1 Introduction: Conceptualizing Wine Tourism, State of the Art

Charters and Ali-Knight (2002), defined wine tourism as a travel for the purpose of experiencing wineries and wine regions and their links to lifestyle, and as encompassing both service provision and destination marketing. Earlier, Hall (1996) putted the focus of wine tourism on the cultural experience, hence wine is related with heritage of the place, stating that it is a form of tourism with ancestral roots related to the cultivation of vines and wine and combines culture, territory and lifestyle in the context of the rural universe, although it may exist in the urban context. According to Getz and Brown (2006), the concept of wine tourism should be examined from three points: as a form of consumer behaviour, as a regional development strategy, and as a winery opportunity to sell their products directly to the final consumer. All these definitions proposed by the different authors on wine tourism have in common of a direct or indirect form the guest’s motivation to travel and the experiences provided by the hosts in the place where the experience happens, as argued by Capitello, Begalli, and Agnoli (2013).

The research on wine tourism started in the 80’s (Becker, 1984; Spawton, 1986; Edwards, 1989), although only in the beginning of the 90s articles started to be published in a significant way (Gilbert, 1992; Corigliano, 1996; Hall, 1996; Macionis, 1996; Dodd & Bigotte, 1997; Beverland, 1998; Carlsen & Dowling, 1998). The Australian Wine Tourism Conference in 1998 was the first relevant academic meeting on wine tourism. At this conference, there was an emphasis on descriptive and comparative studies that sought to explore the dimensions of this new field of tourism.

From the turn of the century there was a proliferation of several international tourism conferences about this topic. At the same time, Hall et al. (2000) and Getz (2000) published the first two research books on wine tourism.

Nowadays, most of the literature on wine tourism is still coming from the countries designated as new world, mainly from Australia and USA, although in the last few years many old-world researchers have begun to publish especially from France, Italy and Spain. In the literature review carried out by Carlsen in 2004, the author states that three broad themes have emerged in the academic literature on wine tourism: development and promotion of regional wine destinations, policy and environmental sustainability of wine destinations, and winery activities for the public to increase wine sales. In 2006, Mitchell and Hall organized in detail the research in wine tourism by topics that can be grouped in seven different groups: enotourism product; enotourism and regional development; quantification of the demand; segmentation of the wine tourist; visitors’ behaviour; nature of visits to wineries; food safety and wine tourism.

Another perspective of wine tourism studies is from the supply and demand perspective. The studies on the demand contemplate: analysis of demographic features (Bruwer, Li, & Reid, 2002, Charters & Ali-Knight, 2002); analysis of perceptions and expectations of wine tourists (Bruwer, Prayag, & Disegna, 2018; Charters & Ali-Knight, 2000), wine tourist motivations (Alant & Bruwer, 2004; Johnson & Bruwer, 2007), tourists behaviour (Mitchell & Hall, 2004; Galloway, Mitchell, Getz, Crouch, & Ong, 2008), brand loyalty (O’Neill & Charters, 2006; Johnson & Bruwer, 2007), wine tourism experiences (Quadri-Felitti & Fiore, 2012; Pikkemaat, Peters, Boksberger, & Secco, 2009), to taste and purchase wine at the wineries (Bruwer, 2003; Lee & Chang, 2012); to receive information about wine and its elaboration process (O’Neill, Palmer, & Charters, 2002; Getz & Brown, 2006); to visit wineries (Cambourne, Macionis, Hall, & Sharples, 2000; Mitchell & Hall, 2006); to visit vineyards, (Frochot, 2000; Sparks, 2007) and taste local gastronomy (Gillespie, 2002; Duarte Alonso & Liu, 2010).

