I’m back in the wine shop “San Pietro” in Salerno (Campania region, south of Italy) which opened a tasting room last summer. You can access and use a tasting card to taste wines choosing among 48 ones starting from just 50 cents in some cases. The machines can guarantee a perfect preservation of each wine served at the right temperature.

I talked about it then, in July, here is the article for those who missed it ..

As promised on that occasion, I would have written a few months later to check the progress of the project, the possible implication on sales, the type of audience and so on.  So, waiting for the interview I used my personal card to try some of the special wines Pino had chosen at the moment.

List numbers and statistics would be absolutely premature after a few months but I collected some interesting information.

So, we can say that -at the moment there is not a direct relationship between tasting room and sales, in quantitative terms. I’m sure there will be but at the moment there is already a strong relationships in terms of quality: I am talking about the perception by customer and so the relationship with it! This phenomenon becomes possible also thanks to the tasting opportunity: it becomes easier to recommend a wine for a dinner or a gift while, in the past, it was more complicated to interpret the needs and especially tastes of the customer.

Beyond this, the project of the tasting room has its own life and it might be an excellent opportunity of business diversification. So I’m curious to understand how to proceed, who are the most loyal customers, and so on.

Well, Mr. Giuseppe explains me that after an initial influx of experts, today’s customers are mainly curious one who, in such a context, have a great opportunity of tasting without pressure or suggestions. And it is at this point that I ask Giuseppe a provocative question “why should I come here instead of going to taste in a wine bar that offers me snacks and chairs at the counter or at the table?!”. Giuseppe is sure about the answer: “for the unquestionable quality of the service: service temperatures, perfect preservation of the  wine thanks to special machines; however”, emphasizes Giuseppe: “anyway, this is a completely different experience and I am not sure that the food is necessarily a plus! If you pair the wrong  appetizer, for example, you can think that it is the wine to be bad!”