Getting wine lovers into tasting rooms is an important component of a winery’s financial health. Tasting rooms and wine clubs—which often gain members from people who visit the winery— account for more than half of the average winery’s revenue, according to the 2026 Silicon Valley State of the Wine Industry report.
To attract new consumers to tasting rooms, the New York Wine & Grape Foundation has partnered with Wine Enthusiast to create an online Tasting Room Directory on the respected publication’s website. The New York Tasting Room Directory directs curious travelers to AVA-specific wine trails, and it includes an interactive map with locator pins and a scrollable list of participating wineries. The goal of this new digital feature is to drive traffic to New York’s wine regions, support local businesses, and reinforce the state’s reputation as a destination for world-class wine experiences.
We spoke with representatives from four of the state’s regions—Lake Erie, Long Island, Finger Lakes, and Hudson Valley—for their take on how this new directory can benefit both wine tourists and the state’s wine industry.
Gaining Recognition and Visibility
The New York side of the Lake Erie AVA, which spans parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, has about a dozen wineries. Not all wine tourists visiting New York realize the region is one of the state’s options. The digital directory can introduce them to New York wineries in the AVA.
“Lake Erie has a lack of visibility that the Finger Lakes and Long Island don’t have,” says Mario Mazza, vice president and general manager of Mazza. “Getting ourselves listed on the Wine Enthusiast platform and having the Lake Erie region come up helps add credibility. It’s another arrow in the quiver of just trying to get some recognition and visibility.”
Mazza is confident that once wine tourists discover the region, they’ll find plenty of reasons to explore its wineries and the many other things to enjoy around Lake Erie.
“We have some great assets,” he says. One is the sheer number of acres of grapes that tourists can see while driving through the beautiful region. “From certain vantage points, you can see thousands of acres of grapes. There are some great backdrops, some great settings.”
Another draw is that the region is a “little more laid back.”
“You’re not fighting for reservations at locations. And we’re pretty darn affordable,” says Mazza. At the Mazza Chautauqua Cellars in Westfield, the charge is between $7 and $10 for a flight of four samples.
“That’s a pretty reasonable tasting fee,” Mazza says, and he believes other wineries in Erie are comparable. “What regional wineries are charging for some really great quality wines in terms of flights and by the glass—it’s really still affordable.”
A Planning Tool to Make the Most of Tourists’ Time
Dorothy-Dean Thomas, VP, sales & operations at The Lenz Winery on Long Island’s North Fork, knows that one of the biggest tourism challenges the region faces is transportation.
“We are very fortunate to be surrounded by quite a few states filled with people who enjoy exploring wine regions,” she says. “If you don’t have a car, how do you get to us?” Public transportation will get would-be visitors only so far, and then they need to order a ride-share or hire a private company.
“It may not be easy, but it is so worth it!” Thomas believes.
For wine tourists who make the effort, the Wine Enthusiast directory may be a helpful planning tool, assisting those unfamiliar with the region to choose wineries close to each other so they can spend more time discovering fine wines and less time traveling from one winery to the next.
“I do see [the directory] as a helpful step in the right direction,” says Thomas, who recognizes that many consumers like to visit three or four wineries in one day. The directory, she points out, is designed to help customers narrow down their choices based on proximity.
Bumping Up AI Visibility
Three Brothers, overlooking Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes, has three wine tasting rooms, each with a unique theme. While the winery offers varied experiences for its visitors, it would like to welcome even more visitors.
Katharine Warner, marketing coordinator and director at Three Brothers, sees inclusion in the directory—and the information it provides—as a way to get visitors in the door to experience all the winery has to offer.
“People just aren’t drinking as much as they used to, so we’re trying to put on more events to get them to come out,” she says. “It’s not just ‘come out and drink.’ You can come out and do a sourdough baking class. We have live music. We do festivals. We invite local vendors into the tasting rooms and pop-ups with them.”
Those events are helping some, but tourists who aren’t familiar with Three Brothers and all it has to offer have to discover it before they can come out for the activities. Warner believes the Wine Enthusiast directory can help with that.
“It puts New York state and the Finger Lakes on the map and validates us as a premier wine destination,” she says. Wine Enthusiast readers are the target audience for wineries like Three Brothers, and being part of the directory validates the state’s wine regions for some of those readers.
But Warner sees another way the digital directory can help drive traffic to the Finger Lakes, where they can visit wineries, hike in places like Watkins Glen, and enjoy great food like breakfast before a day of wine tasting at many little spots along the way.
“People are using AI a lot for travel recommendations,” she says. “So I think having us in Wine Enthusiast’s directory establishes some really good SEO (search engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) for the New York State wine region. As AI is taking some of the search traffic away from Google, I think having us in the directory helps bump up visibility in AI search.”
Solidifying New York’s Reputation for Serious Wine
At Millbrook Vineyards and Winery in the Hudson Valley, GM and winemaker Ian Bearup sees the directory as a way to “further solidify New York as a serious wine-growing region” where people can drink some world-class wines.
“Wine Enthusiast has built up a reputation over many, many years, and if you’re on their website and they’re promoting specific wineries, to me, that showcases a winery’s professionalism,” says Bearup.
For Millbrook, that means serious wine drinkers from many places, not just locals, will be able to find the winery, which is a serious business that’s been in operation for over 40 years and is currently building new outdoor spaces, a new tasting room, and a market that sells other Hudson Valley products such as cheese and charcuterie.
“People who visit New York City on vacation and want to take a trip out to the Hudson Valley for a few days to drink some wine [may consider the local wineries] because Wine Enthusiast promotes it,” says Bearup.
While there, Bearup predicts that those people will also discover how agriculture-focused the Hudson Valley is. Not only do wineries use local grapes, but also restaurants source local foods, and cideries craft drinks from local apples. Visitors can enjoy hiking and fishing in the region. They’ll see that the Hudson Valley is a destination itself, “littered with great little small towns that all offer something different,” he says.
As wine lovers choose where to spend tourism dollars, Wine Enthusiast’s New York Tasting Room Directory is a tool they can employ to find wineries in the regions they’re interested in visiting, or perhaps discover a region they didn’t realize had wineries worth seeking out. It’s one of the many ways New York Wine & Grape Foundation is making sure the state’s wineries get the visibility their fine wines deserve.