The studies on the supply include: analysis of a combination of wine production and tourism (Carmichael, 2005, Byrd, Canziani, Hsieh, Debbage, & Sonmez, 2016); a product analysis (Carlsen & Dowling, 2001, Getz & Brown, 2006), wine routes (Bruwer, 2003; Hashimoto & Telfer, 2003); festivals (Hall & Sharples, 2008; Fountain, Fish, & Charters, 2008); sustainability of a destination (Poitras & Donald, 2006; Grimstad & Burgess, 2014) regional destination image (Williams, 2001, Bruwer & Joy, 2017), cellar door sales (Dodd, 1999; O’Neill & Charters, 2006), cellar door activities (Mitchell & Hall, 2001), wine market (Brown, Havitz, & Getz, 2006), wine marketing (Dodd, 1995; Espejel & Fandos, 2009), strategies for winery managers (Telfer, 2001; Williams & Dossa, 2003), Wine tourism life cycle (Getz, 2000; Dodd & Beverland, 2001), small wineries (Edwards, 1989), regional development (Hall & Mitchell, 2000; Frochot, 2003) and the business dimensions of wine tourism (Carlsen & Charters, 2004; Bruwer & Johson, 2010). Although the experience is indirectly present in a large number of wine tourism studies, only a few specifically focus on this subject (Carmichael, 2005; Pikkemaat et al., 2009; Cohen & Ben-Nun, 2009; Quadri-Felitti & Fiore, 2012).

2 Enogastronomy as the Core Product

Wine and gastronomy are naturally the core products that sustain this form of tourism (Kivela & Crotts, 2006). Wine tourism is also seen as a particular form of gastronomic tourism, lying closely linked to local gastronomy and wine and the place where the experience unfolds (Getz, 2000). This idea is supported by Gillespie (2002) when argues that gastronomy is about the recognition of a variety of factors relevant to the foods and beverages eaten and consumed by a group, in a locality, region or even a nation. Santich (2004), adds to the discussion culture as a complementary product of this type of tourism, referring that gastronomy involves everything from guidance on proper food and drink, as a historical topic, and as a reflection of a society’s culture. Although the need for food is common to all types of tourism, the development of wine tourism suggests the idea that gastronomy, wine and culture often are the main attractions leading tourists to visit a specific region and not necessarily a secondary or complementary attraction (Stewart, Bramble, & Ziraldo, 2008). The relationship between consumers’ travel and their involvement with wine and food has demonstrated the strength of their dependence, not only because of an obvious need for food but also for hedonism (Sparks, 2007; Bruwer & Alant, 2009). This hedonistic perspective is highlighted by Getz (2000) who states that it wine tourism has different characteristics from other forms of tourism in that it heavily involves all the senses: taste, smell, touch, sight and hearing. Duarte Alonso and Liu (2010) underline the power of local cuisines and wines as powerful tools to elevate or enhance a region’s profile as a destination, especially among culinary, wine and tourism enthusiasts.

3 Defining the Wine Tourism Experience

According to Williams (2001), wine tourism involves more than just visiting wineries and purchasing wine: it is the culmination of a number of unique experiences composed by: the ambience, atmosphere, surrounding environment, regional culture, local cuisine and wine with its intrinsic characteristics (grapes, techniques and characteristics). Therefore, a visit to a winery involves an holistic experience (Mitchell & Hall, 2006) that include: an aesthetic appreciation of the natural environment, the winery and its cellar door (Charters et al., 2009); the cultural and historical context of the wine region (Frochot, 2000), the production methods (Roberts & Sparks, 2006), a search for education and diversity (Charters & Ali-Knight, 2002), a sense of connection with the winery (Fountain et al., 2008), and the search for authenticity (Charter et al., 2009). Bruwer and Alant (2009) complement this idea by stating that wine tourism represents a journey for the purpose of experiencing wineries, wine regions, and their links to a lifestyle, encompassing both service provision and destination marketing. This hedonistic experience is only possible if the winescape is prepared to meet the needs of the guests (Bruwer & Alant, 2009). Thus, creating enogastronomic experiences implies that wine producers in a region intentionally use their services as a stage and its products as props to involve tourists individually and thus create conditions for a memorable event (Pine & Gilmore, 1999).

