Everybody likes wine!  Okay, not quite everybody.  But besides the President of France, really a lot of people love wine.  And it’s time for wine tourism to take this into account.  This post summarizes some of my philosophy on our winery tours and travel activities by thinking about normal people and what they want when they visit a vineyard.

Wine tourism falsehoods

• False: Only wine snobs will enjoy a winery tour
• False: A vineyard tour can take place in one room
• False: All potential vineyard visitors use wine guides
• False: If you don’t drink, you can’t enjoy a winery tour
• False: Young people aren’t interested in wine

To put it more positively:

Wine tourism TRUTHhoods

Normal people think wine is cool

About half of the people who visited O’Vineyards this year have never visited a vineyard or winery before.

There’s this very old notion in France about wine tourism.  If somebody is averti (ie “in the know”), they will find out about a winery in a guide book, they will call ahead of time to arrange a visit, they will taste the wine during that visit, and then they will purchase a significant amount of wine.  This is a fine way of doing things for wine nerds.  But only a tiny number of wine drinkers are wine nerds.

Most drinkers are totally normal people who drink wine 2-4 times a month and have never even considered buying a magazine about wine.  If they are visiting a place like Carcassonne, it will not take long for them to realize they are in wine country.  The land between villages is covered in vines.  They will get curious about visiting a winery. And they are frequently surprised to see how hard it is to find a good vineyard to visit.

These people don’t know a ton about wine, but they want to learn a little.  Wine tourism should focus more heavily on this demographic because they’re more fun than snobs and they are more statistically significant.  If we could only sell wine to wine nerds or normal people, we’d choose normal people.  And if we could somehow forbid wine snobs from drinking O’Vineyards, we probably would.

Standing in a gift shop is rarely fun

Our goal is to entertain winery visitors.

The thing about entertaining normal people is that it’s marginally more difficult in some ways.  Wine nerds are so desperate to be immersed in wine culture that they will put up with almost anything.  For normal people who have never thought of listing “wine” as an interest on their facebook profile, we’re going to have to be a little more entertaining.

That said, it’s not very hard to be entertaining.  Wine is inherently cool.  You have to fight pretty hard to make it boring.  And I’m surpised that some wineries spend a huge amount of resources making themselves uninteresting.  One of the most common ways for a winery to develop tourism is to build a giftshop.  More accurately a caveau de degustation or a tasting room. And a tasting room is important for lots of reasons.  But it shouldn’t be the only thing you do.

My tasting room at O’Vineyards is just a really comfortable living room.  There’s no cash register.  There aren’t price tags.  You sit down and enjoy some wine.  And there are direct views on the vines at all times.  If I didn’t have a view on the vines from the tasting room, I’d probably encourage people to taste in the winery.  Again, it’s just more interesting.

Most wine retailers would kill for the opportunity to show their customers a vineyard. To taste the wine in situ surrounded by barrels or by vines.  Winemakers have this opportunity.  And instead we spend tons of money to build tasting rooms that are totally removed from the vineyard!

Normal people don’t read wine magazines

There are other ways to let normal people know they’d have fun visiting your vineyard.

Normal people don’t think about wine all the time, and they don’t invest in wine guides and wine magazines.  While it is logical to advertise winery tours, wine camps, etc. in wine magazines, it also makes sense to reach out through other non-wine media.  I remember a story from one of the people at mesvignes.com who mentioned that their ad campaigns in so-called “feminine magazines” were infinitely more successful than their ads in wine zines.

I obviously do a lot of Internet work.  But you don’t need to follow the same path as me!  Consider at least adding your property to TripAdvisor.  And encouraging visitors to leave a review when they get back home.

Consider your working relationships with hotels, B&B, gites, and house rentals in your area.  Can any of them send traffic your way?  What about restaurant staff?  If a restaurant sells your wine, the staff there are in an amazing position to send drinkers your way.

Working with retailers is harder because they sometimes fear the tourist will circumvent the middleman while visiting the vineyard.  But consider giving your cavistes gift certificates for a free winery tour and tell them to distribute them for purchases of 6 bottles from your estate (or whatever).  A clever retailer will be able to upsell one-time clients on your wine, and you’ll increase your overall sales while getting some travelers to come by.  And even though you don’t make any direct cash off of those tourists, they will go home and talk about you, and you are going to sell more wine to that retailer.

Brochures and signage are good too.  However, in my experience, word of mouth always beats a stack of brochures or dilapidated roadside sign in the shape of a wine bottle.

