creative strategic results
Store ambience isn’t just about pretty lights, installing the flashiest technology trend, or lighting a few perfumed candles. To create a truly evocative experience to rival the likes of Burberry, Colette Paris, or Apple, retailers need to take their brand to all of the shopper’s senses.
This is about giving customers a familiarity with your brand in five different, but connected ways: smell, taste, sound, touch, and sight.
Inside Retail Magazine has compiled the latest trends, and considerations for these areas after speaking to key industry experts.
Custom scents are a newer consideration, with best practice examples including Peter Alexander, Shoes of Prey, and Lush.
“Smell is still not widespread in Australian retail so it has a lot of impact,” says Matt Newell, strategy partner of retail agency, The General Store.
Newell says this underused sense was a top priority for the agency when it designed the first bricks and mortar store for e-tailer, Shoes of Prey.
This brand’s custom scent aims to subtly relax customers, and features notes of citrus and floral in keeping with its feminine audience.
Shoes of Prey is now looking to extend this fragrance to its packaging, so shoppers will be reminded of the brand even after they leave the store.
“The great thing about scent is that its very closely linked to memory,” says Newell.
“Scented packaging means that when a pair of shoes arrives in the mail four weeks later, the customer will get that brand reminder.”
Dick Smith’s new female-friendly technology chain, Move, is another retailer that debuted this year with a custom scent.
Its perfume was designed by local scent marketing company, Air Aroma, to a brief of youthfulness and luxury.
The result is a scent with citrus top notes for invigoration and floral notes of magnolia and rose for a touch of elegance.
Fragrant candles and oil burners are still proving popular with fashion boutiques, such as Sydney-based fashion chain, Incu.
“We’ve really worked on adding candles and a scent to the store,” says Brian Wu, co-founder of Incu.
“This is about trying to get customers to have a familiarity with the store through their senses.”
Others, like Sydney Airport, are opting for fragrance spray machines or automated fragrance diffusers.
Sydney Airport’s Bambini Wine Bar features a spray machine that emanates the inviting smell of coffee to both customers and passing foot traffic.
Ben Edwards, co-founder of Melbourne-based retail design agency, Edwards Moore, says retailers should be mindful of the “hit and miss” nature of artificial scents.
“Bad potpourri is one that immediately springs to mind. Smells need to be sophisticated and highly considered, as they linger in our memories.”
“Think shoe shops and that lingering smell of new leather in contrast to the hideous smell of Subway’s oven baked bread. I cross the street to avoid going near that.”
Taste testing is an old favourite for retailers in the grocery space, but now things are really starting to heat up in the kitchen.
Christie Nicholas, director of Kids Business, which samples products in the kids and mum space, says retailers and brands are becoming more experimental.
“We have noticed sampling trends towards more gourmet meal options and experimenting with new ingredients and products to recreate classic, family favourite dishes,” according to Nicholas.
She says theatrics, drama, and live cooking demonstrations are becoming more important, as supermarkets seek to bring an element of Masterchef to their grocery sections.
Nicki Anderson, MD of instore sampling agency, Demoplus, says the major trends for retail taste testing are flexibility and customisation.
“The major trends we’re seeing are tailor made programs to match brands to customers, and flexibility in days of the week, times of the week, and locations both in and out of store.”
“The best taste testing experiences are where our team dispel myths, like our recent work on [the vegetable juice] V8.
“Our objective was to break through the myth about the product’s taste and the results speak for themselves: conversion to purchase of 21 per cent.”
Kirsty Dollison, GM of marketing and commercial at retail agency, TorchMedia, has noticed retailers are becoming more likely to sample foods across various categories at once.
“Retailers are definitely putting together more elements in their taste testing, such as looking for all the solutions for one pasta dish.
“I’ve noticed Woolworths is doing lots of this sort of execution and so is Coles. It works because it is about making things easy for the customer and putting together elements.”
Another taste testing trend is bringing together rival brands for sampling, so that customers can decide which one suits their taste buds best.
This was implemented for cheese manufacturers King Island Dairy, South Cape, and Tasmanian Heritage in Australian supermarkets this year.
This campaign allowed grocery shoppers to sample different cheese varieties at a large stand inspired by produce markets.
