Tourists get the taste – Kommersant FM

Russians have become interested in wine tourism. As Kommersant FM was told by the Union of Winegrowers and Winemakers of Russia, in the last few years the audience of tours and excursions to wineries has grown by 10-15% annually. For small farms, this has become an important distribution channel amid slowing sales of their products in supermarkets. In turn, large chateaus rely on the marketing effect of such programs. Their development, however, is still hampered by legislative restrictions. The topic will be continued by Ivan Khorushevsky.

Russian farms began not only producing wine, but also attracting tourists with the process, around 2013. Both family chateaus and large plantations have entertainment programs.

You can now examine the equipment and taste wine from the cellar for about 3-5 thousand rubles; multi-day tours with horseback riding and champagne baths cost ten times more.

Winemakers also earn a lot from selling the drink to vacationers; guests take away the alcohol in boxes. A small farm can sell up to a third of all products in this way, shared the founder of the Sarkel Estate winery, Igor Gubin:

“Last year 1 thousand people visited us, this year the number of guests increased by 50%. A new flow of tourists appeared, even the number of rooms was not enough.

In turn, the distributor’s sales in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Yekaterinburg fell. Importers had large stocks and purchased a lot of wine at a low euro exchange rate, but this was compensated by the fact that our local sales increased, which is very good.

Wine is best drunk where it is produced. In addition, we do not bear the costs of logistics and packaging.

People go on vacation and buy several boxes of wine and take them home. Word of mouth is working, clients are already appearing using the site. We expect another 50% of sales to take place locally before the end of the year.”

According to estimates by the Union of Winegrowers, of the 10-12 million tourists who visit the Russian south every season, 2 million people include wineries on their itinerary.

But most often these are short excursions – the guest is not offered accommodation or overnight accommodation. In the same Krasnodar region, only every fifth winery has its own hotels and guest houses.

It is planned to soften the requirements for the construction of facilities. In June 2023, a bill was introduced to the State Duma that could allow the construction of tourist facilities on lands suitable for growing grapes.

Such a measure will help increase tourist flow, but will harm the direct production of wines, fears the owner of UPPA Winery Pavel Shvets:

“If the land is capable of producing high-quality wines, then it is wrong to spoil it and allocate it for development.

In Sevastopol, for example, there are few industries, and many are trying to make money from the land.

There will be a lot of people who want to give up agricultural areas for recreational purposes and increase the value of their land 100 times under the cover of a vineyard.

If in Barcelona a hotel, which is located in areas where grapes grow, is open all year round, then in the Russian Federation it will be occupied only three months a year. The climate here is moderate, and no one comes here in winter.”

Tour operators claim that only with the appearance of full-fledged accommodation facilities at wineries will the supply of tours along wine routes increase. But even in this case, demand may turn out to be modest, including due to complex logistics, noted Sergei Romashkin, vice-president of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia:

“Wine culture itself in Russia is at the beginning of its journey. So far, most male tourists drink something stronger, and winery organizers say women predominate among the guests who come to them.

I would not say that tourists are directly eager to spend the night in these places, but there are objectively large farms where it is better to spend at least a couple of days. This is where it makes sense to build a hotel with 20-30 rooms.

There is a lot of talk about modular hotels and glampings; they would fit very well into such places.

Many people develop cheese factories along with winemaking, have pets, and sometimes children are very interested in this, but tourists have to leave because the road home is not close.

There is also a historical component: in France, such farms are many hundreds of years old; as a rule, they are family businesses. Our wineries are new, many have only existed for five to ten years. This is less interesting for tourists, unlike a chateau with history.”

According to a survey by the SimpleWine network, 72% of respondents have a positive attitude towards wine tourism in Russian wineries. 30% have experience traveling to Russian wine regions, including this year.

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Elizaveta Skobtsova