In order to create experiences is essential understand the key elements of the experience by analysing the tourist’s motivation to visit a certain area (Charters & Ali-Knight, 2002). Visiting a winery is also a key factor for wine distribution, customer satisfaction, and positive brand image for the winery as well as for the region (Hall et al., 2000; Mitchell, Hall, & McIntosh, 2000). O’Neill and Charters (2006), determinates four attributes on the cellar door experiences: empathy (the ability of staff to make visitors feel welcome), reliability (providing a consistent level of service), response (ability of staff to meet guests’ needs) and assurance (providing a sense of security to customers). Roberts and Sparks (2006) defined key factors that enhance the experience from the wine tourist’s perspective: authenticity of experience, value for money, service interactions, setting and surroundings, product offerings, information dissemination, personal growth (learning experiences) and indulgence (lifestyle). The Pine and Gilmore experience economy model (1998) presents four dimensions of the experience, adaptable to wine tourist’s expectations: entertainment (wine events, wine tours in vineyards with tastings, cultural events), education (learning about wine and its production, about wine history, culture and gastronomy), escape (guided tours through vineyards, participating in the wine production process, sport activities combined with wine), and aesthetics (landscape is dominated by wine, good signage and information in the region, well-tended wine bars and wine shops). This work aims to define the fundamental constructs of the experience, that occurs from the interaction of the Guests with the Place and the Hosts as, based on the model of Pine and Gilmore (1998), as presented in the model below (Fig. 6.1).

Fig. 6.1
figure 1

Source Own elaboration

The constructs of the experience.

Full size image

4 Wine Tourist as the Guest

Wine tourists are the centrepiece of the process because without tourists there is no wine tourism. The wine tourist naturally assumes the role of guest when visiting a wine region, being fundamental its segmentation and characterization for those involved in the wine tourism process, in order to structure their products better and facing the expectations of the visitors (Bruwer et al., 2002). Charters and Ali-Knight (2002) ask the essential question: who is the wine tourist? The segmentation and characterization of wine tourists is not consensual among the researchers and must also be seen according to the old world/new word dichotomy, from one winery to another, or from one region to another within the same country, taking into account cultural values of the visitors (Frochot, 2000).

The studies on the characterization of the wine tourists may be divided in demographic (Hall, 1996; Corigliano, 1996; Dodd & Bigotte, 1997; Mitchell & Hall, 2006; O’Neill & Charters, 2006), or motivational and behavioural (Johnson, 1998; Mitchell & Hall, 2006; Johnson & Bruwer, 2007). The first profiles of wine tourists used the psychographic characteristics as the criteria for segmenting wine tourists. Hall (1996) highlighted three categories of wine tourists: The Wine Lovers, the Wine Interested and Curious Tourists. Corigliano (1996), defined the wine tourists as Wine-Interested, Wine-Curious, Professional, Passionate Newcomer, Follower and Drinker. Dodd and Bigotte (1997) also used demographic data to determine consumer perceptions and suggest two segments based only on age and income: older people with high income and younger people with low income. Johnson (1998), distinguishes two types of wine tourists: the “specialist winery tourist” and the “generalist” visitor, based on the purpose of the visit. Dodd (1999), classifies the wine tourists into two main groups regarding their knowledge: “advanced or specialist” and “basic or intermediate”. Charters and Ali-Knight (2002) presented a characterization of wine tourists based not only on their knowledge, but also in their interest about wine. This categorization results in four types of wine tourists: “Wine Lovers” (with a sub segment called “Connoisseurs”); “Wine Interested” and “Wine Novice”. In the same study the authors point out that for the producers, visitors are either Sophisticated Drinker, corresponding to a low percentage of visitors, Casual Tourist or even in the intermediate category, individuals who have no specific knowledge about wine but who regularly drink wine and who are interested in learning and passing through that experience.