And don’t ignore trade press or wine press.  They’re important too.  Just for different reasons and different audiences.

Wine is only one weapon in your entertainment arsenal

A lot of people who visit O’Vineyards don’t drink wine.

I know it seems crazy that somebody who doesn’t drink wine might visit a vineyard.  But this happens–all the time.  Pregnant ladies, young teenagers, religious abstainers, and people who plain out dislike red wine.

This is because people visit a vineyard expecting to be entertained.  And wine tasting is only one possible method of entertainment. Education and personality are big here.  People generally expect to learn something.  If this is their first winery, they’re probably curious about really simple stuff like how wine is made.  What does a vine look like?  How often does it give fruit?  What’s the difference between red and white and rose?  Normal people don’t know this stuff, but they’d like to know.

Of course, it’s not just about conveying information.  It’s about having a good time.  Think about going to the bar.  People can drink at home, so why do they go to a bar and pay more money?  It’s usually for the social element.  Guests to your winery will appreciate meeting a winemaker and finding out what a winemaker is like.  It’s pretty rare for most people.  Like meeting an astronaut or a racecar driver.

Although I should also mention that you shouldn’t treat these tourists like idiots.  They don’t know a lot about wine, but they’re still intelligent.  More than a few tourist attractions in the region have developed expensive but meaningless light shows.  Wine tourists are not THAT easily entertained.  Actually, I’d argue it’s even easier to entertain them.  You don’t need to build a light show.  You just need to open up and share what you know.  Tell a funny story.  Tell a sad story.  Listen to their stories too.  Wine tourism, like wine should be a fun social experience.

Wine tourism is no longer for curmudgeonly snobs

Get them young!  (but not too young!)

Don’t underestimate 20-something year-olds.  Remember the sweet spot that we’re looking to hit is normal people who think wine is cool but don’t necessarily know a lot about it.  Blank slates, if you will.  A lot of young people fit that description…almost by definition.  Americans can’t start drinking wine til we’re 21 so it’s difficult for somebody in their twenties to know much at all about wine other than “I like it!”

If you are looking at developing wine tourism, consider the vast potential of this market.  We tend to like authenticity which is wonderfully inexpensive in terms of communication, ads, and PR.  Also, converting young people gets you a brand advocate that will market you and your wines for a lifetime to come.  I have a lot of twenty-somethings who visit the vineyard and end up recommending it to their parents and grandparents.

Caveat

I will confess that this post is where I stand today, and my views will almost certainly evolve over time.  And I should also mention that a lot of winemakers complain about a sort of looky-loo tourist that I have never met.  They spend an hour or two at the vineyard, tasting for free and then they leave without buying anything or they buy a single bottle of the cheapest wine or somesuch.

Honestly, this is why I charge for tours.  I still offer free giftshop tastings if that’s what people specifically ask for.  But then they also know that it’s thirty minutes and then I gotta run.  And (knock on wood) I still haven’t had any bad experiences.  I really enjoy meeting all the kooks who come through this vineyard.  And they mostly seem to enjoy meeting us too.  Here’s to hoping I never have to complain about visitors!

Grape harvest in the south of France

The grapes are changing color and that reminds us that harvest time is right around the corner.  We get exceptionally busy around harvest, but we leave the door open and let tourists come to the vineyard and see exactly how harvest goes down.  Some people actually roll up their sleeves and work for a bit too!  It’s the perfect way to get immersed in the wine from the region while you visit Carcassonne.

Who is this workshop designed for?

This is great for anybody who is curious about how wine is made.  You don’t need to know a lot about wine.  It’s interesting to every level of wine drinker.  We’ve actually had visitors who don’t even drink wine but still love the tour because they get to see a really fascinating process that defines the life of our entire region for an entire month.  Wine is really the backbone of the Languedoc Roussillon and visiting a vineyard is a quintessential experience!

All that said, if you do already know a fair bit about wine, this is a great way to take it to the next level.  You’ll see soooo much in a short period of time.  It will certainly be time well-spent.

When is harvest 2011?

Harvest should start around the second week of September.

But this is the toughest part of planning the harvest workshops.  Folk lore says that harvest starts 45 days after the grapes change color. And they’re changing color right now.  According to that, you can expect harvest to start around the second week of September.  But that’s not set in stone.  On the bright side, if you come right before harvest, there is still a lot of interesting stuff going on.  We’ll be tasting the grapes to see whether they’re ready to be harvested.  We’ll be setting up the winery for harvest.  And we’ll be doing some last minute work to prepare the parcels that are going to be machine-harvested.  You might also get to peek in at our extremely limited white wine production (just a couple of barrels).

