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Brokering wine, brokering place: Exploring the role of sommeliers in promoting rural tourism

Date
2024
Type
Conference Contribution - published
Keywords
Fields of Research
Abstract
In a great number of rural regions, wine tourism has grown in popularity and become a central part of the tourism offering. Wine tourism experiences are closely tied to place, and focus on how the physical and human geographical dimensions of a particular region combine to produce wine that is distinctive. While much wine tourism analysis has examined how tourists interact with vineyard, winery and cellar spaces, and how winemakers craft narratives of taste, time and terroir, the role of sommeliers (and other restaurant staff with wine responsibilities) has been largely overlooked. We know that sommeliers and allied staff broker wine to customers, but through that process they can also broker places and tourism experiences. In this paper, we will draw on interviews carried out with sommeliers and allied staff in two regions of New Zealand to examine how these professionals can transmit a sense of place in local wine, and generate two-way traffic between hospitality, primary industry and wider tourism businesses. We will reveal how sommeliers and restaurant staff wield significant discretionary power to influence, impress and guide in the conversations that follow the frequent customer question of 'what do you recommend?' And we will examine how this power can be an under-considered means of promoting tourism in emerging and established wine regions throughout the world.