment empha-
sizing the wine country experience.
For our high traffic region, we examined
tasting rooms open to the public in Napa
County, California. As the second most popular
tourist destination in California, after
Disneyland (according to the Napa Valley web
site napacountyguide.com), many of the Napa
wineries can be considered “high traffic,” espe-
cially as compared to our North Sonoma sam-
ple. However, within Napa, the wineries that
run along Highway 29 through Yountville,
Oakville, Rutherford and St. Helena are the
most visited. This region is approximately 60
miles from San Francisco and 65 miles from
Sacramento. We refer to this approximately 10-
mile stretch between Yountville and St. Helena
as our Highway 29 corridor.
As a major tourist destination, many of the
tasting rooms along the Highway 29 corridor
tend to be more congested and commercially
oriented; emphasizing selling wine and building
541
wine club memberships rather than creating a
relaxed wine country experience. We treat these
wineries, along the Highway 29 corridor, as our
high-traffic “commercial” oriented tasting
rooms. We are able to identify 16 wineries that
have tasting rooms along our Highway 29 cor-
ridor and are represented in the retail sales scan
data for major retail outlets. A list of the Napa
wineries is provided in Appendix Table A2
along with a map of the tasting rooms shown
in Figure A2. Within this sample, each winery
sells multiple products resulting in a total sam-
ple of approximately 461 unique wines sold per
month over our sample time frame of 52 months
for a total sample of 25,373 observed wine
sales.
As a control group to our commercial
oriented tasting rooms, we select a group of
wineries with tasting rooms along the nearby
Silverado Trail that runs parallel to our
Highway 29 group of wineries in Napa,
California. This portion of the Silverado Trail
is approximately the same distance from the
main metropolitan areas of San Francisco and
Sacramento, and is separated by less than a mile
at some points.
Despite their close proximity, the tasting
rooms along the Silverado Trail are generally
less crowded, offer a much more relaxed, and
less commercial atmosphere than the Highway
29 wineries. We are able to identify 28 wineries
that have tasting rooms along the portion of the
Silverado Trail that runs parallel to our
Highway 29 corridor that are represented in
the scan data of major retail outlets. Within
this sample, each winery sells multiple products
resulting in a total sample of approximately 262
unique wines sold per month over our sample
time frame of 52 months for a total sample of
13,118 observed wine sales.
Comparisons of sales atmospheres and tech-
niques have been widely covered in the retail
literature (Arndt & Karande, 2012; Chu & Hess,
1995and Morey, 1980). However, much of the
research distinguishing between sales and cus-
tomer orientation relies on subjective self-
reported characteristics of sales people (Arndt
& Karande, 2012). Rather than rely on self-
reported measures of tasting room environment,
we turn to on-line reviews and social media
 542 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING
opinions as evidence of the difference between
Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail tasting
room atmospheres.
Reviews
“Most visitors stick to Highway 29, the
major thoroughfare through the Napa
Valley. While the majority of the valley’s
wineries are located on the highway, more
than three dozen can be found on the less-
traveled Silverado Trail… The Silverado
Trail… is the ideal choice… for people
who’d rather spend their time in a winery
tasting bar than in the stop-and-go traffic
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
that clogs the main artery… usually trans-
lates to less crowded tasting rooms…”
(Olmstead, 2011)
“Yesterday, I had a meeting up in
Calistoga and figured I would take a lei-
surely drive down Highway 29, which
most will agree is the most famous wine
road for tourists in Napa. I thought that I
was going to visit a few wineries to see
how they handle wine tourism… Oh my
god. Bumper to bumper traffic on 29. My
friends had told me how busy certain
wineries got at the height of tourist season,
but I was unprepared for such a huge flow
of visitors so early in the year. In fact,
there were hundreds of people at the
winery between the tasting room, barrel
cellar, BBQ cookout, deli, and picnic
area. The tasting room had about 15 peo-
ple staffing it, all busy with 3–7 people
paying for tasting flights. And then there
were about five cash registers churning
through very happy customers as fast as
they could.” (O’Connell, 2012)
“Silverado Trail is another popular road
for wineries and runs parallel to CA 29,
this road is less crowded and therefore
sometimes it is preferred over CA 29
since the traffic moves faster on this
road.” (Travel and Tourism Info)
“Highway 29 is a straight shot from Napa
to Calistoga and hits all the big names
such as Opus One and Francis Ford
Coppola’s Rubicon Estate. But it can get
awfully crowded in summer. The other
route is the Silverado Trail, which avoids
the towns, is quieter, and has breathtaking
views.” (Locke, 2011)
“Most people visiting Napa Valley stay on
the main Highway 29. That’s understandable
as the highway is lined with big name wine-
ries all in a row. But parallel to Highway 29 is
The Silverado Trail, the road less travelled
but certainly no less rewarding for those
looking for scenic travels and great wineries
along the way. From small boutiques to
famous names, wine caves to wine pairings,
The Silverado Trail is the other Napa.” (Napa
Tourist Guide, 2011)
“Highway 29 is busy enough in certain
areas to require four lanes of traffic. The
Silverado Trail, on the other hand, is quiet
and serene, a winding, two-lane highway
running at a slightly elevated position and
nestled against mountains on the valley’s
eastern side.” (Nelson, 2001)
The consensus of online opinions is that
there is a significant difference in tasting room
experience between Highway 29 and the
Silverado Trail. Moreover, this difference is
consistent with our grouping of tasting rooms
into congested and sales orientated versus more
relaxed customer-oriented atmospheres. As we
will show, however, this is not to say that every
tasting room along the Highway 29 corridor is
congested and commercially oriented or that
every tasting room along the Silverado Trail is
relaxed and enjoyable.
Summary statistics for our Napa sample of
wineries are shown in Table 3, along with the
summary statistics for all wines. As Table 3
indicates, the sample of wineries along
Highway 29 are on average bigger in terms of
average monthly cases sold and are lower
priced than their Silverado Trail counterparts.
Our methodology combines these elements
into an estimation of how different tasting
room characteristics generate different retail
sales environments for wineries in the Sonoma
and Napa wine regions in California.
 Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti 543