Harvest should end around the second week of October.

But even toward the end, there are lots of interesting things going on.  Vinification for example!  How do we turn that grape juice into wine?  In many ways, the end of harvest is the most interesting time to visit because you’ll see freshly picked grapes (generally the Cabernet Sauvignon comes in last) side by side with the first grapes we picked (and they’re generally finishing their fermentation by the end of harvest).  The downside is that we’ll be exhausted so you’ll meet a much less energetic version of the O’Connell family. 😀  But we love to receive people and share the harvest so don’t be shy!

What do you see and do at harvest?

You’ll see everything.  There are no closed doors.  You’ll see how we pick the grapes and bring them into the winery.  You can see the sorting table in action.  You’ll see how we bring the grapes up to the tanks without any pumps.  You can see us mix yeasts or sulfites that will be added to the fermentation tank.  All this is open book.  Last year, a group from Barcelona took some brilliant harvest photos that really showcase how much access they had to every step of the process.

A lot of tourists choose to participate actively in some of the easier jobs.  Spend fifteen minutes at the sorting table to contribute to the quality of O’Vineyards 2011!  Help pick a row of grapevines.  Or do more technical stuff like learn how to take sugar density measurements on the incoming juice and calculate the potential alcohol level.  Whatever tickles your fancy (within reason… we have to be careful about insurance issues).

How to book a harvest tour

You should email us at ryan@ovineyards.com and let us know what day or days you can come by.  We’ll tell you what’s likely to be the best day to visit.   Also tell us if you want the tour (25 Euros / person) or the more involved harvest workshop (95 Euros / person, lunch included and more time with the winemakers).

I hope to see a lot of you very soon!

This is part of an ongoing series about places to visit near Carcassonne.

Small wineries and vineyards around Carcassonne, often lack the infrastructure to receive tourists year round.  This post will attempt to list some of the wineries that are well-known in the area for receiving visitors regularly.

If you’d like to visit a particular estate (eg your favorite producer), it’s often a good idea to call ahead of time to make sure the winemaker is available to receive you and taste through some wines.  But if you’re fine visiting a winery you’re unfamiliar with, here is a list of folks open to last minute visitors.

Wineries really near to Carcassonne:

O’Vineyards – Directions from the castle – This is my family vineyard and we’re generally happy to receive people year round.  It’s always best to call before hand because we are a working vineyard and could be busy. It’s convenient to book one of our wine & food experience on our detailed website . We receive dozens of last minute visitors each year. Visiting us is fun because you’ll actually hang out with the winemakers.  We’re also native English speakers and we enjoy sharing with people who know very little about wine.  So don’t be intimidated!

885 Avenue de la Montagne Noire
11620 Villemoustaussou
33 (0)6 30 18 99 10

Chateau Pennautier – Directions from the castle – A prestigious estate north of Carcassonne that has a tour of the chateau as well as wine tastings.  They have staff dedicated to these tour groups so you can show up without any reservations.

2 boulevard Pasteur
11610 Pennautier
33 (0)4 68 72 65 29 ?

Wineries closer to Narbonne:

L’Hospitalet – This is a bit farther away in La Clape (by Narbonne), and it’s a bit more of a gift shop tour.  But what’s cool is that it unites wines from all of Gerard Bertrand’s properties in the Languedoc Roussillon.  So in one place, you’ll get to taste wines from lots of different parts of the region.  And Narbonne might be worth a day trip anyway.

Route de Narbonne plage
20409 11104 NARBONNE
33 (0) 4 68 45 28 50
resa@gerard-bertrand.com

Le Bouis – This one is near Narbonne too and has a cool restaurant.  It’s technically in the Corbieres but it’s not lost in the mountains to the south.  It’s in Gruissan, really close to the coast and makes an easy addition to a Narbonne day trip.  You might also consider seeing the salt flats in Gruissan after visiting the winery.

Route Bleue
11430 Gruissan
33 (0)4 68 75 25 25

Wineries in the mountains of the Corbieres

Driving to these wineries will take some time as they are in the mountains (see map of corbieres wineries).  But this can be a gorgeous road trip.  Avoid the motorway and take the small mountain roads.  But don’t drink too much or you won’t be able to drive back! 😀

Embres & Castelmaure – This cooperative winery has some great wines and display them at the gift shop.  You can do the tasting for free but they only do winery tours if you make a reservation.