While tastebuds are an underdeveloped consideration for retailers outside the food department, some brands are experimenting.
For instance, the beauty brand, Lancôme, launched a Beauty Centre in Myer Sydney City store in July featuring a special tea blend for customers.
Disc jockeys had a busy time in 2013, with brands and retailers as diverse as Lancôme, Dick Smith’s Move, and Shoes of Prey commissioning custom music.
Lancôme’s Beauty Centre at Myer Sydney City features an especially tailored soundtrack, as does Shoes Of Prey’s flagship concession in David Jones’ Elizabeth St Sydney store.
Newell says Shoes of Prey’s “jungle theme” music aims to lower shopper heart rates and increase dwell time instore.
“We created a soundtrack based on a dream sequence that seamlessly morphs from party scenes to classical music,” he says.
Shoes of Prey opted for instrumental music over vocal tracks, as the latter can distract customers, with original samples also important.
“We have one song featuring a sample of a woman walking on concrete in high heels, and even sounds of [the founder of Shoes of Prey’s] cat purring away.”
Newell says retailers should be mindful of competing sounds when implementing audio instore, because too much sound “can really drive people away”.
“Because Shoes of Prey is inside David Jones, which has its own music, we had to make sure the store’s audio was happening in a zone.
“This means the music only kicks in when people sit at the product table, but they can’t really hear it when they’re at the shoe bar.
“Shoes of Prey’s music is not about drawing people into the concession, but about keeping people in once they’re there.”
In a very different space, TorchMedia’s Kirsty Dollisson says music is becoming a more complex consideration for supermarkets. Major grocery retailers are realising
that music needs to be different depending on the time of day and shopping situation.
“We’ve been playing a lot with instore radio to make sure that it reflects the time of day,” Dollinson says.
“Morning music is about setting a positive mood and getting people excited about the day and upbeat, so there’s lots of 80s, 90s, and contemporary songs.
“Later in the day from 4pm onwards, we’ve been trying to use a mixture of unrecognisable tracks and abstract jazz to help reduce shopper anxiety.
“It all comes back to the shopping occasion. Music can be used to try and calm the shopper in the grocery space, but in fashion execution it’s more about making them stay longer.”
Less widespread concepts around audio ambience include instore radio stations, as seen at Sydney cafes, Bondi FM and Vivo Cafe.
Vivo Cafe’s Eagle Waves Radio was created on the belief that people work more creatively and productively when they have good tunes to listen to.
“There’s been a pronounced geographic shift in where corporate and entrepreneurial folk are choosing to do business,” says Angela Vithoulkas, co-founder of Eagle Waves Radio.
“Recognising this trend, it made absolute sense to me to launch Eagle Waves Radio at the hub of where my audience finds it most productive and creative to work: a busy café.”
In many ways, touch is tantamount to retail: picking up objects, feeling fabrics, squeezing produce, and other tactile experiences are central to the shopper’s experience.
Incu’s Brian Wu says his Sydney fashion boutique chain has been focusing on creating store interiors that “are tactile and people want to interact with”.
“[Store interiors] should look sophisticated without being like a gallery where no one wants to touch anything,” he says.
This can mean simple tactics, such as taking one item of jewellery, toy, or stationary out of its original packaging and encouraging customers to try it on or play with it.
Touch and comfort was also highly important to Shoes of Prey when it designed the furniture and surfaces for its flagship store.
This led to the extension of a core component of the retailer’s concept: asking customers to touch and feel different leathers so they can customise shoes.
“Rather than create a retail space where customers could just touch and feel leather swatches, we decided to design a whole store around the experience,” says Newell.
“So we made the store’s couches and table out of exactly the same soft patent or stamped leather that Shoes of Prey’s footwear is made out from.”
This reinforces the retailer’s concept of customisation, as well as proves to the customer that its shoes are made from soft yet durable materials.
Dollison says brands and retailers are having a little bit more fun with the idea of touch in the supermarket aisle.
This year TorchMedia implemented a grocery campaign for a major laundry powder that used the idea of ‘scratch and sniff’.
Supermarket shoppers were asked to rub sample cards to release the scent of the laundry powder; simultaneously targeting both the senses of touch and smell.
