Brand Congruence’s Role in Assessing Winery Atmospherics?

Abstract

Current frameworks within wine tourism literature that assess the quality of the a cellar door visitation experience appear to be lacking in accurately capturing the impact of atmospherics. To explore this, the concept of brand congruence with atmospheric cues is introduced from services marketing literature and examined using the case of two juxtaposed winery service environments within the Margaret River wine region of Western Australia. Data was collected using a qualitative ethnographic method in which the author visited the two wineries and assessed their atmospherics via a framework adapted from existing wine tourism and services marketing literature. Insights highlight that two vastly different approaches to leveraging atmospheric cues can deliver high quality experiences that are aligned with brand image and positioning. Thus providing a more nuanced approach to assessing winery atmospheric quality