How tasting rooms can build connection, loyalty, & increased visits
By Corey Krejcik, Founder of Thirsty Bandit
In the world of wine, customer engagement is more than just a marketing metric—it’s the heart of what transforms a casual visitor into a loyal guest, a repeat buyer, and ultimately a wine club member. Today’s consumers want more than just a pour in a glass; they want connection, storytelling, and a sense of belonging. Taking time to create a thoughtful engagement strategy ensures that your tasting room stays top-of-mind, stands out amongst regional competitors, and becomes the cornerstone for creating memorable experiences that keep guests coming back for all their celebrations in life. In this article, we will explore just a few proven strategies to help tasting rooms and wine brands strengthen their presence, grow their audience, and increase tasting room traffic.
Showcasing Authenticity Through Social Media
Social media has quickly become the first touchpoint for consumers to discover a brand. Decisions are made in seconds based on an Instagram post or Reel, and visitors immediately begin assessing whether your tasting room feels approachable, exciting, educational, or simply forgettable. The goal isn’t perfection, it’s preserving your brand’s presence, personality, and authenticity.
More than ever, guests want to peek behind the curtain: to see how your wines are made, meet the people who pour them, and learn something new along the way. A strong social media presence allows prospective visitors to understand who you are as a company and what you value. It’s an opportunity to highlight your ethics, celebrate partnerships with local businesses, share sustainability initiatives, and highlight the culture that defines your space.
This step is vital for all tasting rooms and wine-based businesses. Being visible in the community, announcing your presence with confidence, and spotlighting the individuals who make your operation thrive all contribute to why someone may choose to walk through your door. Every post, every Reel, should feel like an open invitation—a glimpse into your world that encourages guests to spend their time within your space.
Tapping Into User-Generated Content
User-generated content is one of the most powerful tools available to tasting rooms and wine brands—largely because it’s free and inherently trustworthy. When guests share their experiences, they offer something no marketing campaign can manufacture: raw, honest perspective. Promoting your brand and style is only half the work; the rest delivers an experience that guests genuinely want to talk about. Today’s consumers rely heavily on peer reviews, photos, and firsthand stories before choosing a new space to visit.
Enhancing your physical environment plays a significant role in this. Cozy seating areas, thoughtful design details, intentional signage, and photo-friendly corners invite guests to document their visit. Everyone who walks into a tasting room is looking to make a memory and creating a space that supports that is both an honor and a privilege.
Once these moments exist, encourage tagging and sharing across social platforms. Small incentives—monthly giveaways, discounts, or simple recognition—go a long way in motivating guests to post photos and reels. Reposting their content expands your reach and amplifies your message in a way that feels genuine because it comes from real visitors. When you create an atmosphere that people want to return to repeatedly, their shared experiences begin to build momentum—allowing your brand identity to start working for you.
Partner With
Influencers Who Match Your Brand
The world of influence has changed. Today, it’s no longer only about celebrity endorsements, it’s about voices right from your community, or even from your own backyard. For tasting rooms, micro-influencers are often the sweet spot. These are people steadily growing their presence on social media, with high engagement and audiences that feel like real, vibrant communities.
These influencers become trusted voices. When guests see someone on screen who feels like them, someone who lives the lifestyle they aspire to, values the same things, and shares their interests—your message resonates.
The most effective partnerships are built on alignment. Seek creators whose content naturally blends with your world: lifestyle, food, wine education, travel, local tourism, or hospitality. Their authentic experiences—from behind-the-scenes tours to candid meals and tastings—allow them to showcase your tasting room in a way that feels genuine, not promotional.
Invite them to highlight aspects of your space that reflect your identity: private tastings, cellar tours, intimate winemaker dinners. These experiences convert their audience’s curiosity into real interest—and often lead to strong traffic and new tastings from people inspired by those shared moments.
Embracing this kind of community-based marketing—engaging with people who genuinely believe in what you do—doesn’t just create awareness. It builds connection, interest, and momentum that brings more guests through your door.
The Power of
Email Marketing
While social media gets attention, email builds action. Tasting rooms with strong email programs consistently drive more return visits and larger purchases.
Segment your audience into groups such as club members, locals, tourists, online purchasers, and event attendees. Tailor content accordingly:
• New releases or limited wines
• Behind-the-scenes vineyard or cellar updates
• Invitations to seasonal events
• Special offers or bundle opportunities
• Seasonal offers or bundles for the holidays
• Wine club releases
• Winemaker specific events
• “Come back and see what’s changed” messages.
Each one of these topics has the power to bring someone new or back into your tasting room. Creating a catchy hook, curated photos, fun text or testimonials, or an action item only aids in bringing traffic to your door.
The most effective emails tell stories. They aren’t just sales pitches. They remind customers why they love your brand and why they should come back right after they’ve left. You want to be the spot. Where they go to celebrate, catch up with friends, come for knowledge and education, and become someone your staff recognizes as soon as they walk through the door.
Expanding Reach with Virtual Engagement
Virtual content isn’t a pandemic-only strategy, it remains a powerful way to stay connected with customers (and their friends) who can’t visit often. Creating a series of short educational reels focused on wine basics, tasting notes, food pairings, and “Wine 101” insights keeps long-distance guests engaged and ensures your tasting room stays on their must-visit list when they’re back in the area.