“Products that allow people to squeeze them and release a scent, or scratch and sniff, determine if people will buy that scent, especially in a category like laundry,” says Dollison.
Another trend affecting people’s tactile interaction with retailers is the implementation of tablets, iPads, and other touchscreen devices.
Mark Beard, national marketing manager for Sharp, which builds touchscreens and monitors for retailers, says this trend is changing the way shoppers interact with stores and their staff.
“Digital signage and touchscreen products will change the ambience of Australian stores, as customers are able to obtain detailed product information,” he says.
This allows customers to shop at their own pace in a relaxed atmosphere without the need to find retail sales staff.
Edwards Moore’s Ben Edwards says there is huge scope for technology to take an integral role in the creation and shaping of store atmosphere, as long as retailers get it right.
“Gone are the days of iPads and gimmicky touchscreens as bolt ons,” he says.
“Retailers should be thinking more about invisible, integrated technology that informs, tailors, and shapes our experience.”
Lighting is an obvious ambience consideration for retailers, especially when it comes to the sometimes confronting reality of changerooms.
Incu’s Brian Wu says the retailer has been working to make its customers’ experience more enjoyable by creating more space and light.
“One thing we’ve worked on [for] our new stores is creating an atmosphere in our changerooms where people are comfortable,” he says.
“We like to ensure they have enough space to try things on properly with good light.
“We’re also starting to better understand the difference between men’s and women’s stores and putting softer features in the latter, like rounded walls,” Wu says.
According to Edwards, an overarching trend for retail in 2014 and beyond is visual customisation.
“We are currently working on a new concept where the physical retail space changes in response to each customer’s preference.
“This will mean allowing each visitor to uniquely shape their experience instead of a one size fits all approach to retail.
“Customer behaviour and preferences can be remembered, which will allow for multiple ambiences and experiences within a singular space.”
This is a trend already seen locally to some extent by Nike, which opened a Sydney pop up store last year in the inner city suburb, Paddington.
The Nike +NINE store, which celebrated the London Olympics, featured large touchscreens on the store’s exterior that those walking by could interact with.
When an individual selected a Nike product on a touchscreen, the image would flash up in the store’s window.
The interior of the store also featured an interactive London tube map that customers could alter depending on their preferences.
Whatever experience you’re considering implementing in 2014, the number one priority is individuality, says The General Store’s Matt Newell.
“I would like to see retailers doing less looking at what other retailers are doing,” he says.
“We need more authenticity. I think retailers need to understand what they’re passionate about and innovate around that.
“The creative thinking needs to be born out of the product. I think you can overcook it when it comes to ambience.”
Although not completely relevant this article does identify some important aspects when creating ambiance
1. Restaurant Concept – Your restaurant concept is a creative theme that tells an emotional story about the restaurant. Great restaurant concepts connect the food and beverage offering, history, style and fashion, culture and environment. Your concept should direct your awesome atmosphere. For example a simple French Bistro may not only look like small café in France, but the wait staff could have heavy French accents, décor can reflects dramatic street scenes from a French town and menu items are inspired by famous French authors verses an edgy and hip bar may leverage industrial materials for decor, blast techno tunes and showcase very abstract art. These restaurants have very different atmospheres.
2. Customers – Who are your ideal customers? Think of your restaurant as a party where you’re in charge of the guest list. Is your party going to be wild and loud, family-friendly, elegant, business-like, quiet, romantic, a place to hang all day or a casual dinner? The customers in your restaurant will play a big part in setting the atmosphere of your restaurant.
3. Cleanliness – This is a biggie for your restaurant’s atmosphere. If things are dirty and disorganised, it will drag the energy down. Make cleanliness and organisation a priority in the front and the back of the house. Remember to keep the bathrooms well-maintained, too. They are a great indicator of how clean the rest of your restaurant is.