Williams and Dossa (2003) presented a segmentation of the non-resident wine tourist into two distinct groups: The Generalists and the Immersionists (visitors who gives a greater emphasis on increasing knowledge about the wine region and participates in various cultural activities). Gatti and Maroni (2004), classified wine tourists into four distinct groups on their motivations: The Professional, the Cultured, the Enthusiastic and the Wine Tourist by Change. Galloway et al. (2008) presented a segmentation of the wine tourists based on a median split of their sensation showing that, compared with the group of lower sensation seekers, higher sensation seekers have a higher monthly expenditure on wine, purchase more bottles of wine per month, drink more bottles of wine per month, engaged in more visits to wineries, are more likely to use the internet as a source of information about wineries, participated in more activities during a visit to a wine region and rated wine and winery-related learning, as well as stimulation and indulgence experiences and emotions as stronger incentives in deciding whether to visit a wine region.

5 The Interaction Between Guest and Host

The most important aspect to the guest when visiting wine regions is the cellar door experience (Alant & Bruwer, 2004). This experience provides the opportunity for visitors (guests) to sample the winery’s products, by interact with staff (hosts) and thus form an opinion about the producer and the region (O’Neill et al., 2002). The importance of the interaction between guests and hosts is highlighted by Marlowe, Brown, and Zheng (2016) by stating that visitors (guests) have high expectation regarding the winery and the region and placed considerable importance on, the staff (hosts) being friendly, knowledgeable, undertaking of visitor needs, and capable of providing individual attention. This idea is defended by Roberts and Sparks (2006) who stress the importance of personal interactions with winery staff in creating memorable experiences and a connection with the winery and the region. Charters et al. (2009) suggested that the authenticity and quality of the visitor’s experience is increased when winery staff show a passion for their products. O’Neill and Charters (2006) identified four intangible service quality dimensions: Empathy (the ability of staff to make visitors feel welcome), Reliability (providing a consistent level of service), Response (ability of staff to meet guests needs) and assurance (providing a sense of security to customers).

5.1 Guest Motivations

Wine tourism as a tourist product has several points of interest, which generate different types of motivations, according to the purpose of each guest to visit a region (Byrd et al., 2016). The visitation to vineyards, wineries and wine festivals for wine tasting and/or experiencing the attributes of a grape wine region are the prime motivating factors for visitors (Hall et al., 2000). Bruwer (2003) ranked the follow motivations through surveying wine tourists: tasting wine and purchasing wine, visiting the country setting/vineyards, participating in a wine tour, learning about wine and winemaking, meeting the winemaker, socializing with family/friends, attending wine-related festivals or events and eating at the winery. Alant and Bruwer (2004) organized the motivations on three framework dimensions: to visit a wine region: the visitor’s preferences and traits, the region’s facilities and attractions and the dynamic of the visit itself.

According to Bruwer (2003) motivations in wine tourism can be identified as primary and secondary. Primary motivators include wine tasting, purchasing and have a pleasant tasting experience (Hall et al., 2000). Secondary motivators are socializing, learning about wine, entertainment, rural setting and relaxation (Bruwer & Alant, 2009). Other researchers distinguish between pull and push motivational factors (Alebaki & Iakovidou, 2011). Pull factors include the general features or activities of the winery: tasting and buying wine, participating in guided tours, staying overnight, drinking wines paired with food, participating in activities with family or friends (Cohen & Ben-Nun, 2009). Push factors include the desire to broaden one’s social network, relax, learn about wine and enhance one’s understanding of its cultural significance (Galloway et al., 2008).

5.2 Guest Behaviour

Understanding the patterns of wine consumption plays a critical role in the wine marketing process and allows wineries and other wine business to effectively target their market (Mitchell & Hall, 2006). Wine tourist behaviour has an inherent element of hedonism, because the tasting of wine involves alcohol and there are links with food, socializing and relaxation, which point to indulgent activity (Beverland, 1998). This line of thought is also advocated by Sparks (2007) by stating that involvement with food and wine activities in general is likely to influence intentions to participate in a specific wine tourism vacation. Getz and Brown (2006) emphasizes two major factors regarding behaviour: the appeal of wine tourism destinations and factors shaping their attractiveness and who are the wine tourists and what they want from a wine tourism experience. Alebaki et al. (2015), underlined the following factors as behaviour influencers: the travel distance (tourism demand varies depending on whether travel distance increases or decreases), the wine product involvement (visitor’s motivational state of mind with wine related activities), the wine product knowledge (the level of visitor’s knowledge regarding the world of wine), the wine tourist identity (a person who places more importance on his/her wine consumer identity is more likely to dedicate time and money to wine related activities, including visitation to wineries) and the past wine tourism experience (the influence of past experience in a particular wine region affects the visitor’s future choices).

