Seeking a competitive advantage in wine tourism: Heritage and storytelling at the cellar-door

The nature of the cellar-door experience varies between wineries and regions. While the literature has identified heritage, storytelling and authenticity as important concepts regarding interaction with tourists at the cellar-door, there is a need to understand how they are operationalised by winery staff, including their strategic objectives. This article aims to explore how New World wineries are using their heritage to engage with tourists at their cellar-doors. The approach is qualitative, based on long semi-structured phenomenological interviews with eleven representatives of south-eastern Australia wineries to understand their lived experience. Findings suggest that the cellar-door represents an important opportunity to reinforce heritage branding and differentiate the winery from its competitors. Different forms of heritage were emphasised by participants, including family and ethnic heritage. Storytelling was seen as a useful strategy to engage with tourists and the importance of authenticity, both intrinsic and existential, was emphasised as a means of competitive advantage.