4. Staff – Your hostess, maître d’, manager, waitstaff, bartenders, busboys, chefs, sous-chefs, cooks and kitchen staff will all contribute to the atmosphere and energy in your restaurant. Your employees should be friendly and helpful and their interaction with customers should match the concept. For example, if your restaurant is an intimate Italian place where couples come to spend a romantic evening, your staff should probably be attentive, but low-key. If your restaurant is a loud, interactive experience, servers will probably be more involved with customers. For more on this, see our this post that talks about “guest sensitivity” . Your staff’s uniforms should match the restaurant concept. Employees in sports bar may wear jeans and sports jerseys while staff at an elegant fine-dining restaurant might wear shirts and ties. Staff should be neat and tidy (see cleanliness in #3)
5. Lighting – Lighting is incredibly important in setting the tone at your restaurant. There are businesses that specialise in how to properly light a room to create an ambiance. Again, remember to match the lighting to the concept. Grand crystal chandeliers and candlelight would be appropriate for an elegant, romantic restaurant. Fun, colourful lighting would work well for a child-themed restaurant and natural light for a “green” healthy-themed spot. Consider how your restaurant will be lit at different times of day. Many restaurants use dimmers to change the intensity of light over the course of the day. If you are relying on natural light, make sure that you’re not getting baked in the morning or the afternoon by using window treatments and have other light sources on cloudy days.
6. Colour – The colours that you use in your logo and other branding touch-points should be consistent with the colours that you use in your restaurant such as wall colour, floor colours, window treatments and furniture. Colours have been shown to have an impact on appetite. Warm colours increase appetite and cool colours, specifically blue, have been shown to decrease appetite. There is also some interesting research on the psychology of colour that can help you with your colour choices. Again, make sure that the colours you choose fit your concept. For example, bright green for a healthy, vegetarian restaurant.
7. Texture – the sense of touch can enhance an atmosphere and your branding. Cool, sleek surfaces like marble will have a different impact than rough, rustic wood. Consider the texture on walls, floors, furniture and anything else that customers will see or touch.
8. Artwork – Think about what you will place on the walls to enhance the atmosphere. Large oil paintings would enhance a sophisticated restaurant while kitschy folk art made from old utensils might amp up the ambiance at a farm to table concept.
9. Menu design – In addition to reinforcing your restaurant’s ambiance, research confirms good menu design and thoughtful content matter to the bottom line and to delivering a winning brand experience. Take a look at your menus. Do they reflect the atmosphere of your restaurant or are they non-descript cardboard printed in Times New Roman font. More upscale restaurant concepts usually use simple, minimal menus while a cozy Italian trattoria might have menus written on chalkboards. Check your menus regularly to make sure that they are clean and stain-free (see cleanliness tip #3).
10. Dishes, silverware and linens – The dishes, silverware, serving pieces and linens you choose should add to your ambiance. Using non-descript clunky white plates and polyester napkins will make the atmosphere bland. Think about what types of plates and glasses would support your concept and add something different to the dining experience. For example, pottery from a local artisan would work well with a farm-to-table concept. Brightly coloured plates and cups for a children’s restaurant. One of a kind, mix and match plates and silverware could work in a local coffee shop.
11. Furniture – How do the tables and chairs support the atmosphere? Think about the think materials, colours, textures, shapes and scale of items and elements. Also consider where furniture is placed in the dining room.
12. Sound – This is a big part of creating ambiance and atmosphere. Sit in your dining room during different times of day. Pay attention to the noise level and what you hear. Do you hear yelling and banging in the kitchen, waitstaff gossiping, conversations at different tables, rowdiness from the bar area? Consider your restaurant concept and what sounds go along with it (loud, exciting, quiet). Working on the acoustics at your restaurant can be as simple as grouping tables or putting up some kind of divider in a room.
What kind of music or entertainment will you have to create an atmosphere that reflects your concept. You can select one or many of the following live music, piped in music, DJ, big screen films, music videos, scenery, juke box, or personalised music delivered at the tables. The volume at which you play your music is critical in supporting the ambiance you desire. Loud music for a hip, lively restaurant versus soft music played at a very low volume for a quiet, romantic place. Finally, think about where you hear the music and entertainment in the entrance, the main room, private areas, the restrooms, the bar, the parking lot.
Creating ambiance and atmosphere at your restaurant doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Making small on-brand changes can improve the vibe by leaps and bounds.
