Are you an impromptu wine taster? If so, you’re in luck in Sonoma County

The free spirit who believes the best adventures unfold without a plan is a potential customer being courted by an increasing number of Sonoma County wineries angling for more walk-in business.

The trend, which is not so much a pivot away from the appointment-only mainstream for many smaller wineries, is more of an addition to the tasting options offered across Wine Country.

And there is good commercial reason to wade deeper into that demographic of impromptu visitors, officials say.

“With the Bay Area our key market, the spontaneous traveler has always been the lion’s share of day and overnight visitation,” said Claudia Vecchio, president and CEO of Sonoma County Tourism. “We believe that walk-in tastings are a compelling selling point.”

Surveys and social media revealed how appealing these spur of the moment tastings are, Vecchio said. In April, her agency began shining a light on wineries doing them.

Walk-in tastings on the rise

Sonoma County Tourism has 69 wineries on its website that offer walk-in tastings.

In addition, the Wine Road trade organization lists 75 wineries with walk-in tastings, up from about 30 last year.

“From my conversations with wineries, they are down maybe 10% in people in the door this year, but many say their sales are comparable to last year,” said Beth Costa, executive director of the Wine Road, which promotes wineries in the Russian River, Alexander and Dry Creek valleys. “I think they’re simply working harder to get those people in the door by offering a variety of options including walk-in tastings.”

The Wine Road has 130 member wineries and Costa said one to two wineries are reaching out every week to be added to the list offering walk-in tastings.

“I think as they all get more staff on board,” she said, “they’re able to accommodate walk ins.”

Overall downturn in tasting room visits

The interest in quantifying and catering to walk-in customers comes as the once-flourishing wine industry faces stiffer economic headwinds.

Wine sales and tasting room visits have dropped, so wineries are scrambling to buoy key parts of the direct-to-consumers business.

“It’s not a secret in the wine industry that there’s been a slow down in tasting room traffic,” said Jordan Kunde, tasting room manager of Kenwood’s Kunde Family Winery. “And the (recent) heat wave didn’t help any of us. Let’s be real.”

Yet, Kunde, a fifth generation family member, said he’s seeing people drawn to walk-in tasting opportunities.

To appeal to everyday visitors, the winery introduced a $25 daily tour and tasting, offered seven days a week at 11 a.m. It includes a tour of Kunde’s 32,000-square foot wine cave and a peek at its 5,000 aging barrels.

The tour is followed by a tasting of six wines only available at the winery or for wine club members’ consumption. The wines are paired with a cheese and charcuterie board.

Walk ins could also score a high-end tasting if there’s availability. One premium option, priced at $100 per person, is the Mountain Top Tasting. Guests gather on a scenic deck with sweeping views of 1,800 acres of vines below and San Pablo Bay to the south.

To follow a metaphor used by Kunde, that’s where the romance begins. He compares walk-in visitors to a first date.

“They come to the property and check us out, our tastings and our wines,” he said. “If we get to the second date and they come back for another tasting experience, then we know we’ve given them quality service.”

Walk-in tastings pay off

To make noise about its walk-in tastings, Balletto Vineyards created a campaign with Google ads and searches in September 2022, as tourism began to rebound out of the pandemic.

The winery in west Sonoma County ran the campaign through February 2023, ending it once they were showing up significantly higher in online searches.

“We have two times the tasting room traffic we had previously,” said Amy Lieberfarb, the winery’s director of marketing and communications.

The winery offers two walk-in tastings: the Estate Tasting and the Reserve Tasting. The Estate Tasting is $20 and offers four pours, while the Reserve Tasting is $30 and offers five pours of single vineyard wines.

Noticing the reservation-only model had become habit following the pandemic, Lieberfarb spearheaded the change at Balletto.

“I understand many small wineries are still doing appointment-only tastings because they don’t have the same options with staffers,” she said.

At Balletto, Lieberfarb can draw upon a pool of part-time employees and volunteers when walk-in traffic exceeds expectations.

“We wanted to build upon out-of-towners” with offerings for walks ins, she said. "A good chunk of people (drawn from the campaign) were out of the area and hadn’t even heard of us.”

Uptick in unplanned travelers

“Guests like having flexibility with wine tasting, especially if they’re visiting Sonoma County for the first time,” said Clarence Chia, senior vice president of hospitality for Kenwood’s Landmark Vineyards.

The winery began taking walk ins in May 2023 and built on its Perfect Pairing tasting this year. The tasting, offered both in Kenwood and at Landmark Vineyards at Hop Kiln Estate in Healdsburg, is $45 per person and offers five pours. Guests have the option to pay an additional $20 for a cheese pairing.

“Local guests do enjoy our walk-in tasting,” Chia said. “We’ve seen an uptick in last-minute travel to Sonoma County and having a walk-in tasting option ensures we can accommodate everyone who wants to try our wines.”

You can reach wine writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @pegmelnik.