4, route des canelles
11360 Embres & Castelmaure
33 (0)4 68 45 91 83

Mont Tauch – Same deal.  A great cooperative winery where you can taste the wines for free, but winery tours must be booked ahead of time and are generally reserved for larger groups.

Les Vignerons Du Mont Tauch
11350 Tuchan
33 (0)4 68 45 41 08

I’ve written about a few other cool wineries in the Corbieres, but you might have to call ahead for some of them.

O’Vineyards – Villemoustaussou

4 elegantly furnished B&B rooms with direct view on the vines.  You’ll be sharing the building with us, a Franco-American family with a small vineyard and winery just north of Carcassonne.  We’re very happy to host, and we have a full range of high end red wines.

The Cabardes is a gorgeous region of France that is very close to the historic medieval castle of Carcassonne.  Proximity to the Cité makes the Cabardes a perfect vacation area because it means you can visit the Cité de Carcassonne, the Canal du Midi, and benefit from all the amenities of Carcassonne.  There’s a train station and an International airport (almost exclusively RyanAir flights though).  You’re less than hour’s drive from the Mediterranean coast, about an hour from Toulouse, about an hour and a half from Montpellier, and a couple of hours from the Pyrenees.

I should also mention you’ll be surrounded by delicious wine!!  🙂

The Cabardes AOC is small, dominated by independent wine producers, and features a unique blend of Mediterranean and Atlantic grape varietals.

This is probably the last update about the Quarry Project in Villemoustaussou (at least for now).

Even though I panicked last week when I received the email notification of the proposed quarry installation, this week has been full of research and helpful advice from friends.

Here’s the long summary of the quarry project.  I still haven’t read the whole technical report, but all in good time.

So here’s all the good news:

1. The short notice (I received an email Friday night asking for a response by Monday) was for a consultation on the quarry’s effects on viticulture.  There is over one month to study the project and talk about it during an “enquete publique” that will start next week.
2. This should be an installation of the least invasive type of quarry.  They can dig the big hole and draw stone, but that’s pretty much it.  There is no permission to dewater or treat the concrete on site.  My two greatest fears.
3. The project has shrunk from its original size to avoid digging near the most important part of the Fresquel river’s flood zone.
4. The increased road traffic through Villemoustaussou shouldn’t be too noticable since the current quarry’s traffic also drives through Villemoustaussou.  I didn’t even know this so, if it’s true, it means the road traffic is pretty negligible.
5. The dust clouds should be extremely limited to the area directly around the quarry, and they are watering the roads so even that shouldn’t be significant.
6. Noise pollution is neglible as I am more than a few kilometers uphill from the project.
7. At the end of the quarry’s 12 year run, they will apparently turn it into a nice lake which should increase local property value and means more development/funding for Villemoustaussou
8. The company will conduct a new field study to inventory and catalogue all plant and animal species in the 28 hectares affected to ensure that no protected animals or plants will be displaced or harmed by the project.

I still need to attend the local meetings and read the full file.  But it would seem that everything is actually okay and we can turn off the alarm bells for now.

The vineyard is safe. 🙂

It’s easy to find the GPS coordinates for Domaine O’Vineyards ( 43.259622, 2.340387 ) and I want to write a how to for other vineyard and winery owners who want to post their latitude and longitude online.

If you own a GPS navigation system and you’re standing on your property, you can use the nav system to find your GPS coordinates.  However, instructions vary based on the machine you have.  Instead, I’m going to walk through how you can use Google Maps to find your longitude and latitude.

Why GPS coordinates are important

Wineries and vineyards typically have unusual addresses which might be hard to find on common sat nav systems or mapping websites.  To make sure that your guest can find you, think about finding your exact GPS coordinates and posting them on your site along with your address and phone number.

Using Google Maps to find Lat and Long

Step 1 – Go to google maps

Go to http://maps.google.com/maps

Step 2 – Find your approximate location

Type the address of your vineyard or winery into the search bar and click on “Search Maps”.

As you can see from the screenshot, google maps will find the address or something close to it on their map.  If perchance Google has found your exact location, you can skip to step 4.  Otherwise, we’ll go to step 3 in order to pinpoint the exact location of the vineyard.