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I am often asked what are B I tools, well B I stands for Business Intelligence and have been around for a long time, i was using them over 20 years ago ago when i was Production Manager but that it was a spreadsheet with a range of macro’s and built in formula’s which allowed me to perform predetermined operations, nowadays they are much more sophisticated. But before i go into the detail , i just wanted to explain the need for them.
Today with so many ways to collect macro (large view) data google, Facebook etc and specialised micro (individual) data like Cuspidor freely available at our fingertips , the challenge becomes to what to do with all this data, how to interpret it to make it work for us in the ways we want it to. And that is where BI tools come in, it can help wineries and breweries paint pictures of their customers , who they are , when they buy and ultimately why they buy.
This is why BI tools have become big business and the choice is ever expanding.
Here is an article i cam across which explains BI in more detail.
Enterprises are awash in data about their customers, prospects, internal business processes, suppliers, partners and competitors. Often, they can’t leverage this flood of data and convert it to actionable information for growing revenue, increasing profitability and efficiently operating the business. Business intelligence (BI) tools are the technology that enables business people to transform data into information that will help their business.
Although BI tools have been around for decades and many consider the industry mature, the BI market is vibrant, constantly innovating and evolving to meet the ever-expanding needs of businesses of all sizes and industries. Over the years, many BI tool styles have emerged to match the varied ways that business people need to analyze data. An understanding of BI tool categories and styles is needed in order to match your analytical needs with the appropriate tools.
BI analytics tools can be grouped into three broad categories that each support various BI styles and capabilities:
Guided analysis and reporting. This category includes the traditional BI styles that businesspeople have been using for years to perform recurring analyses of specific data. Examples include a vice president of sales examining the sales pipeline, a marketing manager comparing the performance of various marketing campaigns or a chief financial officer analyzing an enterprise’s financial key performance indicators.
Years ago, this category was limited to predefined, static reports, but now business users can select, filter, compare, visualize and analyze data using a variety of tool types. The underlying assumption in this BI tool category is that the data set and the metrics used will be predefined, but the analysis itself may vary based on the immediate needs of the information consumer when performing that analysis.
The IT group or BI team creates most of the BI applications in the guided analysis and reporting category for end users. However, business analysts also produce many BI applications using the self-service BI tools discussed in the next section. Regardless of who creates the BI application, IT will be responsible for the underlying data and managing the BI applications used on a recurring basis.
The BI tool styles in this category include:
Self-service BI and analysis. This category includes the BI tools business users use to perform ad hoc analysis of data. This analysis will either be a one-time-only analysis or the formulation of a recurring analysis that will be shared with others.
The users of these tools have dual roles: information consumer and analytics producer, when they share or publish the BI application they create with the self-service BI tool. Users of these tools typically have the word analyst in their title (e.g., business, financial or human resources analyst). Management staff members may also use these tools when they’re doing the work of the business analyst (or analytical guru) for their manager or peers, even if their titles might not imply that.
Whereas guided discovery tools operate with a pre-set collection of data and metrics, the self-service BI tools enable business users to add data and define new metrics when performing their analysis without requiring IT intervention.
However, there are some considerations to the no IT involvement neededhype that some BI vendors will pitch. First, IT will manage data source access based on need, security and privacy rights, so business users performing their analyses will have to obtain proper privileges to add data sources.
Second, the data sources need to be consumable by the BI tool. Although most data sources can be easily accessed by BI tools, there may be specific sources that prohibit access. Third, the data source must be understandable by the business user, which often requires business people working with IT to get an explanation of the schema and definitions of the data they need to analyze. Finally, no matter how easy the BI tool is perceived to be, having IT help train and support the business in the effective use of these BI tools will improve business user’s productivity and increase the business return on investment of these tools.
The BI tool styles in this category include:
Advanced analytics encompasses the tools data scientists use to create predictive and prescriptive analytical models. This includes predictive analytics, statistical modeling, data mining and big data analytics software. Here, data scientists tend to spend a great deal of time doing data ingestion, integration and cleansing. This category is outside the scope of this article but is mentioned here in order to provide the entire spectrum of BI tool styles. Here’s a look at other BI tool categories and styles:
Each of the BI styles discussed here originated as standalone, specialized BI tools sold by emerging BI vendors. As enterprises recognized their value, the following occurred:
A key buying question an enterprise must ask is: Is it better to buy a BI suite from one BI vendor or to purchase separate products from multiple vendors? The answer is: It depends. Although other articles in this series will deal with this question in more depth, there are key concepts to consider. First, you need to buy what you need, not just acquire the BI product with the most features because your enterprise may not need all that’s offered. The selection process should be guided by business need and best fit.
