Why the Tasting Room of the Future Looks More Like a Restaurant

What if wineries have been borrowing from the wrong playbook?

That was the underlying provocation behind one of the most actionable sessions at the 2026 Wine Sales Symposium, where Candace MacDonald and Leith Steel of the boutique creative agency Carbonate made the case that wineries have a great deal to learn from how leading restaurants and hotels approach hospitality.

Guests, Not Customers

One of the session’s most resonant ideas was a simple language shift. Restaurants don’t have customers – they have guests. Customers are transactional. Guests are relational. That single reframe, MacDonald argued, changes everything about how a tasting room is designed, staffed, and measured.

It also changes the questions worth asking. Instead of “How do we sell more wine today?” the better question becomes “What occasion brought this person through our doors, and how do we meet it?”

Finding Your Hospitality DNA

Much of the session was devoted to the concept of “hospitality DNA”, the unique combination of identity, setting, service, and story that makes a winery genuinely different from every other option a guest could choose.

MacDonald and Steel walked through how to separate points of parity (the table stakes every winery must deliver) from true points of difference (the reasons a guest chooses you and tells a friend). It’s a deceptively simple distinction that, in their experience, most winery teams get wrong.

Trends That Drive Relevance

The session also previewed several trends reshaping hospitality right now, from how Gen Z eats and drinks, to the rise of no- and low-ABV programs, to creative value packaging, to global flavor pairings that go well beyond cheese and crackers.

Their guiding principle throughout: relevance drives revenue. Following trends isn’t about being trendy. It’s about staying in the conversation.

Watch the Full Session

This article only scratches the surface. The full session includes Carbonate’s framework for defining hospitality DNA, a detailed look at the eight to ten “moments of surprise and delight” every guest journey should include, and concrete examples from wineries, restaurants, and hotels doing it right.

🎥 Access this session, along with all 14 recorded Wine Sales Symposium presentations, here: https://winesalessymposium.com/buy-video-access/