6 Wine Region as the Place

Getz and Brown (2006) argues that attributes of a wine region, such as the scenery and open spaces, also provide an incentive to visit the region. Hall et al. (2000) have asserted that visitation to a wine region is frequently motivated by ‘the attributes of a grape wine region, referred to as the winescape. Winescape are characterised by three main elements: the presence of vineyards, the winemaking activity and the wineries where the wine is produced and stored (Bruwer and Alant, 2009).

Hall et al. (2002) brought to the discussion the concept of tourist terroir, which they define in terms of the “unique combination of the physical, cultural and natural environment that gives each region its distinctive tourist appeal. To Marzo-Navarro and Pedraja-Iglesias (2012), wine products are now enjoyed by a much wider socio-economic range of increasingly sophisticated consumers who seek information about where their wines come from and value a wine more when it comes from somewhere specific, such as a known regional destination or origin.

6.1 Brand Equity

Brand equity may be defined as the value that a brand adds to a product or service (Lockshin & Spawton, 2001). From a business perspective, brand equity is a useful instrument with which to calculate a brand’s value (Gómez, Lopez, & Molina, 2015). The formation of brand equity is essential for wine regions that seek to differentiate themselves from their competitor’s destination because the guest relates with the place based on his/her perceived brand equity (Lockshin & Spawton, 2001; Gómez et al., 2015). The recognition that countries, regions, places, and other geographical entities behave rather like brands is gaining acceptance and the value of branding places is now better understood (Gómez et al., 2015). Preferences for wine from different origins differ significantly with respect to the benefits perceived by consumers regarding the wine region equity dimensions, that is quality, price, social, emotional, environmental, and humane value (Orth, McGarry Wolf, & Dodd, 2005). Everyone involved in the wine tourism process, from governance to producers, are beginning to understand just how much equity can be added to their brands (Orth et al., 2005). In order to develop and enhance brand equity through wine tourism, it is necessary to understand the concept and its complexity, that is, brand equity is a sum total of the attributes of a brand (Lockshin & Spawton, 2001). Thus, destination brand equity should be addressed as a multidimensional construct through the analysis of five dimensions, based on Aaker’s work (1996) and adapted for wine tourism by Gómez et al. (2015): brand awareness (the consumer’s ability to recall and recognize a wine destination), brand loyalty (the consumers’ preference for the destination, intention to repeat the visit, and likelihood of recommending the destination), brand image (the cognitive and affective associations that consumers link to the destination), perceived quality (the consumer’s perception of the overall service quality) and other proprietary (wine destination brand assets, such as historic buildings, unique processes, channel management methods, and customer relationship management, can determine brand equity).

6.2 Brand Image

The strategic goal for wine of tourism is to become not only a region promotor but also a tool to improve the image and reputation of the regional wines and by extension, the region itself (Frochot, 2003). The study of the wine region destination image has its roots in the need to better understand the characteristics and motives of wine tourists (Getz & Brown, 2006). As it was pointed out before, the wine region can be defined as a pack of products offered, which encompasses the activities related to the world of wine, a tourist impeller of the area in which it is implanted, that allows to revalue the image of the rural, to increase the knowledge about the architectural heritage of the place, to preserve the cultural and gastronomic tradition, and at the same time satisfy the expectations demanded by the consumer (Frochot, 2000; Kivela & Crotts, 2006). Consequently, a wine and food route contributes to the reputation and image of wine regions and their wines by highlighting a set of regional features, which gives a brand identity and a distinctive note or something that makes it unique (Cambourne et al., 2000). At the same mean, wine, food and tourism rely on regional branding for market leverage and promotion and thus the appellation, or the regional brands become an important source of differentiation and value added for rural regions (Frochot, 2003).

