Overview

Wine tourism is a significant component of both the wine and tourism industries. Wine and tourism have been intimately connected for many years, but it is only recently that this relationship has come to be explicitly recognized by governments, researchers and by the industries themselves. For the tourism industry, wine is an important component of the attractiveness of a destination and can be a major motivating factor for visitors. For the wine industry, wine tourism is a very important way to build up relationships with customers who can experience first hand the romance of the grape, while for many smaller wineries direct selling to visitors at the cellar door is often essential to their business success. In her standard work on wine, Jancis Robinson (1994:980) records that

Wine-related tourism has become increasingly important. For many centuries not even wine merchants travelled, but today many members of the general public deliberately make forays to explore a wine region or regions. This is partly a reflection of the increased interest in both wine and foreign travel generally, but also because most wine regions and many producers premises are attractive places. Vineyards tend to be aesthetically pleasing in any case, and the sort of climate in which wine is generally produced is agreeable during most of the year. Getting to grips with this specialist form of agriculture combines urban dwellers need to commune with nature with acquiring...