The Joy And Economics of Complimentary Wine Tasting In Paso Robles
Eberle Winery’s Approach: Free Tastings = Happy Customers & Good Business
The Godfather of Paso Robles wine has spoken: There shall be no fees for sampling my wine.
But everybody charges a taste fee now. How can he buck the wine tasting fee trend? Every winemaker in California sees it as the path to profitability. How can they all be wrong and Gary Eberle correct?
We asked him, what are the economics of complimentary tastings? What is the joy of sharing free wine?
Eberle starts out, “If you think you’re making money charging people to taste, you’re very short sighted. You may save a few bucks in the first year, but long term, you’re losing money. Give people a good product. Americans are very fair people. You give them a good product and a good reason for them to come and enjoy themselves.”
| “I mean this in the most complimentary sense, he (Mondavi) was the PT Barnum of our industry. He pulled not just Napa, but he pulled our whole industry into the 21st Century . ” –Gary Eberle |
“It’s no secret we don’t charge. And I didn’t invent it. This was one of the things I learned from Mr. Mondavi. He didn’t tell me a damn thing about making wine. But he taught me a whole lot about selling wine. You’ve got to have a good product and you’ve got to have great hospitality and you’ll sell wine. That has worked for us.”
He admits his overhead is higher because he has more people working. But it’s worth it for him, the winery, sales and staff.
“They’re having fun.” he says. They’re paid well, full medical, dental, optical, end of the year, I match the maximum I’m allowed in their IRA or 401K and we have very little turnover. I’ve got people who’ve been with me over 27 years, 35 years.”
He says for every bottle of wine he gives away, he sells five bottles of wine, or more.
So heck yeah: no tasting fee here he says, “Yeah, as long as I’m alive, this winery will never charge for tasting.”
But, surely there must be something valuable about a tasting fee? Will it thin out the Bridal groups looking for a party at your expense? Will it deter groups of friends out for a weekend of wine, food and a party on your nickle?
He thinks for a moment and says, “I don’t want to thin the crowd out. I won’t. Even the people coming here to taste and go away without buying anything, I’ll take them because I’m going to give them a good experience. They’re going to remember us.”
“I think you have a better impact psychologically on the customer if there’s no tasting fee because they’ve been out and they’ve been to four other wineries and they’ve all had tasting fees.” All of a sudden you walk in the door and find no wine tasting charge at Eberle’s winery.
He likes to sample his wares while chatting up visitors at a table reserved for him near the winery entrance. It’s his opportunity to check out his customers and tell a few jokes while sharing his wine wisdom.
| “I like to talk. People don’t expect the owner, ex-winemaker, or the Paso Robles winery legend to be sitting there talking to them. It works.” -Gary Eberle |
“Every day I try to be out front at that little table, sitting there with a bottle of Cabernet and just greeting people from say, 12:30pm every day until quitting time, welcoming people, talking to them. Where you from? Oh, geez, Baton Rouge. I went to LSU getting my master’s there. Oh, did you ever eat at Noble Fare? Great restaurant. Oh, yeah.”
“I like to talk. People don’t expect the owner, ex-winemaker, or the Paso Robles winery legend to be sitting there talking to them. It works.”
“Yesterday I was sitting out, and a customer came in and he said, ‘Are you Mr. Eberle?’ His standard response is, “Are you a process server? Yeah, I’m Gary Eberle.”
“You know, I came in just for your cave tour, I didn’t expect to buy much, you know, maybe a couple bottles, ” the customer admitted.
This customer purchased five and a half cases.
“I mean, that’s over 1,000 bucks,” says Eberle. “Well over 1,000 bucks. I mean, because he was having a good time. He must have spent an hour and a half here.”
| “You could pick up some wineries here just for the cost of their debt.” -Gary Eberle |
His model for success comes from the mind of Robert Mondavi. He learned from this famed wine marketer while attending University of California, Davis. Eberle says, “I mean this in the most complimentary sense, he was the P.T. Barnum of our industry. He pulled not just Napa, but he pulled our whole industry into the 21st Century . He once said while we were sitting at his little table out front, ‘If you put all the Americans in a bell curve and you split it down the middle, he said, the police are going to deal from the middle down. You’re going to deal from the middle up. You’re going to deal with the best of Americans. You treat them right, they will reciprocate.”
