Collective Tasting Rooms

Shared tasting rooms are becoming increasingly popular for wineries that either can't [or don't]have their own tasting room or want to attract new customers. In northern California there are many such rooms like the Cellar Door in Oakville, A Dozen Vintners and Tasting on Main in St. Helena, the Wine Room in Kenwood, Locals in Geyserville and Vintners Collective Wineries in Napa. Last week a new venture in San Francisco was announced that will pair six wineries to share space, called the Press Club, and they hope to open next year - in downtown San Francisco.

This shared space tasting model might be even more successful outside of the California wine regions. For example, Connecticut has 19 wineries that span the entire state - White Slo in the western town of Sherman while Chamard is located on the mid-state coastline in Clinton and Sharpe Hill is home to the northeaster town of Pomfret. Traveling the entire CT Wine Trail is at least a 2 day adventure but what if there was a central tasting room where you could experience several of these vintners at the same time. How does the Connecticut Tasting Room of Hartford sound? This type of shared space for wine tasting would be very popular in many areas such as Rochester NY, Dayton OH, Portland OR, or Richmond VA where a good number of smaller wineries exist and might find it difficult to attract visitors to their property.