Fun, personality-driven content filmed with your staff and winemaker—especially casual Q&As—consistently leads to high engagement and fosters a sense of belonging among viewers. From personal experience, I’ve had guests come in specifically to try the wine featured in a video. These moments allow your team to shine, show off their expertise, and share in the excitement of what is being poured.
Virtual tasting programs are another strategy that continues to deliver results. Families may grow and spread out geographically, but a Zoom tasting brings everyone together in a meaningful way. Wine has no geographical boundaries; it connects people across time zones and continents. Offering curated tasting kits for these sessions adds both convenience and value.
This kind of core content goes a long way in keeping guests near and far tied to your story. Virtual tastings can strengthen remote teams, provide a fun twist for book clubs, or simply offer a laid-back Friday night experience. It has become one of my go-to recommendations whenever programming is discussed.
In-person events still carry tremendous weight and drive significant engagement, but we now have the world at our fingertips. Leveraging virtual opportunities helps you remain connected to the people championing your success—no matter where they are.
Seasonal
Programming That Creates Urgency
Seasonality is one of the strongest drivers for return traffic. Curated, limited-time experiences give guests a reason to visit now rather than later. When programs run too long, they create an “I’ll get to it eventually” mindset—and that delay can stretch into months. Short windows create urgency, and urgency inspires action.
Seasonal programming also generates excitement. Social posts, emails, and phone inquiries can build a lively buzz around your tasting room. When word spreads that an event is high demand, it elevates not just that experience, but the visibility and desirability of your entire event calendar. Some strong seasonal ideas include:
• Cozy fire pits with s’mores-and-wine pairings
• Wine and chocolate experiences for Valentine’s Day
• Classes and pairings hosted by local cheesemongers
• Winemaker dinners
• Rosé release events
• Harvest festivals with grapes fresh from the vineyard
• Barrel tastings and cellar previews
The magic of seasonal events lies in their exclusivity—no one wants to miss out. Leaning into those short, intentional windows pays off. And if something is wildly successful, bring it back later in the year with a “Back by popular demand” twist. It shows your guests that you listen to them, pay attention to what resonates, and genuinely care about delivering the experiences they want.
Engaging Wine Club Members Like True Insiders
Your wine club is the heartbeat of your business. The people who commit to your brand and your wines are one of your most invaluable assets. They’re lifetime fans, enthusiastic advocates, and often the reason new guests walk through your doors. They become walking billboards for everything you do—and not capturing or nurturing that energy is a missed opportunity in every way.
Members love to feel exclusive, so designing a club structure that offers member-only bottles, tiered perks with meaningful benefits, and private events just for them helps reinforce that feeling of being “in.” In with you, in with the brand, and part of something they genuinely care about.
Our job as educators and stewards of hospitality is to make that experience feel personal. Adding birthday touches, noting preferred wine styles, or remembering intricate details about their lives all make a profound impact. These gestures remind your wine club members that they matter—because they do.
When members feel appreciated and recognized, retention naturally increases. We see it all the time: a guest joins, has an incredible experience, brings a friend to a pickup event, that friend joins, and the cycle continues. Their enthusiasm becomes contagious.
If you’re unsure where to begin, start here. Build your club, find your people, and pour energy into it. The return will be felt tenfold inside your tasting room—and you’ll be grateful if you invested in it from the start.
Building Local Partnerships and Community Presence
Supporting local is bigger—and more important—than ever. In the post-pandemic landscape, consumers are more intentional about choosing small businesses and hometown staples over big-box options. If you’re searching for something to pair with your wines, your own backyard is often the best place to start.
Not only do local products naturally complement your wines through shared regionality, but purchasing from nearby producers also puts money right back into the mom-and-pop shops your community loves. Local cheeses, fresh honey, artisan chocolates, they’re all just down the street, and they add depth and meaning to every experience you create.
Highlighting these businesses creates a beautiful cyclical effect: you feature their products, your guests fall in love with the pairing, they visit those partners and then return to your tasting room when you collaborate again. The support flows both ways, strengthening visibility, sales, and community connection.
There are countless ways to collaborate with local partners. A few favorites include:
• Local restaurants for pairing dinners
• Boutiques for sip-and-shop events
• Nonprofits for fundraisers or charity tastings
• Hotels, gyms, wedding venues, and other hospitality businesses
• Breweries and distilleries for dual-passport promotions.
Today’s customers are actively looking for this kind of involvement. They want to see how you’re engaging with and supporting the community around you. They want to visit the businesses you highlight and feel confident that their dollars are making a difference. Neglecting those local connections can turn new guests away before they even taste your wine.
Supporting local partners ultimately supports your own success. When you lift each other up, everyone flourishes—because at the end of the day, we’re all on the same team.
Conclusion:
Engagement Is an Ecosystem
Customer engagement isn’t a single tactic—it’s a holistic ecosystem that touches every aspect of the tasting room experience. Each of the strategies outlined above strengthens your business, positioning it as a must-visit destination for both new and returning guests.
When visitors feel like they are part of your story—truly part of the team—they don’t just come once. They return, bring friends, advocate for your brand, and celebrate life’s moments alongside you. That kind of loyalty is priceless.
For me, there is no greater honor than this. We are memory-makers, educators, innovators, and facilitators of joy. We have the unique opportunity to create something magical—experiences rooted in community, identity, and shared passion. Taking the time to thoughtfully enhance your tasting room and all it offers solidifies your space as a grounding point in your community. And honestly, isn’t that an incredible thing to be?