Second, an enterprise needs to examine the cost and skills necessary to develop and manage BI applications, not just purchase or subscription cost. Sometimes, BI suites are more cost- and resource-effective than standalone BI tools; however, there other times in which they’re much more complex, resulting in higher costs, longer development lead times and the need for a greater pool of skills.
The investment in and use of BI analytics tools has experienced long-term growth, regardless of the economic cycle. It has accelerated in recent years as enterprises are craving data to not just grow and improve, but also to manage their businesses on a daily basis. Historically, BI has been the domain of large enterprises due to complexity, costs and the skills required — but during the past several years, those factors have changed dramatically, resulting in small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) becoming significant BI buyers.
Many enterprises, regardless of size, initially leverage the reporting capabilities offered by their business application vendors — such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Infor and Epicor — by also using spreadsheets to fill in the gaps, especially when their focus is on tactical operational reporting. But this approach often results in data silos, limiting the ability of an enterprise to leverage its BI efforts to grow revenues and operate more effectively. In addition, this approach wastes people’s time in comparing and reconciling data from these silos — time that could be better spent running the business. When the limitations and costs of this approach become apparent, then an enterprise is ready for BI technology that’s independent of their operational applications.
In the early days of BI, only industries with the most significant need for data used BI; today, enterprises in all industries have information-intensive processes that require BI tools. The scale of the information that needs to be analyzed will vary by industry and enterprise size, impacting what specific BI tools should be considered; however, that doesn’t impact the particular BI categories and styles needed.
It can be overwhelming to examine the BI vendor landscape for the first time, as there are currently more than 100 vendors. In addition, the BI market has experienced a significant amount of merger and acquisition activity, so even people in the industry are sometimes confused as to who sells what.
BI vendors can be split into three groups:
The two deployment considerations are how the business people will access the BI tools (front end) and where the BI application itself will operate (back end).
If you would like a more in-depth consultation please do not hesitate to contact iwine HQ
This may seem a little harsh, but some wineries are far too close to be objective, i know i am guilty of it myself.
The hard truth is sometimes exactly that – hard, hard to hear and hard to take, but i ask myself, do i still want to be in business in 5 years time and the answer is, of course, YES.
After a recent trip to the Claire and Barossa Valley, i was amazed at the missed opportunities. Only 1 cellar door asked for my email (that was Penfold’s) and I bought hundreds of dollars of wine. Don’t these wineries want to know who i am , don’t they want me to become a member of their club or invite me to their events.
There was a number of wineries that i would not go back to and that’s because of the cellar door experience. I would have liked to have told them but how can you? Knowing what your customers feel about your wine and winery is vital to the long term success of your business.
Luckily a new innovation –Cuspidor– which can help customers record which wines they loved and captures their details at the same time, can change that. It won’t change if they have a bad experience, but thats where we come in.
If you would like a quick and dirty appraisal or a full audit of your cellar door experience please contact us and we can provide you with an indepth insight of the customers experience.
We can assist you to make sure those myths remain excellently that myths that don’t apply to your winery
Further reading
I came across a great article by wine compass on ‘how to know you are at a great cellar door’
Enjoy!
At Wine Compass, we take out all sorts of groups, from hens who are out for a fun day with their friends, to high end wine buyers and connoisseurs.
A good cellar door person can gauge many things within the first few minutes:
Then it is up to them to shape the experience so that their guests have the best time possible. Examples of this include,
Kathleen Quealy at the Quealy Winemakers cellar door
Heading to busy cellar doors, it can be hard to get personal attention, but the really great cellar doors seem to find a way. It’s all about making the guests feel like they are valued
Big no-no’s for us:
If a cellar door person does have to split between 2 groups (and this should be the absolute maximum), it is important to provide equal attention to both groups
Surprise barrel tasting
Have you ever been to a cellar door and experienced any of the following?