TABLE 3. Summary Statistics For Napa Sample

Group Mean Mean Obs Under $10 $10 to under $20 to $30 to under Over $40
Cases Price $20 under$30 $40

Highway 29 159,994 $19.55 25,373 1,651 215 148 30 13

Silverado Trail 10,733 $27.97 13,118 610 294 115 37 25
All Wines 13,264 $13.59 1,125,295 276 105 49 20 16

Figure 3 shows indexed retail sales of wines than that of the Highway 29 wineries, but less
from our two Napa County samples as well as than that of the Silverado Trail wineries.
that of all wines. There are several points worth Once again we measure the effects of tasting
noting in Figure 3. First, the Silverado Trail room atmosphere on brand loyalty by re-esti-
wineries experienced a growth rate in retail mating Equation 1 for our Napa sample of
sales equal to or better than their Highway 29 wines. The first column of Table 4 represents
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015

counterparts in the off months, although similar the data shown in Figure 3 and indicates that
to that of all wines. Second, during the all- wines from the Silverado Trail experienced a
important holiday months, the growth in sales greater growth than wines from the Highway
of the Silverado Trail wineries significantly out- 29 as well as all wines, although the difference
performs both the Highway 29 wineries and all between the Silverado Trail and all wines is
wines. Third, since November 2008, the growth not statistically significant. However, the
rate in sales of the Silverado Trail wineries has Silverado Trail wines did experience a greater
been increasing while that of the Highway 29 holiday boost than the Highway 29 wines and
wineries has remained flat. Fourth, the growth all wines, both of which are statistically
rate in retail sales of all wine is slightly greater significant.

FIGURE 3. Case Volume of Silverado Trail, Highway 29 and All Wines

1
Hwy 29 Open
All Wines
0.8 Silverado Trail Open

0.6
Indexed Case Volume

0.4

0.2

–0.2
1-May-07
1-Jul-07
1-Sep-07
1-Nov-07
1-Jan-08
1-Mar-08
1-May-08
1-Jul-08
1-Sep-08
1-Nov-08

1-Mar-09
1-May-09
1-Jan-09

1-Jul-09
1-Sep-09
1-Nov-09
1-Jan-10
1-Mar-10
1-May-10
1-Jul-10
1-Sep-10
1-Nov-10
1-Jan-11
1-Mar-11
 544 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING

TABLE 4. Napa Regression Results

All Under $10 $10 to Under $20 $20 to under $30 $30 to under $40 Over $40
Cases Cases Cases Cases Cases Cases

