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Pilgrimage from winery to winery has become the sport of many wine lovers. After all, one wants to know where the favourites one stores in the cellar come from; one wants to get to know the terrain where they grew up, to visit their mother house. I'm not talking about the contact and shopping tours of wine merchants and brokers; for them, visiting winemakers is part of the business, part of the profession. Nor am I talking about the sale of wines directly from the farm, which is important, indeed necessary, especially for smaller wineries (without a large distribution system of their own) in order to live (and often survive). I am thinking of the ritualised processions to the most famous names and greats in all the prestigious wine regions. Bordeaux with its prestigious châteaux probably serves as a model. There, showing off success and wealth has been part of the wine business for centuries. There is actually nothing wrong with that. Wine, too, is allowed to have a magnificent, a historically interesting, a beautiful, often also a glorious home.

A visit to the famous Château Cheval Blanc% St-Émilion% past the winery's landmark (Photo: P. Züllig)

But the question arises: what information can be conveyed when presenting a winery? And how important is this presentation? It is undoubtedly part of the image of a wine and the winery associated with it, at least among wine lovers. The lively traffic of wine tourists around the best-known and most famous wineries testifies to this. People make "home visits" and hope to experience "home stories". In the press - in magazines and especially in the tabloids - "home stories" are native and have been a sure recipe for success for many years, because they convey the feeling of being as close as possible, of seeing with one's own eyes, of experiencing directly on site, of being allowed to look behind the scenes and the walls... Why shouldn't it work the same way in the wine business? After all, it's not only about how a wine tastes after purchase, at home, in the glass. It is also about - especially among wine enthusiasts - being able to tell where a wine comes from, how it was made, you want to know its producers and educators; to see for yourself how a wine is treated (or mistreated).

Guided tour of a wine cellar in China: Dragon Seal (Photo: P. Züllig)

This is what the visits to wineries, winegrowers and wine-processing companies are meant to achieve. Above all abroad, in wine regions to which, as a declared wine lover, one must make a pilgrimage - at least once in a lifetime - for example to Burgundy, Bordelais, Napa Valley, Barossa Valley, Tuscany or even Stellenbosch. But will you find there - in the midst of the stream of wine tourists - what you are actually looking for or pretending to look for? For example, an intimate look behind the scenes (or walls) of the wineries, or won't you inevitably end up in front of the scenes, with business-like receptionists, in showrooms and at best in a show cellar where the barriques are laid out in rows?

It is permitted to take a few photos, which one has little pleasure in later because the cellar was too dark or the flash too weak. The officious ladies and gentlemen - representatives of the landlord, the cellar master or the winemaker (whom you usually never meet) - are always ready to take photos of visitors individually or in groups (of course with a background of the wine cellar or an emblem of the winery), and they tell (or rather they list) what you actually already know, have read or will hear again later - at the obligatory tasting. "Matured in barriques, two-thirds new barrels, French oak, aged for 18 months..." is how the skilfully reeled off information sounds. At particularly popular (and therefore often visited) wineries, this ritual is even dispensed with. They have built in shop windows that offer a view of the barrel store where barriques are resting, usually immersed in magical, mysterious light, or a view of a modern cellar that is only recognisable as a wine press by the high, elegant, shiny silver fermentation tanks. The message conveyed is that this is where our wine is made, in ultra-modern facilities and romantic cellars. The old tools, witnesses to winemaking such as presses, wine presses, barrels, etc. are on display in the well-tended park or in the adjoining museum.

Show window to the barrique cellar at the Thelema% South Africa winery (Photo: P. Züllig)

After a rather casual tour - if it takes place at all - comes the highlight: the tasting. It, too, has long been regulated, perfectly organised: "This is our basic wine, this is our speciality, this wine comes from loamy-mineral soils and this..." And so it goes on, four to six wines are poured - usually in record time - and then it's over. The tasting usually stops with the most expensive wines. If you still ask for it, there is first an embarrassed hesitation, then a scrutinising look and: "You're lucky, there's just one bottle open..." After a scant sip (it is, after all, a special favour of the house), the expectant "So what?", not so much as a question, but rather as the ultimate invitation to praise the excellent wine. The order form follows, 15 percent discount, free delivery, whatever country you live in. This is truly not a home story, but rather a well-rehearsed encounter - a lively sounding out - of the wine business, with suspicion on both sides: "Is there any interest in our wines at all?" is the unspoken question on the one side and on the other the almost brazen expectation to get a good sip free of charge and without obligation. The spittoon (expressed more elegantly: the "crachoir") - an unmistakable sign of professional tasting - is not even set up. After all, people rarely spit, but rather drink, less reverently, but with high expectations. More and more wineries are resisting this kind of wine tourism by charging a fixed price for a tasting: about 10 euros for a round of four, 15 euros for a round of six.

Wine tasting in a cultivated setting at the Lanzerac% Stellenbosch wine estate (Photo: P. Züllig)

The first time I encountered this kind of wine tourism - many years ago - was in Bordeaux. At that time I was still proud to be part of it, didn't realise what I was doing and what was being done to me. I just wanted to find out where the wines came from, wanted to meet them in their homeland. Gradually, however, I got to know this wine tourism, which I still cannot escape, a little better, also in its hierarchy: there are wineries that do not receive wine tourists, or only those with a good name and good business connections. Others require advance notice so that selections can be made. Wines are hardly ever sold there, and if they are, then only in very small quantities, as souvenirs, so to speak - usually at overpriced prices. The "small" châteaux, which would be open to visits and sales, hardly appear on the tourist lists. There are only the big names that know how to celebrate their reputation. This is similar in almost all famous wine regions, be it California, Australia, Tuscany or - just experienced - South Africa. However, they have learned to deal with visitors from all over the world: Catering, souvenir shops, and - contrary to the custom in the Bordelais - wine is also sold there. Not directly - by the bottle - as a souvenir, but rather through worldwide distribution channels, by the case, in any quantity.

An experienced wine tourist manages five to eight wineries a day (depending on how far apart they are), so in a week it can be a good 30. And with each day, the awareness grows: to know and have experienced the visited wine Dorado. Rankings are even drawn up, of "beautiful" and less "beautiful" estates, as if the glamour and distinction of a presentation were directly transferred to the quality of the wine. And yet, whoever visits a famous wine region, wherever it may be, can hardly escape the pull of wine tourism. They are simply taken along, driven, and are happy to let themselves be driven. At home, later on, the realisation grows: wineries are also "among those things that you have to see because others have seen them too", as the actor Hans Söhnker once aptly put it.

Sincerely
Yours sincerely

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