How did it make you feel? Pretty special, right? Experiencing any of these will enhance the tasting and make you feel that bit more valued and special. These are the memorable experiences that set top cellar doors apart
Always entertaining and engaging, Ash from Tucks Ridge with Adam Nicholls from Wine Compass
All too often, cellar doors forget to sell their wines. Without being pushy of course, a good cellar door will give you some options to entice you to take something home with you. Some examples:
Peter Parker from Merricks Creek
This one is possible the most important. From groups with the most basic knowledge to top level wine afficianados, everyone wants to have a laugh and meet some local characters
The best cellar doors know how to give you the information on their wines with amusing stories and anecdotes. It is important that cellar doors know that guests are not only their to try wines, but also to have fun
Bonus: Pro tip for cellar doors
From our (somewhat) vast experience, when selling wine on a cellar door, the experience is more important than the quality of the wine. It is worth the time to give your group your full attention as this is what leads to sales.
Take a tour with Wine Compass around the Mornington Peninsula or Yarra Valley to explore some of the best smaller cellar doors around
ambience is defined as;
atmosphere, air, aura, climate, mood, feel, feeling, vibrations, echo, character, quality,complexion, impression, flavour, look, tone, tenor, spirit, setting, milieu, background,backdrop, frame, element;
So how do you create ambience?
ambience does not come about by chance it comes about by design
ambience needs to be carefully designed by reflecting what you already have and what type of ambience you want to achieve.
A Geographical Indication (GI) is an official description of an Australian wine zone, region or sub-region. It takes the form of a textual description (i.e. a list of grid references, map coordinates, roads and natural landmarks which can be traced to outline the regional boundary) along with a map. Its main purpose is to protect the use of the regional name under international law, limiting its use to describe wines produced from winegrape fruit grown within that GI.
A Geographical Indication can be likened to the appellation naming system used in Europe (e.g. Bordeaux, Burgundy) but is much less restrictive in terms of viticultural and winemaking practices. In fact the only restriction is that wine which carries the regional name must consist of a minimum of 85% of fruit from that region. This protects the integrity of the label and safeguards the consumer.
The use of Geographical Indications in Australia commenced in 1993 when the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Act (1980) was updated to enable Australia to fulfil its Agreements with the European Community on Trade in Wine and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The Act serves to ‘provide the legal means for interested parties to prevent use of a geographical indication identifying wines for wines not originating in the place indicated by the geographical indication in question’.
The hierarchy of GIs commences with a zone known as South Eastern Australia which is the area south east of a line from North Queensland to Ceduna in South Australia. States have been declared as GIs as well as 28 zones with contiguous boundaries within each state. About 65 regions have been identified; most have been entered in the Register of Protected names, while others are still in the interim or proposal stage. A Geographical Indication does not have legal status under the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Act until it has been defined and entered onto the Register of Protected Names.
| State/Zones | Regions | Subregion |
|---|---|---|
| South Eastern Australia 1 | ||
| South Australia | ||
| Adelaide (Super Zone, includes Mount Lofty Ranges, Fleurieu and Barossa | ||
| Barossa | Barossa Valley | |
| Eden Valley | High Eden | |
| Far North | Southern Flinders Ranges | |
| Fleurieu | Currency Creek | |
| Kangaroo Island | ||
| Langhorne Creek | ||
| McLaren Vale | ||
| Southern Fleurieu | ||
| Limestone Coast | Coonawarra | |
| Mount Benson | ||
| Mount Gambier | ||
| Padthaway | ||
| Robe | ||
| Wrattonbully | ||
| Lower Murray | Riverland | |
| Mount Lofty Ranges | Adelaide Hills | Lenswood |
| Piccadilly Valley | ||
| Adelaide Plains | ||
| Clare Valley | ||
| The Peninsulas | ||
| New South Wales | ||
| Big Rivers | Murray Darling2 | |
| Perricoota | ||
| Riverina | ||
| Swan Hill2 | ||
| Central Ranges | Cowra | |
| Mudgee | ||
| Orange | ||
| Hunter Valley | Hunter | Broke Fordwich |
| Pokolbin | ||
| Upper Hunter Valley | ||