Time 0.004 0.004 0.005 0.003 0.008 0.008

[0.00]** [0.15] [0.00]** [0.22] [0.02]* [0.06]
Napa29*Time −0.004 −0.003 −0.009 −0.005 −0.008 −0.021
[0.01]* [0.41] [0.00]** [0.09] [0.09] [0.00]**
Silverado Trail *Time 0.003 0.048 −0.013 −0.007 0.001 −0.001
[0.09] [0.00]** [0.00]** [0.03]* [0.90] [0.83]
Holiday 0.266 0.234 0.325 0.564 0.823 1.012
[0.00]** [0.01]* [0.00]** [0.00]** [0.00]** [0.00]**
Napa29 −0.005 0.022 −0.011 −0.104 −0.089 0.32
[0.92] [0.85] [0.87] [0.26] [0.55] [0.07]
Silverado Trail −0.109 −0.542 −0.019 −0.079 −0.365 −0.11
[0.02]* [0.00]** [0.77] [0.39] [0.02]* [0.53]
Napa29*Holiday −0.01 0.047 0.028 0.039 0.098 −0.404
[0.86] [0.72] [0.70] [0.71] [0.57] [0.05]*
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015

Silverado Trail*Holiday 0.133 0.209 −0.04 −0.133 −0.618 −0.074

[0.02]* [0.12] [0.59] [0.21] [0.00]** [0.72]
Constant −0.017 −0.055 0.089 0.096 0.064 0.076
[0.62] [0.50] [0.05] [0.14] [0.55] [0.54]
Observations 156 156 156 156 156 156
Adjusted R-squared 0.65 0.82 0.66 0.56 0.51 0.47

Absolute value of t-statistics in brackets

*significant at 5% level; **significant at 1% level

Analysis by Price Point
Recall from the Table 1 summary statistics,
that the mean prices of our comparison group
wines were all different. This could potentially
bias our results if greater growth of the
Highway 12 wines is the result of, for example,
lower-priced wines selling at a faster rate than
higher priced wines and not the result of tasting
room traffic. To control for differences across
prices, we disaggregate our samples by price
segment. Columns 4–5 in Table 2 show the
regression results for five price segments:
Under $10, $10 to under $20, $20 to under
$30, $30 to under $40 and over $40.
Table 2 indicates that growth in sales for the
lowest price segment (under $10) of Highway
12 wines was similar to that of all wines and
greater than that of the Gallo Sonoma wines.
Both results are statistically significant.
Additionally, the growth in $30 to under $40
wines from the Highway 12 sample grew faster
than all wines, although the difference is not
statistically significant. More importantly,
Highway 12 wines experienced a greater boost
in sales than all wines in the under $10 segment
during the holiday seasons and experienced a
greater boost than the Gallo Sonoma wines
across all price segments during the holiday
seasons.
The results by price segment from Napa are
similar to those Sonoma. In particular, Table 4
shows that in the under $10 price segment, the
Silverado Trail wines grew at a faster rate than
all wines as well as wines from Highway 29.
Both results were statistically significant. Again,
similar to the Sonoma comparison, wines priced
$30 to under $40 from the Silverado Trail grew
at a greater rate than all wines and wines from
Highway 29, although neither is statistically
significant.
Similar to the Sonoma County sample,
Silverado Trail wines priced under $10 experi-
enced greater holiday sales than all wines and
wines from Highway 29, although neither is
statistically significant. Finally, wines priced
over $40 from Silverado Trail experienced sta-
tistically significant greater holiday boost than
wines from Highway 29, but were not statisti-
cally different than all wines.
 Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti
The results from Sonoma and Napa provide
an interesting insight into the effects of tasting
rooms. Much of the increase in long-term off-
premise sales comes from the lowest price seg-
ment. This is in contrast to the wines offered at
the tasting rooms which are generally the
higher-priced wines. We view this as indicating
that consumer attachment built at the tasting
room is to the brand and not to the specific
wines sampled at the tasting room.
Econometric Issues
Our results from the Sonoma experiment are
consistent with the hypothesis that wineries
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
with higher traffic tasting rooms experience
greater retail sales growth through off-premise
outlets than wineries with lower traffic tasting
rooms. Likewise, our results from the Napa
experiment are consistent with the hypothesis
that less congested and more relaxed tasting
rooms that create a pleasurable tasting room
experience are more effective at building brand
loyalty which results in greater retail sales
growth through off-premise outlets than more
congested commercial-oriented tasting rooms.
Our results may, however, be biased due to
several econometric issues.
To begin with, a winery’s decision of where
to locate its tasting room may be dependent on
the level of its off-premise retail sales. This
would occur if, for example, wineries with
greater retail sales chose to locate their tasting
rooms in high traffic regions. While this type of
endogeneity seems reasonable and would bias
our results, it would appear unlikely given that
high sales wineries would have to have chosen
high traffic areas in Sonoma but lower-traffic
areas in Napa. Nonetheless, we address this
question below.
A second problem may exist if the difference
in the growth rates of retail sales between wine-
ries with high and low traffic tasting rooms was
the result of some unobserved difference in the
wineries unrelated to difference in tasting rooms
characteristics. For example, the difference in
the retail sales growth between Highway 29
and Silverado Trail wineries could be attributed
to factors such as greater distribution or greater
545
marketing efforts aimed at off-premise retail
sales. This would lead to the spurious conclu-
sion that it was the difference in tasting rooms
driving the results.
While this type of unobserved heterogeneity
may exist, it seems unlikely to bias our results
for two reasons. First, summary statistics show
that Highway 29 wineries are on average larger
than the Silverado Trail wineries and would
presumably have greater distribution and mar-
keting efforts. This would be inconsistent with
the Silverado Trail wineries experiencing
greater growth in off-premise retail sales away
from the tasting room. Second, if our results
were driven by unobserved difference in winery
characteristics, these factors would have to have
opposite effects in Napa and Sonoma given that
the larger wineries experienced greater growth
in retail sales in Sonoma but lower growth in
Napa.
Despite our questions as to the effect of
endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity on
our results, we nevertheless attempt to correct
for these with another set of experiments.
Experiment no. 3―Open versus Reserved
Tasting Rooms
Ideally, we would like to test for differences
among wineries along the same stretch of
Highway 29 that differ only in tasting room
environment. Unfortunately, unlike wine which
has many third-party rating agencies, there is no
formal third-party measure of a tasting rooms’
ambiance. Instead, we rely on a proxy variable.
All of the tasting rooms we have examined thus
far in both Sonoma and Napa are open to the
general public. However, that is not true of all
of the tasting rooms in our sample areas.
Specifically, we identify a subset of tasting
rooms along the same Highway 29 corridor
that require a reservation prior to visiting. We
test whether a reservation requirement, which
ostensibly reduces traffic through a tasting
room, acts as an effective proxy in differentiat-
ing our subsample of tasting rooms from those
open to the general public. A list of the wineries
with open and reserved tasting rooms is pro-
vided in Appendix Table A3. If a reservation
 546 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING

requirement does differentiate those wineries Off-premise retail sales of wines from wine-
from the more highly trafficked and commer- ries with reserved tasting rooms along Highway
cially oriented tasting rooms, then tasting rooms 29 are not only greater than the growth in retail
that require reservations should experience sales of wines from wineries along Highway 29
greater off-premise retail sales growth than with open tasting rooms, but they are also
those that do not. Since many of the reserved greater than the growth in retail sales of the
tasting rooms are next to open tasting rooms Silverado Trail wineries and the Highway 12
along the same Highway 29 corridor, these wineries.
would appear to create an ideal control group Furthermore, while our comparison of retail
for the open Highway 29 tasting rooms. sales of wineries with tasting rooms along
Figure 4 shows indexed retail sales for open Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail may have
and reserved tasting rooms along the Highway been the result of some unobserved differences
29 corridor while Table 4 provides the regres- between the wineries along Highway 29 and the
sion results. Silverado Trail, this is clearly not an issue for
As Figure 4 and Table 4 indicate, not only is wineries with open and reserved tasting rooms
the growth rate in retail sales of wines from along Highway 29.
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015

wineries with reserved tasting rooms greater Figure 5 shows indexed retail sales for open
than that of wineries with open tasting rooms and reserved tasting rooms along the Silverado
during the off season, but also during the critical Trail. As can be seen in Figure 5, the results are
holiday season of October, November and mixed. While the growth in off-premise retail
December. Both results are statistically signifi- sales of the reserved tasting rooms is less than
cant and are consistent with the idea that wine- that of the open tasting rooms, off-premise holi-
ries with reserved tasting rooms along Highway day sales of the reserved tasting rooms’ wines
29 benefit from both the high profile of are greater than that of the open tasting rooms.
Highway 29 and the relaxed environment of Regression results from Table 5 confirm the
the reservation requirement. graphical interpretation and indicate that both

FIGURE 4. Case Volume of Open versus Reserved Tasting Rooms along Highway 29, In Napa
County, California
4.5
Hwy 29
Open
4
Hwy 29
3.5 Reserved

