Taking the Wine out of the Winery : how to reinvent the wine experience ?

For a long time, wine tourism was thought of within the winery: cellar, vat room, tasting room, accommodation, restaurant. This highly identifiable model, however, requires considerable resources: facilities, dedicated teams, logistical investments. For many winemakers, this economic equation is difficult to sustain given the seasonality of flows, access conditions, and the geographical dispersion of visitors.

Yet another path is emerging: taking the wine tourism experience beyond the walls of the estate , by meeting people in the places where they live, relax and consume wines. This is a development we already mentioned in our article on urban wineries , these places that are reinventing the encounter with wine in the heart of cities. But beyond these new production spaces, another trend is emerging: that of the traveling experience. The challenge is no longer just to bring the city to the vineyard, but to bring the vineyard to the city , and more broadly to where the emotion of wine is experienced.

The idea isn't to displace the terroir, but to embody it differently: at the table, in a hotel, on a rooftop, by the sea, in a ski resort, or during a cultural event. Wine becomes a vehicle for experience, a common language between producers, chefs, and wine lovers.

Taking wine on a journey: recreating the link where gastronomy is experienced

Restaurants play a central role in this new dynamic. They are often the first stage where the vineyard is expressed, the gateway to a story even before the visit. Through a successful pairing, an inspired menu, or a passionate sommelier, the restaurant becomes a place of vicarious wine tourism experience . It is no longer simply a matter of accompanying a dish, but of telling the story of a landscape, a climate, a culture.

Some estates go further by forming real partnerships with chefs. The chef's Food & Wine Studio Pilar Rodriguez , born from her collaboration with the estate Viña Viu Manent in Chile, is an emblematic example. The experience is based on an immersive approach where the wines inspire the dishes, the recipes evoke the terroirs, and gastronomy becomes a tool of mediation between the winemaker and the guest. It's a way of embodying wine in another space, without ever dissociating it from its origin.

In France, the Pommard Castle has also explored this off-site approach by organizing tastings in several gastronomic capitals such as Paris, London, New York, and San Francisco. These meetings, led by wine consultants trained at the estate, transpose the spirit of Clos Marey-Monge into selected urban settings (hotels, galleries, partner restaurants). Here, wine becomes an experience in its own right, capable of attracting new audiences while strengthening the bond with connoisseurs.

Further south, Gerard Bertrand has made sharing and conviviality a strong focus of its strategy, notably by creating the Narbonne-Plage Beach Club in conjunction with the Château L'Hospitalet Wine Resort Beach & Spa 5* . In this ephemeral and festive place, the wines of Languedoc are discovered through gastronomy, music and the Mediterranean art of living. Here again, the wine leaves the cellar to reach the natural place of joy and encounter: the table.

These formats reflect the same logic: wine is no longer discovered only where it is born, but where it is shared. Restaurants are thus becoming strategic partners in the wine tourism experience, relays capable of promoting a terroir through cuisine, emotion, and the presentation of taste - provided they are interested in it.

Crossing universes to enrich the sensory experience

“Outside the walls” experiences become even more powerful when they open up to other worlds. Automobiles, music, and well-being share with wine this ability to arouse multisensory emotions.

The “ Wine & Drive ” formats , designed with brands like Porsche and Maserati, combine a vehicle test, a scenic route, and a final tasting. These experiences create a shared universe of mastery, elegance, and pleasure. In the United States, the concept Autovino combines classic cars, concerts, and Cabernet tastings in a relaxed atmosphere. In these settings, wine becomes an art of living, a marker of experience rather than a product.

Other initiatives explore the path of well-being and sensoriality: tastings accompanied by music, olfactory meditation workshops or “ Wine & Yoga ” experiences that reinvent the relationship with wine by promoting slowness, listening and presence. These formats particularly appeal to the new urban generations, more sensitive to emotion and meaning than to technicality. All reflect the same movement where wine enters the culture of experience , at the crossroads of pleasure, aesthetics and curiosity.

When the wine experience becomes a vector of professional connection

These experiences are also aimed at the professional world. Off-site tastings are now established as spaces for networking and influence , where wine acts as a mediator between entrepreneurs, decision-makers and economic players.

The Paris Dauphine Oenology Club , chaired by Ada Xu 徐玥is a good example: he regularly organizes evenings in partner restaurants where winemakers present their vintages to an audience of executives and enthusiasts, around menus specially designed for wine pairing. Similarly, 67 Pall Mall in London and Bordeaux, or the Wine Business Clubs in France, offer tasting dinners that combine gastronomic pleasure and professional exchanges. These formats help to take wines out of the winery and place them in a context of exchange. They demonstrate that wine is not only a cultural product but also a tool for social connection and economic diplomacy.

A brand and desirability strategy

Off-site experiences are also a powerful brand lever. Each dinner, partnership, or event becomes a story to tell, content to share, a fragment of identity to bring to life in images. Wine lends itself naturally to storytelling: a setting, a light, a gesture, a smile are enough to create a powerful visual material. Chefs, sommeliers, influencers, and guests become the natural conduits for this communication.

Documented on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, these experiences boost the visibility of the domains and transform notoriety into concrete results. In this sense, the data collected by Enodigital Emanuele Trono , have shown that wineries that invest in creating content around gastronomic experiences see a direct increase in online bookings and sales . The correlation is clear: a wine tasted in an inspiring setting is a wine that we want to prolong, offer or find at home. These formats create a virtuous loop: the more the experience is shared, the more desirable it becomes; the more desirable it is, the more visibility and sales it generates. Digital then becomes the natural extension of the lived experience, a space of emotion and loyalty.

In conclusion, making wine travel to better build public loyalty

Taking wine out of the estate is not about distancing it from its origins, it is about extending its history . It is about inventing a more flexible, more innovative wine tourism, better adapted to economic realities and contemporary expectations. By partnering with gastronomy, chefs, clubs or brands, estates are finding new ways of expressing themselves and giving wine back its universal dimension: that of sharing, taste and culture.

Each experience outside the walls, whether general public or professional, becomes a bridge between the table and the vineyard, between immediate pleasure and the desire to return to the source.

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