7 Winery Staff as Hosts

As hosts, service staff have a determinant roll in order to engage the guest with the place. The ability to connect with the guest goes beyond just good service, rather, staff must also enable visitors to have a sense of linkage with the winery; they must convey passion about it and they have to provide a ‘‘story’’, or a myth, which can engage the visitor with the place (Charters, Fountain, & Fish, 2009). The ability of the winery and its staff to engage the visitor at the tasting room is therefore crucial component in establishing brand loyalty (Alant & Bruwer, 2004). In this way, winery staff can establish in the winery visitor an emotional connection to the brand. The importance of this personal connection to the overall winery experience was very apparent in the current research project and manifested itself in a number of ways (Marlowe et al., 2016). Providing training to the tasting-room staff is essential to deliver a better service and thus increasing sales of wine at wineries (Marlowe et al., 2016). Tasting-room staff are better able to sell wines to visitors when their level of understanding of the wines being offered are high (Thach & Olson, 2003). Implementing a customer-service training program is fundamental in order to the staff feel more empowered and confident in speaking with sophisticated wine consumers (Marlowe et al., 2016). Learning the basics of viticulture and winemaking by employees in the tasting room, as well as the major grape varietals and regions is pointed out by Thach and Olson (2003) as the most critical training needed for the success of tasting-room employees.

8 Service Quality as the Determinant of Satisfaction and Loyalty

Service quality is the determinant for customer satisfaction in wine tourism. The increased significance and growing competitiveness of this sector has led to a heightened concern by producers and consumers for the quality of services being offered, and has forced many within the industry to invest in the delivery of higher levels of service quality as a means to achieving competitive differentiation (O’Neill & Charters, 2006). The service scape concept holds that the design of the physical environment can be an extremely important element of the perception of service quality and satisfaction and influence consumption, patterns and practices (Bitner, 1992, cited in Bruwer & Joy, 2017). The service scape refers to the physical facility (wine region, winery tasting rooms) in which a service is delivered and in which the service provider and customer interact, and to any tangible commodities that facilitate that service (Bitner, 1992, cited in Bruwer & Joy, 2017). Customer perceptions of the quality of a cellar door’s physical environment contribute to the formation of visitors’ first impressions of a cellar door prior to interacting with the staff for purchasing its products (Chen, Bruwer, Cohen, & Goodman, 2016). In tasting room, service quality is the key to the affective attachments a visitor develops for a particular producer which, by extension, can have an impact on their subsequent brand loyalty (O’Neill & Charters, 2006). The tasting room experience and associated memories are influential in the post-visit behaviour of consumers, and thus a memorable experience will more likely to result in a future purchase (Mitchell & Hall, 2004).

8.1 Guest Satisfaction

The question of customer satisfaction regarding services related to wine tourism was addressed by different authors (Carmichael, 2005; Getz & Brown, 2006). Satisfaction is believed to impact on destination image (Bruwer & Joy, 2017), service quality, post- purchase perceptions, future purchase decisions and long-term customer loyalty (O’Neil & Charters, 2006) who should ultimately translate into higher sales and revenue (Yuan & Jang, 2008). Wine tourists enjoy a high level of satisfaction for services experienced during wine tourist vacation. These include visits to cellars, wine tastings and the quality of the wine tasted (Carmichael, 2005). Thus, wineries should create pleasant experiences in order to generate higher satisfaction levels and to positively influence visitors’ behavioural intentions (Charters et al., 2009).