3
Indexed Case Volume

2.5

1.5

0.5

–0.5
1-May-07
1-Jul-07
1-Sep-07
1-Nov-07
1-Jan-08
1-Mar-08
1-May-08
1-Jul-08
1-Sep-08
1-Nov-08
1-Jan-09
1-Mar-09
1-May-09
1-Jul-09
1-Sep-09
1-Nov-09
1-Jan-10
1-Mar-10
1-May-10
1-Jul-10
1-Sep-10
1-Nov-10
1-Jan-11
1-Mar-11
 Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti 547

FIGURE 5. Case Volume of Open versus Reserve Tasting Rooms along the Silverado Trail, Napa
County, California
1.5
Silverado Trail Open
1.3
Silverado Trail Reserved
1.1

0.9
Indexed Case Volume

0.7

0.5

0.3

0.1

–0.1
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015

–0.3

–0.5
1-May-07
1-Jul-07
1-Sep-07
1-Nov-07
1-Jan-08
1-Mar-08
1-May-08
1-Jul-08
1-Sep-08
1-Nov-08
1-Jan-09
1-Mar-09
1-May-09
1-Jul-09
1-Sep-09
1-Nov-09
1-Jan-10
1-Mar-10
1-May-10
1-Jul-10
1-Sep-10
1-Nov-10
1-Jan-11
1-Mar-11
of these observations are statistically significant. “An effective [tasting room] may generate
While these results may seem to contradict the lower immediate sales but, by placing
results from Highway 29, recall that the emphasis on factors like empathy and
Silverado Trail tasting rooms experience less responsiveness, generate very strong sub-
traffic than the Highway 29 tasting rooms and sequent brand loyalty, at a far greater
may be more similar to the tasting rooms along profit to the winery in the long term.”
Highway 12 in Sonoma. As a result reducing
traffic through reservation requirements may Tasting room managers must weigh the loss
reduce traffic to levels similar to the low traffic of high margin tasting room sales with potential
North Sonoma Wineries. long-term future sales away from the tasting
Finally, if our initial results comparing high- room. Our analysis provides some insight into
and low-traffic tasting rooms in Sonoma resulted the cost-benefit analysis tasting room managers
from high sales wineries choosing high traffic must make with respect to what kind of tasting
locations, our results comparing open and room atmosphere they want to create. In three
reserved tasting rooms along the same stretch of different natural experiments, using different
the Silverado Trail clearly do not suffer from the samples, different regions, and different sub-
same problem of endogeneity. samples within regions, we show that tasting
rooms are able to increase brand awareness
and build brand loyalty through the use of tast-
ing rooms. Our results from Sonoma tasting
SUMMARY rooms (Highway 12 versus North Sonoma)
show that more tasting room traffic is better
The question of how to train tasting room than less tasting room traffic in increasing off-
staff is of vital importance. As O’Neill and premise sales through traditional retail outlets.
Charters (2000) state, These results are confirmed by our analysis of
 548 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING
TABLE 5. Napa Reserved Regression Results
Estimated Variable
Time
Napa29*Time
Silverado Trail*Time
Napa29 Reserved*Time
Silverado Trail Reserved*Time
Holiday
Napa29
Silverado Trail
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
Napa29 Reserved
Silverado Trail Reserved
Napa29*Holiday
Silverado Trail *Holiday
Napa29 Reserved*Holiday
Silverado Trail Reserved*Holiday
Constant
Observations
Adjusted R-squared
Absolute value of t-statistics in brackets
* significant at 5% level; ** significant at 1% level
open and reserved tasting rooms along the
Silverado Trail in Napa.
Our results from Napa show that wineries
along the Silverado Trail with more relaxed
tasting room environments experienced greater
growth in off-premise retail sales than the wine-
ries along Highway 29 with more commercial
oriented tasting rooms. These results were con-
firmed even more emphatically in our examina-
tion of open and reserved tasting rooms located
along Highway 29.
As noted, wine tasting is as much about the
wine country experience as it is about the wine
and this research has broad implication as to
what kind of tasting room environment wineries
may want to create and how tasting room staff
is trained and incentivized. Instead of
concentrating on high margin tasting room
sales, tasting room managers may want to
Cases instead concentrate on turning “A one off cus-
tomer …into a loyal advocate for the winery”
0.004
[0.10]
(O’Neill & Charters, 2000). While those visit-
−0.004 ing a winery’s tasting room may be a small
[0.28] subset of consumers, these “loyal advocates”
0.003 not only become long-time purchasers, but
[0.47]
0.029
they also work to convert others who have not
[0.00]** visited the winery tasting room into regular
−0.005 buyers.
[0.20] The conflict between creating a relaxed or
0.266
commercial tasting room environment is exem-
[0.00]**
−0.005 plified in a recent article in Wines & Vines,
[0.97] where a Napa-based firm that trains tasting
−0.109 room staff noted that its,
[0.33]
“mantra for tasting room staff is to
−0.177
[0.11]
−0.213 ● Sell wine
[0.06] ● Sell wine club memberships
−0.01 ● Capture contact data”
[0.94]
0.133
[0.30] and not to “pour wine and entertain visitors”
0.678 (Franson, 2012). The results of this research
[0.00]** clearly question that philosophy and its ability
0.425
[0.00]**
to create brand loyalty and long-term repeat
−0.017 sales away from the tasting room.
[0.83]
260
0.75
DIRECTIONS OF FUTURE RESEARCH
Our results show that tasting rooms are effec-
