What's the Price of a Pour?
Tensley Wines just dropped their tasting fee to $1 and it might be just crazy enough to work.
So, I just read Matt Kettman’s piece in the Santa Barbara Independent about Tensley Wines dropping their tasting fees to $1, and I was surprised to feel an immediate tug in two contrary directions about it.
Winemaker and owner Joey Tensley told the paper:
“If we want people to connect with what we do and what our region has to offer, we need to be accessible. We want people to feel welcome, not like they had to make an investment just to walk in the door.”
And while I deeply admire and totally agree with the sentiment, I couldn’t help but notice my cynicism rearing its ugly head.
A Bold Throwback Move
I think for the right winery, this idea is just crazy enough to work. There’s something very nostalgic about it. As Tensley pointed out, when he started in the late ‘90s, tasting rooms were meant to introduce people to wine, not act as profit centers.
Tastings were often free with the real goal being to build relationships, tell stories, and, hopefully, turn a few visitors into long-term customers. There’s even a running gag in the movie Bottle Shock where Alan Rickman’s Stephen Spurrier leaves cash behind for his tastings when visiting Napa, and all the winemakers are super confused by it.
That nostalgia still runs deep here in Santa Barbara County. Folks still come into FOXEN, reminiscing about “the old days” when tastings were free, and you’d be greeted by Billy and Dick themselves in The Shack (the old 1800s blacksmith shop turned tasting room). They’d tell stories about gathering cuttings from pruned vineyards to plant on the estate while half-watching a baseball game on a tiny TV in the corner. It’s a kind of intimacy that’s hard to replicate now.
When I started my first tasting room job at FOXEN in 2010, it still had that feeling of closeness. Tastings were $10 per person, and guests could keep the glass as a souvenir (something I always encouraged, since polishing stemware at the end of a busy day was the bane of my existence).
Today, though, the landscape is very different. Tastings in Santa Barbara County typically range from $25 to $50 per person, with some options costing more if a tour is included. In Napa or Sonoma, that price tag can top $150 for a “reserve” experience.
Part of that shift came from necessity: as tasting room traffic grew, wineries needed to cover costs. And as the “experience economy” has taken off, guests expect more than just to “belly up to the bar.”
That said, with many wineries reporting that visitation and sales are down and with their goals shifting to reach younger demographics, a lower tasting fee might just be the thing that turns heads.
Could It Work?
For a smaller winery like Tensley, with its more intimate tasting room and established brand reputation, this strategy could draw in curious new customers. Lowering the barrier to entry might encourage people who were otherwise hesitant to give wine tasting a try.
There’s a psychological effect, too. A $1 tasting reframes the experience as low-stakes and approachable, which is incredibly powerful in an industry that often gets accused of being intimidating or exclusive.
But I still have questions.
If you’re a small winery with limited capacity, what happens when this actually works and your tasting room fills up? Can your staff maintain the same level of service and storytelling if you suddenly have double (or hopefully triple) the foot traffic?
Will the increased volume translate into more bottle sales or just more people enjoying an inexpensive day out?
And what about your Members? For many wineries, free or discounted tastings are a key membership perk. If anyone can taste for $1, does that benefit lose some of its perceived value?
It’s also worth noting that many wineries already waive tasting fees if guests purchase wine, usually after a minimum number of bottles. The threshold varies: some will waive the fee for one bottle while others require three or more. In these cases, the tasting fee isn’t really the point; I see it more like a down payment on a relationship.
If the tasting is already waived with purchase, does dropping it to $1 really change the economics, or just the optics?
Self-Selection
For more high-touch wineries such as those offering private tastings, higher-end wines, or experiences that include food, this strategy probably doesn’t make sense.
A $50 (or higher) tasting fee does more than cover costs of staffing, rent, utilities, etc; it can also help your audience self-select if that makes sense. People willing to pay that much on a tasting fee are more likely to be your target buyers. If someone balks at the tasting fee, they probably aren’t going to buy a $90 bottle of Pinot Noir either *insert shrug here*
So maybe the question isn’t whether lowering tasting fees is the answer, but whether your current fee structure aligns with your actual goals (but isn’t that always the way?)
If your goal is volume and awareness (to bring more people in, introduce them to your story, get them into your funnel, blah blah blah), then a move like Tensley’s could be brilliant.
But if your goal is to maintain a premium positioning and deepen relationships with “serious buyers only,” it probably isn’t.
My Takeaway
What I think Tensley is really trying to do here is reframe the tasting room as a gateway versus being a gatekeeper, and I really like that idea.
He’s betting that if people feel welcome, they’ll buy wine, tell their friends, and come back.
I’ll be watching this one closely and I really hope it works! Not just because I’d love to see Tensley succeed, but because the experiment itself is fascinating.
If nothing else, it’s a reminder that sometimes, you have to shake the Etch A Sketch a bit and revisit what used to work. Do we think we will see a rise in snail-mail marketing from wineries, too?!
In the end, I think that questioning the assumption that tasting fees need to be high is a conversation worth having.