Most tasting rooms have a list nobody looks at: guests who have bought the wine for five or six years without joining the club, and former members who cancelled their shipments and kept coming back anyway. The point-of-sale system usually knows who they are. The host behind the counter often can’t, because hosts rotate shifts and new ones start every season, so these guests get greeted like first-time visitors. When one of them stops coming, there is no cancellation notice to tell anyone.
These guests enjoy the wine as much as many members do, and some enjoy it more. They just don’t want the commitment. A winery that wants more sales and more members should know their names before they reach the counter.
Why it matters now
Silicon Valley Bank’s 2026 direct-to-consumer report, drawn from 450 wineries, found that direct-to-consumer sales made up 72% of revenue, with the tasting room and wine club alone bringing in 56% of all sales. Reservations were down about 2% from the year before, and the median winery showed no growth. SVB’s January industry report urged wineries to recognize tenure and pay more attention to under-engaged customers. A guest who has bought the wine for six years without joining has tenure that no club roster records.
Guests say the same thing from their side. In The Regulars Report 2026 from Toast and Resy, 48% of diners said being remembered by staff is what makes them feel most valued, and only 30% said they always get it. A Mews survey of 3,250 travelers released this month found three in four believe good hospitality depends on human staff whatever the technology behind it.
Find them
Pull a list of customers outside the club who have bought in at least two of the last three years, and add former members who cancelled but still buy. Any point-of-sale system that captures a name and email at checkout can produce it.
Put them on the host’s screen
Tag those customers so the tag appears when a host looks them up, the same way a club tier or an industry flag does. Ten minutes before opening, walk the team through which regulars are on that day’s reservation list. Brooks Wine in the Willamette Valley has run a pre-shift meeting every day for years, where each host learns whose table they have and reads the notes from that guest’s last visit, and the winery pays for the time it takes to come in early and do it. That covers the reservation book. Walk-ins are where the system goes quiet, and they are where the regular outside the club usually turns up. Resy’s restaurant data shows more than half of visits by less frequent guests are walk-ins. For a walk-in, the name has to be asked for at the counter, before the first pour, and the record pulled up then rather than at checkout. That is the point where a new host either recognizes a six-year regular or treats her like a stranger, and it is also where a winery can still pick up guests it would otherwise never know.
Change the greeting
“Have you been here before?” asks the guest to explain her own history, and a regular hears that nobody remembers her. A better opening is “What brings you in today?” A first-time guest can answer it easily, and a regular has room to say she comes in every spring or that she’s back for the Zinfandel. That gives a host who is new or covering a shift the cue to ask for a name and pull up the record before the first pour.
Give them what the industry gets
Most tasting rooms already have a category for people who matter and will never join the club. It’s the industry discount. Extend something like it to regulars, a courtesy flight or a percentage off after a set number of visits, and the library pour when a bottle is open. There’s no fee and nothing ships. Some of them will join the club eventually, and the rest will keep buying.
Staff for it
Hire people who love the place and like talking to strangers over candidates who can recite the tech sheet, because the wine can be taught in a few months. Pay enough to keep good hosts past one harvest, since a host who leaves after eight months never learns the faces. Keep training after the first week, on reading guests and on keeping phones away between them.
Check the list every quarter
Look for regulars who haven’t bought in twelve months. Send them a note from the host who knows them, written the way she would talk to them at the counter, before anyone sends another allocation email.
The same guest at the front desk
Boutique hotels and inns have the same regulars: the couple who books a weekend every October, or the consultant who stays three nights a quarter and never signs up for anything. Many of them book through an online travel agency, and Booking.com, for one, passes along a forwarding address instead of the guest’s own email, so the property management system can end up holding two or three profiles for the same person. Front desk staff rotate the same way tasting room hosts do.
Merge duplicate profiles when a returning guest checks in, and flag repeat stays so the flag shows at check-in. Replace “Have you stayed with us before?” with “What brings you to town?” A guest who has been coming for years will say so, and the desk can treat a third stay like a third stay. A guest who is known at the desk has one more reason to book direct next time.
Sources: Silicon Valley Bank, 2026 Direct-to-Consumer Wine Report (June 2026); Silicon Valley Bank, State of the US Wine Industry 2026 videocast with Janie Brooks Heuck of Brooks Wine (January 2026); Toast and Resy, The Regulars Report 2026; Mews traveler survey (October 7, 2026); Silicon Valley Bank, 2026 State of the US Wine Industry Report (January 2026), as reported by The Drinks Business.