Step 3 – Pinpoint your exact location

Try to use the satellite images on google maps to find the exact location of your vineyard or winery.  When you find the exact location, right click on it (click on it with the right mouse button).  A menu should pop up.  Left click (click normally with the left button) on the “center map here” option.

This will recenter the map to the exact location of your vineyard or winery.  Now we can get the exact GPS coordinates.

Step 4 – Getting your latitude and longitude

If you look in the top right corner of the map, there are buttons that say “Print” “Send” and “Link”.  Click on “Link”.

Copy the text that is highlighted.  This URL address will allow you to link directly to the map you’re looking at which is centered on your winery or vineyard.  It will also contain the GPS coordinates of your vineyard!  To copy text, go to the edit menu and select “copy”.  This will copy the highlighted text into the computer’s memory.  Now go into any text document like word or an email platform and select paste from the edit menu.  This should paste the URL address into your text document.

It will look something like this:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=885+Avenue+de+la+Montagne+Noire,+Villemoustaussou,+France&aq=1&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.641855,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=885+Avenue+de+la+Montagne+Noire,+11620
+Villemoustaussou,+Aude,+Languedoc-Roussillon,+France&ll=43.259815,2.340689&spn=0.011001,0.01929&t=h&z=16

The important part is the bit toward the end after “ll=”

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=885+Avenue+de+la+Montagne+Noire,+Villemoustaussou,+France&aq=1&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.641855,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=885+Avenue+de+la+Montagne+Noire,+11620
+Villemoustaussou,+Aude,+Languedoc-Roussillon,+France&ll=43.259815,2.340689&spn=0.011001,0.01929&t=h&z=16

See the bit I put in bold?  It’s your GPS coordinates.  The first number is your latitude and the second number (after the comma) is your longitude.  In this case, my GPS coordinates are 43.259812   2.340689

Ta da!  The most observant of you might notice that the latitude and longitude are actually different than the ones I mentioned on my contact page and at the top of this page.  The truth is the first four digits are what matter the most.  The last few get more and more specific.  Make sure you’re close enough to be useful to your visitors!  Don’t get caught up in pinpointing yourself to the nearest inch or centimeter.

Danny McCubbin and his photography assistant Anthony just came through the south of France.  We were very happy that they could stop for three days in Carcassonne and taste the wonderful food and wine of the region.  They participated in all our vineyard tours and workshops (i.e. they toured the winery, ate a 5 course lunch at the winemaker’s table, and shot some video of the recipes my mom teaches in her cooking workshop).

via Danny’s twitpic account

Danny’s Holiday

Danny is the editor for jamieoliver.com and has been working with Jamie for almost a decade now. He was as nice as you’d expect for a member of the Jamie Oliver team.  It’s always a pleasure to share the region’s food and wine with folks visiting Carcassonne and it’s especially fun when the visitors are totally unpretentious food lovers like Danny and Anthony.

They also visited the medieval cité de Carcassonne and stayed in the historic Hotel de la Cité.  Jerome Ryon, a local chef at La Barbacane, sat down with them to talk about cooking and food and how it’s about working with good ingredients and keeping things simple and accessible.  Jerome insists this is true even at his professional level of cuisine (La Barbacane is a Michelin starred kitchen).

It was Easter weekend so we got to see a few of the neat things going on around Carcassonne.  Easter egg hunts and chocolate making workshops.  And it’s asparagus season.  🙂

And we organized a tasting on Easter where we enjoyed wines from all over the department of Aude.  Some of Ben Darnault’s wines from Minervois, St. Chinian and Picpoul.  Some Minervois from Hegarty Chamans as well.  A whole lot of fun!

You Can Visit Too

And you don’t have to be a journalist to get these tours.  If you want to visit us and have fun with wine and food, you only have to email me.  Costs vary depending on what you want to do, so check out the tours and workshops we offer visitors and let me know what you want to do.

 

Some people say that adding your website to relevant directories will help Internet surfers find your website. Not only can they find you through the directory, the links can also help search engines figure out what your site is about. This second part is only true if you use really relevant directories.

I’ve previously written about regional directories. I might add a few wine specific directories.

Well curated directories like AllTop are divided into dozens of highly specialized blog categories. I’m really honored to be included in the top wine blogs. The directory has very few winery blogs and TWO of us are Languedoc producers (the other winemaker is Iris).