tive at increasing brand awareness and creating
brand loyalty resulting in long-term repeat sales
in off-premise retail outlets. Furthermore we
show that relaxed tasting room environments
are more effective than commercial tasting
room environments at building brand loyalty
and increasing long-term off-premise sales.
There are some limitations to our analysis. For
example, we do not consider differences in
advertising, promotions or social media that
may be driving the differences in sales.
Additionally, there are several questions that
remain unanswered. For example, for wineries
that sells exclusively or mostly through tasting
rooms, wine clubs and restaurants, our results
may not be relevant. A question more directly
related to these wineries is “what type of tasting
room environment results in the greatest tasting
 Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti
room sales and the most wine club sign-ups?”
Our analysis of third-party sales away from the
tasting room does not address this question.
In a broader context, for wineries such as
those included in our study who do sell through
both the tasting room and traditional retail out-
lets, we do not investigation if greater off-pre-
mise sales through the retail channel outweigh
any reduced sales and club memberships that
occur in a more relaxed tasting room environ-
ment that is not emphasizing tasting room sales
and club sign-ups. While this would provide a
more complete picture of the costs and benefits
of tasting room environment, there are several
obstacles. First, there is no single source of data
for tasting room sales and club membership
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
sign-ups at tasting rooms. Second, while tasting
room sales and club sign-ups can potentially be
extracted from point-of-sales (POS) systems at
the tasting room, these systems are maintained
individually by each winery and would have to
be obtained on winery-by-winery basis. Third,
assuming this information could potentially be
obtained through point-of-sale data from a sam-
ple of winery tasting rooms, sample size may be
an issue as the number of wineries willing to
volunteer proprietary data for analysis is likely
to be small. While these obstacles are clearly
not insurmountable, they will require a signifi-
cant undertaking.
REFERENCES
Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The market for ‘lemons’: Quality
uncertainty and the market mechanism. The Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 84, 488–500. doi:10.2307/
1879431
Arndt, A. D., & Karande, K. (2012). Is it better for sales-
people to have the highest customer orientation or a
strong fit with their group’s customer orientation?
Findings from automobile dealerships. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services, 19(3), 353–359.
doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2012.03.009
Barber, N. A., Donovan, J. R., & Dodd, T. H. (2008).
Differences in tourism marketing strategies between
wineries based on size or location. Journal of Travel
& Tourism Marketing, 25(1), 43–57. doi:10.1080/
10548400802164889
Beteta, C. (2011, November 16). President of the
California travel and tourism commission.
549
Presentation at the Wine Tourism Conference, Napa,
CA.
Bruwer, J. W., & Alant, K. (2009). The hedonic nature of
wine tourism consumption: An experiential view.
International Journal of Wine Business Research,
21(3), 235–257. doi:10.1108/17511060910985962
Bruwer, J. W., & Lesschaeve, I. (2012a). Sources of infor-
mation used by tourists travelling to visit canadian
winery tasting rooms. Tourism Planning &
Development, 9(3), 269–289. doi:10.1080/21568316.
2012.672452
Bruwer, J. W., & Lesschaeve, I. (2012b). Wine tourists’
destination region brand image perception and ante-
cedents: Conceptualization of a winescape frame-
work. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing,
29(7), 611–628. doi:10.1080/10548408.2012.
719819
Bustillo, M. (2012, May 29). Best buy forced to rethink
big box. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://
online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230340
4704577311322427071212.html
Carmichael, B. A. (2005). Understanding the wine tourism
experience for winery visitors in the Niagara Region,
Ontario, Canada. Tourism Geographies, 7(2), 185–204.
doi:10.1080/14616680500072414
Chu, W., Gerstner, E., & Hess, J. D. (1995). Costs and
benefits of hard-sell. Journal of Marketing Research,
32(1), 97–102. doi:10.2307/3152114
Clark, L. (2012). The experiential explosion. B&T
Magazine, 62(2779), 14–20.
Clarkson, J. J., Janiszewski, C., & Cinelli, M. D. (2013). The
desire for consumption knowledge. Journal of Consumer
Research, 39, 1313–1329. doi:10.1086/668535
Cuellar, S. S., & Claps, M. (2013). Differential effects of
brand, ratings and region on willingness to pay: A
hedonic price approach. Journal of Wine Research,
24(2), 138–155. doi:10.1080/09571264.2013.766160
Diesbach, P. B. (2012). Touristic destination ambassadors,
case analysis and conceptualization, how to better
understand and use brand ambassadors in cognitive,
affective and experiential approaches. Tourism and
Hospitality Management, 18(2), 229–258.
Dodd, T. H. (1999). Attracting repeat customers to wine-
ries. International Journal of Wine Marketing, 11(2),