8.2 Guest Loyalty

Measuring tourists’ loyalty has become vitally important to understanding the success of particular destinations. Tourist loyalty intentions refer to future behavioural intentions of tourists in relation to tourism experiences (Mason & Paggiaro, 2012). It is consensual that the intention to revisit a destination, recommend it to others and spread positive word-of-mouth reflect tourist loyalty intentions for a particular destination (Mitchell & Hall, 2004). Furthermore, these repeat visitors tend to spend more on wine, accessory items and souvenirs than first time visitors (Alant & Bruwer, 2004). Mitchell and Hall (2004) similarly report that repeat visitors to a winery are more likely to make a post-visit purchase off site. Loyalty in wine tourism, terms must include the purchase of wine both during the visit and the intention/likelihood of purchasing wine made by that particular winery in the future (Lee & Chang, 2012). Loyalty intentions are naturally related to destination image (Williams, 2001), leisure activities (Getz & Brown, 2006), involvement (Brown et al., 2006) and service quality (O’Neill & Palmer, 2004). In short, loyalty to destination is a natural reflection of the satisfaction of lived experiences and is reflected in the brand equity and brand image of the producer and the destination (Lee & Chang, 2012).

9 Conclusion and Implications

This work analyses the constructs that interfere with the experience given to the visitors of a wine region from the interaction of Guest-Place-Host trilogy: motivation, behaviour, quality of service, satisfaction, loyalty, brand equity and brand image. Motivations for visiting wineries are important to understand the nature of the visitor, as they can be used to explain visitor’s behaviour and thus to define market segments. The conceptual relationship established between motivation and involvement is fundamental to explain the behaviour and the consequent satisfaction of the visitor towards the destination. Guest satisfaction should be analysed regarding all the attributes and services available during the wine experience: entertainment, aesthetics, educational and escapist. A wine region that counts with positive winescape attributes shapes favourable wine tourist evaluations and behavioural intention toward it. Satisfaction in tasting room experience potentially generate loyalty among visitors. The winery visitation is a key factor for wine distribution, customer satisfaction, and positive brand image for the winery as well as for the region. The underlying assumption is that is possible to reach a higher level of customer satisfaction, and thus generate customer loyalty by understanding the effects of different attributes on customer satisfaction. This line of thought argues that satisfaction with an event is affected by perceptions that are formed before and after the experience and that will be decisive for loyalty, future visit and for the catapulting of the brand equity and image of the destination and its products. The visit is composed of tangible and intangible features, the most obvious tangible factors being those that led to the decision of the visit: tasting and/or buying wine and tasting food. In order to increase visitor’s loyalty, more attention should be made to enhance visitors’ satisfaction of the intangible service because pleasure contributes dramatically to the satisfaction of the intangible service. Service quality and the ability of the staff to connect with the guest plays a key role on the service encounter found a positive association between pleasure and satisfaction. The more pleasurable experience visitors had, the more likely they were to be satisfied by both tangible and intangible service attributes of the wine region. This research has three main theoretical contributions. First, the study states the relevance of the Pine and Gilmore’s experience economy model adapted to the wine tourism context. Secondly, it brings to the discussion a new organization of the main constructs of the enogastronomic experience, based on the trilogy Guest-Host-Place and finally this work additionally contributes to a review of the literature on wine tourism from a new organization of the constructs that compose the experience. The growing body of research has validated the relevance of the studies on wine tourism, with more authors addressing specific topics from the perspective of demand and supply. Although the experiences provided to tourists are the main argumet for the existence of this type of tourism, only a few studies directly address this issue. From the existing studies on the experience almost all of them adopted the model of the ecomomy experience of Pine and Gilmore, although none of them organize the constructs from the Guest-Host-Place trilogy. The study of the wine tourism experience requires a careful analysis due to the specificities of each wine region, each country and wine tourist segmentation. Thus, the complexity of the products that composed the holistic wine tourism experience deserves a detailed study, which equates how to approach wine tourism in that country (there are huge differences between wine tourism in the new and old world, in terms of products, (local grapes, techniques, local gastronomy) the purpose and duration of the visit, the motivations and knowledge of each type the tourist, its cultural tourist background, among other factors. It is therefore recommended that future studies adopting this approach take account of all these specificities, in order to obtain more accurate results, according to the region/country under study and those of its visitors.