O’Vineyards was also featured in the World Wine category of TripBase’s blog directory. Another honor. A quick look at the other blogs mentioned makes me feel like I’m in very good company. This sort of well-curated blog directory or award listing is very helpful.

WineBlogger is a project that has very specific categories for different wine blogs. This sort of specific categorization means that search engines (and users) will know a lot more about your site. Not only is my site about wine, it is commonly associated with these other websites that use the same types of words (typically in a winemaker’s vocabulary).

Vinography tries to keep a list of all the wine blogs out there.  You have to be running for a while with regularly updated content.

The Winery Website Report has a “complete list” of wineries, but their submission form requires you to put a US state so I guess it’s not for wineries outside of the US.

Of course, I also curate a listing of Languedoc Roussillon winemaker blogs.

I’ve previously mentioned my love for the Never Said About Restaurant Websites tumblr which delivers ironic praise for poorly designed restaurant websites.  And more recently, Andrew Jefford published a similar opinion about poorly designed winery websites.  And The Oatmeal made a comic about bad restaurant websites too.

And I’ve slowly but surely been working on this problem in my spare time.  What is the perfect winery website?  What should be on the landing page?  And how should the rest of the page be structured?

Keep it simple

“If at any time you find yourself tying the ring to a dog’s collar, stop”.
–Oscar’s advice on how to propose marriage, The Office

Never Said About Restaurant Websites doesn’t only offer chuckles.  It also offers a guide to making less horrible restaurant websites.  Their perfect site has all the key information on the landing page.  The site should preferably be tiny.  The key information includes location, opening hours, reservation policy, and a downloadable menu.

Keep it simple.  Any time restauranteurs think they should include a short flash animation, blaring music, a winding manifesto about why the chef became a chef, or anything like that, just stop.  Count backwards from 10 and walk away.  Almost everybody who googles a restaurant’s website will specifically be looking for location, opening hours, reservation policy and a copy of the menu.  If that’s not on the landing page, you lose.

But here’s the rub. What is the perfect information for winery websites?

The most crucial information

As far as I can tell, the most crucial information for every winery website is:

1. Contact information
2. Location
3. A list of wines (with photos of bottles or labels)
4. History (about us section)

I think from here, a visitor should also be able to access detailed information about each wine including varietal composition and a description (and from there, information about  each vintage).

Also from here, the visitor should be able to access more information about where the grapes come from.  Describe the vineyard, climate, geology, and culture.

History is a place where you can talk about yourself.  Try to keep it short.

If you ever find yourself making a flash animation, stop. 😀

This will create a tiny, simple website full of useful information.  Now, how to layer that information?

Specific information

People who want more specific, deeper information are generally more willing to click around the website for a minute in order to find that info.  But don’t bury the information too deeply or they will lose patience.

Jefford writes, “If you’ve just spent €700 on a bottle of Clos du Mesnil and have made the effort to look at the website, you may want to know the history and geology of the vineyard, you will probably want to understand why fermentation in wood makes this wine different from its peers, and you may be intrigued to hear why a company which always claimed that ‘blending was all’ now produces not one but two single-vineyard Champagnes.”

Of course, this is true.  Even my 28 Euro Reserve is priced high enough that people might want to know exactly why it’s 28 euros and not 10.  But that’s deep information.  It shouldn’t be landing page info.  People who want this level of depth are willing to click around a bit to find out more about the Reserve.  In my current design, from the landing page, they can get the basic varietal composition of the reserve and a picture of the bottle in one click (the “wines” tab).  They can get detailed description of the fermentation process, aging, and tasting notes with a second click.

Similarly, professionals tend to be slightly more patient.  It’s their job, so they’ll stick with you longer.

So hopefully this gives you some guidelines about how deep to bury information.  The more specific a piece of information or the more “in-depth” it is, the deeper you can bury it in the site.  Basic, common information  should be on the landing page or one click away.  More indepth info can be two clicks away.  Really specific info can be three or four clicks away.  And so on.

All that said, there are several reasons why you might want to deviate from this model.

Make some choices

There are several potential audiences for a winery website. You can’t cater to all of them at the same time. You’ll have to choose who your website is designed for.

Types of people visiting my site (sort of in order of popularity):

1. A drinker who is just surfing the net
2. A journalist who is looking for additional information
3. A fan who is just checking in
4. A tourist who is trying to visit you IRL
5. A supplier trying to sell you a service or product
6. A drinker who wants more information before purchasing
7. A drinker who wants more information before consuming.
8. A sales person looking for promotional material / tech sheets
9. A retailer or restaurant trying to find your wine
10. An importer or sales agent trying to contact you

Now when I look at that list, I feel like there are vastly different goals. Pretty much everybody is seeking information. But the nature of that info varies a lot.