| Northern Rivers | Hastings River | |
| Northern Slopes | New England Australia | |
| South Coast | Shoalhaven Coast | |
| Southern Highlands | ||
| Southern New South Wales | Canberra District | |
| Gundagai | ||
| Hilltops | ||
| Tumbarumba | ||
| Western Plains | ||
| Western Australia | ||
| Central Western Australia | ||
| Eastern Plains, Inland and North of Western Australia | ||
| Greater Perth | Peel | |
| Perth Hills | ||
| Swan District | Swan Valley | |
| South West Australia | Blackwood Valley | |
| Geographe | ||
| Great Southern | Albany | |
| Denmark | ||
| Frankland River | ||
| Mount Barker | ||
| Porongurup | ||
| Manjimup | ||
| Margaret River | ||
| Pemberton | ||
| West Australian South East Coastal | ||
| Queensland | ||
| Granite Belt | ||
| South Burnett | ||
| Victoria | ||
| Central Victoria | Bendigo | |
| Goulburn Valley | Nagambie Lakes | |
| Heathcote | ||
| Strathbogie Ranges | ||
| Upper Goulburn | ||
| Gippsland | ||
| North East Victoria | Alpine Valleys | |
| Beechworth | ||
| Glenrowan | ||
| King Valley | ||
| Rutherglen | ||
| North West Victoria | Murray Darling2 | |
| Swan Hill2 | ||
| Port Phillip | Geelong | |
| Macedon Ranges | ||
| Mornington Peninsula | ||
| Sunbury | ||
| Yarra Valley | ||
| Western Victoria | Grampians | Great Western3 |
| Henty | ||
| Pyrenees | ||
| Tasmania | ||
| Northern Territory | ||
| Australian Capital Territory | ||
| 1The zone South Eastern Australia incorporates the whole of NSW, VIC and TAS and only part of QLD and SA. | ||
| 2Murray Darling and Swan Hill are contained within the zones of Big Rivers (NSW) and North West Victoria (VIC). | ||
| 3The use of Great Western is subject to legally enforceable conditions of use. | ||
This program will offer state-based and competitive grants to strengthen wine-based regional tourism and exports by helping to develop exciting wine tourism experiences.
It will complement initiatives under the Tourism 2020 strategy; food and wine experiences are an important plank of this strategy, which aims to grow the overnight spend to more than $115 billion by 2020 (from $97.1 billion at 30 June 2016).
The program’s objective is to help meet increased demand created by Program 1 by building regional wine-based tourism capacity, stimulating innovation and encouraging export activities focused on regions and their wines.
It will include:
• a grants program for state-leveraged activities where a portion of funding will be specifically allocated to each state based on the value of production and the number of international visitors ($1 million for South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, and $500,000 for Tasmania and Queensland); and
• a competitive grants program, where the balance of funds will be contestable. Eligible recipients such as state-based wine associations may choose to lodge a state-based bid or multiple bids for the fixed allocation, and must meet eligibility criteria. Co-contributions will be sought, and applications from groups of stakeholders proposing to work collaboratively are likely to be prioritised. Examples that may be funded include:
• regional wine and wine tourism marketing campaigns to attract international tourists or promote exports; • support for regional wine events that increase cellar door sales; • wine trails connecting wine regions and clusters across borders;
• common user infrastructure that directly supports regional wine tourism (such as booking and central reservation systems) and has a benefit for both individual cellar doors and the region as a whole; and
• innovative products or services that have a broader benefit to multiple wine businesses, which may include new e-commerce or online platforms, improved regional data capture, and use of new technologies such as virtual and augmented reality.
Project guidelines, elgibility criteria and application processes will be determined through consultation and will be subject to Ministerial approval.
It is proposed that successful projects will be selected through a competitive, merit-based process and approved by the AGWA Board based on the recommendations of an Expert Assessment Panel.
Potential criteria may include, but not be limited to, the potential economic benefit of a project (applicants will need demonstrate how it will increase international wine tourism and sales), the strategic benefit of a project and its alignment with broader industry and regional objectives, increased collaboration between stakeholders, and the leverage the project receives from other funding sources.
Legislative changes will be required to implement this initiative, so activities may not commence until the first quarter of the 2018 calendar year.
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