As we’ve reported in the past year, wine sales are down. This is why we wanted to hear Eberle’s take on free tastings and it’s impact on his program.
Direct To Consumer (DTC) wine sales are down 25% over the past two years. That’s a lot of unsold wine. We asked him about the rumor of 70 some wineries surveyed in Paso, that Eberle is the only one making money. The scuttlebutt indicates a dozen wineries are breaking even, but almost no one else is making money. He answers with, “You could pick up some wineries here just for the cost of their debt.”
Winemakers throughout the state are seeking more visitors. But the question is how? Free tasting? A low cost tier for two tastings instead of the traditional 5-6 samples? Dynamic pricing: Free weekdays with fees on weekends and holidays? Introduce spirits? Non-alcohol grape juice or wine? BOGO tastes, lower thresholds for waiving a tasting fee? Add more entertainment, music and food?
WineBusiness.com recently surveyed wineries around the country on experiments cutting tasting costs. In California’s Napa Valley, 18% of the surveyed wineries created a low price tier and saw new customers visiting. Napa’s De Loach Vineyards recently announced complimentary welcome flights (3 samples) on Thursday & Sunday as did Raymond Vineyards. Their regular tastings run from $65 to $125.
No surveyed winemakers in Sonoma, Lodi, Temecula nor Paso Robles experimented with lower price points. Here in Paso some wineries are offering BOGOs. We think these regions need to start tinkering with new price structures or complimentary tastings.
In a recent report they documented the continuing glut of bulk wine (think grocery stores, but also as we’ve reported, higher quality bulk wines from the likes of Napa & Sonoma areas.)
The reason for this decline in DTC sales has many reasons, but the biggest is the decline of Baby Boomer’s consumption. For 20+ years wine consumption grew as this cohort moved from beer and spirits to wine. Unfortunately, of 80 million Boomers, 10 million have passed and many in their 60-70s are not enjoying as much wine for health and weight reasons.
The next generation with the heft to replace Boomers as consumers is Gen Y: Millennials. They’re generally defined as being born between 1985-2005 with 88 million souls just now hitting 40-years-old. Enjoying beer, gummies, hard ciders, Ready To Drink spirits (RTD) and abstinence is common for them. Are they ready for wine?
We asked Eberle, is Gen Y starting out on Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Rose like Boomers? What is he seeing at his winery?
“I would say for the most part, it’s almost more seasonal,” he says. “In the winter, the young people, they’re drinking reds, maybe some of the lighter reds, like Côtes-du-Rôbles Rouge (GSM) or the Sangiovese. In the summertime, when it’s hot, they do like their white wines and the chilled roses, but I’ve not recognized a pattern with the younger people.”
“They’re drinking the exact same thing their previous generation was drinking. I’m surprised. They seem to be spending a little bit more per per capita now, certainly more than the baby boomers.” He adds, “The Boomers are the ones cutting back.”
Our conversation comes to a close and he asks for another minute of time, “Would you like to hear my singing dogs?” Sangiovese & Barbera are both standard poodles, his 7th & 8th. They’re napping on their office beds.
He fires up Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 on his sound system.
The dogs stir. Jumping out of bed they croon with the streaming digital sound of 116-year-old piano notes. There’s a lot of our laughter intermingled with the singing pups. He enjoys it when they occasionally croon to Rock N’ Roll music during patio concerts. Their concierge Nancy tells us they sing to any Queen tunes a musician might play while entertaining on the patio.
There’s always some merrymaking at Eberle Winery, whether it’s the Cave Tour (a perk component of your tasting), music on the patio, happy staff, occasional BBQs, Poodles nosing around the deck singing along with a band or just the great variety of Paso wine. Then there’s meeting the man himself, the God Father of Paso Wine sipping Cabernet Sauvignon in the shade of a warm Paso day.
And of course, complimentary tastings. Visit soon.
Some notes on our wine ranking system.
Bill & Erin Hodge write about California Wine, the estates & winemakers producing them and educational information about Vino. Living in California Wine Country provides a front row seat to the places you want to visit the most here in the Golden State.
– -✰ means -What’s next on your list of wines
-✰ means -Not liking it too much
✰ means -We’ll drink this wine, especially if it’s hosted!
✰+ means -You’ve got our attention and we might buy this wine.
✰+ + means -We’re hooked and we’re going to buy this wine.
When you see -✰/✰+ with a slash, it means we disagree.