18–28. doi:10.1108/eb008693
Dodd, T. (1995). Opportunities and pitfalls of tourism in a
developing wine industry. International Journal of Wine
Marketing, 7(1), 5–16. doi:10.1108/eb008636
Dodd, T., & Gustafson, A. W. (1997). Product, environmental,
and service attributes that influence consumer attitudes
and purchases at wineries. Journal of Food
Products Marketing, 4(3), 41–59. doi:10.1300/
J038v04n03_04
Duncan, G. (2012, November 22). Why apple stores are
raking in bags full of cash, and no one can dupe the
formula. Digital Trends. Retrieved from http://www.
 550 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING
digitaltrends.com/mobile/why-do-apple-stores-make-so-
much-money-and-why-cant-anybody-copy-them/
Eliashberg, J., & Shugan, S. M. (1997). Film critics:
Influencers or predictors?Journal of Marketing, 61,
68–78. doi:10.2307/1251831
Franke, G. R., & Park, J.-E. (2006). Salesperson adaptive
selling behavior and customer orientation: Ameta-ana-
lysis. Journal of Marketing Research, 43(4), 693–702.
doi:10.1509/jmkr.43.4.693
Franson, P. (2012, January 27). Winery tasting room woes.
Wines & Vines. Retrieved from http://www.winesandvines.
com/template.cfm?section=news&content=96823
Freedman, A. M. (1986, August 28). Use of free product
samples wins new favor as sales tool. Wall Street
Journal, p. 17.
Grossman, S. J. (1981). The informational role of warran-
ties and private disclosure about product quality. The
Journal of Law and Economics, 24, 461–489.
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
doi:10.1086/466995
Heilman, C., Lakishyk, K., & Radas, S. (2011). An empiri-
cal investigation of in-store sampling promotions.
British Food Journal, 113(10), 1252–1266.
doi:10.1108/00070701111177674
Holbrook, M., & Hirschman, E. C. (1982). The experien-
tial aspects of consumption: Consumer fantasies, feel-
ings, and fun. Journal of Consumer Research,
September, 9, 132–140. doi:10.1086/208906
Keller, K. L., & Lehmann, D.R. (2006). Brands and brand-
ing: Research findings and future priorities. Marketing
Science, 25(6), 740–759. doi:10.1287/mksc.1050.0153
Locke, M. (16 June 2011). abc News. Napa Valley 101:
Basics for CA Wine Country Trip. Retrieved from
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/wireStory?id=13858249#.
T3t37L9Wo3k
McGuinness, D., Bernnan, M., & Gendall, P. (1995). The
effect of product sampling and couponing on purchase
behaviour: Some empirical evidence. International
Journal of Advertising, 14(3), 219–230.
McGuinness, D., Gendall, P., & Mathew, S. (1992). The
effect of product sampling on product trial, purchase
and conversion. International Journal of Advertising,
11(1), 83–92.
Meyer, E. (1982, July 12). Sampling builds better busi-
ness. Advertising Age, p. M–22.
Milgrom, P., & Roberts, J. (1986). Price and advertising
signals of product quality. Journal of Political
Economy, 94, 796–821. doi:10.1086/261408
Morey, R. C. (1980). Measuring the impact of service
level on retail sales. Journal of Retailing, 56(2), 81–81.
Napa Tourist Guide. (2011). Napa’s Best Wineries - The
Silverado Trail. Retrieved from http://www.napatour-
istguide.com/wineries-silverado.html
Nelson, P. (1970). Information and consumer behavior.
Journal of Political Economy, 78, 311–329. doi:
10.1086/259630
Nelson, P. (1974). Advertising as information. Journal of
Political Economy, 82, 729–754. doi:10.1086/260231
Nelson, L. (2001). Silverado Trail—Napa Valley Wine
Tours. Retrieved from http://www.inetours.com/
PagesWT/WTareas/Silverado_Trail.html
Nowak, L.I., & Newton, S. K. (2006). Using the tasting room
experience to create loyal customers. International
Journal of Wine Marketing, 18(3), 157–165. doi:
10.1108/09547540610704738
O’Connell, R. (2012, March 11). Wine tourism on high-
way 29 in Napa valley. Kid Napa. Retrieved from
http://kidnapa.posterous.com/wine-tourism-on-high-
way-29-in-napa-valley
O’Neil, M., Palmer, A., & Charters, S. (2002). Wine
production as a service experience –the effects of ser-
vice quality on wine sales. Journal of Services
Marketing, 16(4), 212–235.
O’Neill, M., & Charters, S. (2000). Service quality at the
cellar door: Implications for Western Australia’s devel-
oping wine tourism industry. Managing Service
Quality, 10(2), 112–122. doi:10.1108/096045200103
18308
Olmstead, M. (2011). Golden haven. Retrieved from http://
www.goldenhaven.com/wineries/
Silverado_Trail_Wineries.html
Reinstein, D. A., & Snyder, C. M. (2005). The influence of
expert reviews on consumer demand for experience
goods: A case study of movie critics. Journal of
Industrial Economics, 53, 27–51. doi:10.1111/j.0022-
1821.2005.00244.x
Schmitt, B. (1999). Experiential marketing. Journal of
Marketing Management, 15, 53–67. doi:10.1362/
026725799784870496
Senthil, M., Chandrasekar, K. S., & Selvabaskar, S.
(2012). Experiential retailing as a strategic tool for
retail store differentiation and brand association-A con-
ceptual approach. SEIS Journal of Management, 8(1),
92–102.
Terblanche, N. S., & Boshoff, C. (2006). The relationship
between a satisfactory in-store shopping experience
and retailer loyalty. South African Journal of Business
Management, 37(2), 33–43.
SUBMITTED: September 21, 2013
FINAL REVISION SUBMITTED:
March 29, 2014
ACCEPTED: April 14, 2014
REFEREED ANONYMOUSLY
 Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti 551