Obviously, you can ignore some people straight away. I don’t need to think about suppliers trying to sell me new barrels and stuff. They’ll find a way to contact me even if its buried in the most remote part of the website imaginable. And it’s their job to find that information so they’ll persist.

There’s an instinct to cater to the most common visitors while ignoring the less frequent visitors. However, while importers only visit the site rarely, those are very important visitors. So you can’t just ignore the less frequent visitor types.

Ultimately, you have to make some choices. Make your own list with your own priorities. I’ve made this list based on my experiences online so it’s a bit idiosyncratic. For example, tourism is an important part of our business because of our proximity to Carcassonne, our ability to speak English, and our personalities. While tourism is a priority of ours, most winemakers will not value it as much. So make your own list and it will be easier to make choices, especially about the landing page.

Archetypes of Winery Websites

I think there are several models that can serve as archetypes of winery websites.  Ideals or extremes.  Some of these work better than others, in my opinion.

E-Commerce winery website

This winery website operates like any other e-commerce site.  It is owned and operated by a winery, but it feels like amazon.com.  Every page reminds you to take advantage of a special offer available for a limited time only, free shipping for orders over a certain amount.  Every part of this site is designed to push visitors toward the credit card confirmation page.

I’m not a huge fan.  It’s especially difficult for small wineries to make it this way.  For a successful e-store, you really should have a whole range of products.  But there are some people who like it this way.  And obviously, this model ignores most of the rules of good site design that I talk about above.

Trade site, All business

Some wineries have a site that is clearly designed for people from the trade.  There might be a beautiful page set up to show who distributes their wine in each country (or in the case of the USA, each state).  This is exceptionally practical for restaurants and retailers that wish to carry the wine.

There will be tech sheets for every wine.  A different sheet for every vintage. There are downloadable and printable shelf-talkers in multiple languages.

Sometimes these sites even require login information which the winery will only hand out to paying wholesale customers.

Winery: The Movie

Wineries will very commonly make websites that are more about “expanding the brand” than about informing visitors.  You’ll sit through a long flash animation and then have to wrangle with an unexplainable interface to find even basic information.

This is generally annoying.  In rare cases, it can be executed very well.  In those rare cases, it’s still an acquired taste.  For example, I like the Bonny Doon website despite its reliance on Flash and its whimsical nature. It strikes a good balance.  And it offers all the information I eventually want in a format that’s novel without being tooooo contrived.  But even good sites like this get poor ratings from some web surfers because they are a little trying if you’re not in the mood.

The blog you’ve never tasted

A lot of winery websites (like this one) are more famous than their corresponding wines.  Many of the people who visit this website have never tasted my wine.  They just assume it’s good because a lot of people say so, and I seem like a nice guy.

A website that knows some readers are there for the blog and not for the wine can take liberties about what it displays on the landing page.  Many of my visitors don’t actually care where I’m located are what my labels look like (because they just read this blog while they’re bored at work or because they’re wine professionals that read technical articles like this one).

On the other hand, a customer who has already bought and is on the verge of consuming wants more practical information like pairing suggestions and tasting notes (caveat: don’t bore them to tears with generic tasting notes that have so many nouns and adjectives they could actually be describing every wine on the planet mixed together)

That’s just the first two people on my list.  They’re fairly similar and yet they already have different information demands.  Do you put it all on the landing page?  I don’t think so.  You have to make some choices.

I notice a lot of people search the Internet for vineyards really close to Carcassonne.

Vines driving distance from Carcassonne

If you want to do a full tour of a vineyard and winery near Carcassonne, I naturally recommend visiting me at O’Vineyards. We’re less than fifteen minutes away from the castle (by car).  And perhaps you’ll have time to visit a few other vineyards near Carcassonne.

Vines walking distance in Carcassonne

If you just want to see some vines near the castle and take some really pretty pictures, then there are actually vines right next to the medieval cité de Carcassonne. My friend has a vineyard directly outside of the castle.

Google Map walking directions from Cité de Carcassonne to vines – 4 minute walk

He doesn’t really do tours or opening hours, but if you just want to see some vines while you’re in Carcassonne then you should visit his vineyard.