APPENDIX

FIGURE A1. Map of Sonoma County Tasting Rooms

Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
 552 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING

FIGURE A2. Map of Napa Valley Tasting Rooms

Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015
 Cuellar, Eyler, and Fanti 553

Appendix: Tasting Rooms TABLE A3. Napa County Reserved Wineries

Highway 29 Silverado Trail

TABLE A1. Sonoma County Wineries
Ballentine Joseph Phelps
High Traffic Low Traffic Bell Robert Sinskey
Cakebread Cellars Shafer
Arrowood Alexander Valley Vineyards Clif Stags’ Leap
Blackstone Chalk Hill Elyse Steltzner
B.R. Cohn Dry Creek Vineyard Far Niente Vine Cliff
Chateau St. Jean Field Stone Livingston Moffett
Kenwood Hanna Newton
Kunde Estate Lancaster Estates Opus One
Landmark Mazzacco Rubicon Estate
St. Francis Michael-Schlumberger Spottswoode
Quivira Staglin Family Vineyard
Sbragia Family Vineyars Swanson
Downloaded by [Steven Cuellar] at 07:31 12 August 2015

TABLE A2. Napa County Open Wineries

Highway 29 Silverado Trail

Robert Mondavi Winery Andretti

Nickel & Nickel August Briggs
Turnbull Black Stallion Estate Winery
St. Supery Chateau Montelena
Sequoia Grove Chimney Rock
Provenance Vineyards Clos Du Val
Whitehall Lane Winery Clos Pegase
Sutter Home Conn Creek
Franciscan Darioush
Flora Springs Duckhorn Vineyard
Heitz Cellars Frank Family Vineyards
Louis M. Martini Luna Vineyards
Beringer Miner
Beaulieu Vineyard Monticello
Grgich Hills Mumm Napa
Cosentino Quintessa
Raymond
Regusci
Rombauer
Round Hill
Rutherford Hill
Rutherford Ranch
Signorello
Silverado
Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars
Sterling Vineyards
Twomey
ZD