The first round table of the Wine Tech Symposium 2025 brought together four leading wineries, very different from one another yet united by a common thread: the shift from spontaneous wine tourism to a structured, digital and strategic model.
Castello di Volpaia, Massimago (and Masseria Cuturi), Marco Carpineti and Tenuta Ambrosini shared how, starting from very different contexts, they have turned the tasting room into the nerve centre of the relationship with the customer, integrating wine tourism, data, territory and direct-to-consumer sales.
Four different approaches to technology, hospitality and the local area, but one key point in common: the awareness that hospitality can no longer be improvised, and that technology, when adopted properly, frees up time and energy to focus on what really matters: people, relationships and the value created in the winery.
Table of contents:
- Castello di Volpaia: from a software puzzle to an integrated ecosystem
- Massimago: an ecosystem of hospitality, data and people
- Tenuta Ambrosini: emotion, restaurant and teamwork in Franciacorta
- Marco Carpineti: becoming a destination in a territory without a “destination”
- Digitalization, generations and new visitors: what wineries are telling us
Castello di Volpaia: from a software puzzle to an integrated ecosystem
Castello di Volpaia, a historic winery in Chianti Classico, took its technological leap several years ago, starting from a very concrete challenge: management complexity. Nicolò Mascheroni Stianti explains it frankly: “As winegrowers we are basically running three businesses in one: we sell products (eCommerce), experiences (tours and tastings) and often accommodation as well. Each one would require a different piece of software. I found myself doing a collage of a thousand little systems.”
The encounter with Wine Suite was born precisely from this need: to have a single, easy-to-use platform that could bring order. “What convinced me was the idea of having, in a single CRM, the entire history of the customer: what they bought, which experiences they took part in, how many times they stayed overnight. This allows me to welcome them differently, segment them and understand their real value.”
For Volpaia today, the priority is not so much increasing footfall – the hamlet already attracts a very high number of visitors – but converting every visitor into a paying customer.
Nicolò has a very clear view of the future: eCommerce, for the winery, will increasingly be driven by Wine Club and loyalty models, not by a generic catalogue approach. And he closes with a reflection that applies to everyone: “Think about the price of a bottle on the traditional channel and what you sell it for directly to the consumer: the difference is your margin. The relationship with the end consumer is non-negotiable. And adopting technology to manage that relationship is just as essential.”
Massimago: an ecosystem of hospitality, data and people
Massimago is the perfect example of a complex ecosystem: winery, twenty rooms, restaurant, events, weddings and two city locations (Verona and Padua) with tasting activities. Camilla Rossi Chauvenet recalls what it was like before: “Wine tourism was already there, but it was inefficient. Bookings were messy, opening hours weren’t clear, customers thought they could just show up for a tasting at any time… there were no rules.” Adopting Wine Suite was approached as a real service design project: “Matteo and Filippo mapped out our needs and created a single channel. Not just for Massimago, but with the idea of a consistent experience at national level, something that simply didn’t exist before.”
The challenges were not only technological, but above all organizational and cultural: integrating the hospitality PMS with the CRM, avoiding double entries, sharing data with the team to turn them into goals and awareness. “When you have a lot of data, it’s almost scary. But once you start looking at them, you understand what works, what doesn’t and what needs to be improved. Above all, you understand who you are as a company within your territory.”
The case of Masseria Cuturi in Manduria is also very telling and shows how much the territory shapes wine tourism: “We tried to copy the Valpolicella model and it was a flop. In Puglia, tourism starts from the sea and food, not from wine. If you organise an event only about wine, nobody comes. You need to build partnerships with those who make mozzarella, chocolate, local food and slowly build curiosity and interest around wine.”
Here, technology is not “one more piece of software”, but an enabler that holds a complex ecosystem together, helps you read the data, share information with the team and create a clear narrative thread between the different activities, always starting from people.
Deep dive & resources: access the recording and materials of the Wine Tech Symposium 2025
Tenuta Ambrosini: emotion, food and teamwork in Franciacorta
For Tenuta Ambrosini in Franciacorta, innovation starts from a very clear pillar: taking care of human relationships. Filippo Ambrosini sums it up like this: “We have always wanted to put the relationship at the centre. For us, visitors are not a nuisance, they are a resource.”
The Ambrosini model revolves strongly around the winery restaurant: over 10,000 visits a year, 75% of which at lunchtime. “The key is to move people, to make them feel something when they come to us. If you manage to convey the passion behind your work, the results will show up at the till as well.” The eCommerce project was born from the need to follow up on sales in the tasting room: “We didn’t build an eCommerce site because it was trendy, but because customers were asking where they could find our wines once they were back home. It has become a re-order tool, not a cold sales channel.”
In Franciacorta, however, a single winery is not enough: you need real territorial teamwork: “We have a rule: there are colleagues, not competitors. The consortium plays a crucial role in coordinating and listening to our needs. A choir of voices makes more noise than a soloist.” Internal events among producers, technical tastings of base wines, joint initiatives: everything contributes to making the area a recognisable and desirable destination, where each winery benefits from the collective effort and, in turn, helps to reinforce it.
Marco Carpineti: becoming a destination in a territory without a “destination”
The story of Marco Carpineti in Cori (LT) is almost the opposite of Tenuta Ambrosini: a territory without a strong consortium, with little-known denominations and a “giant” neighbour like Rome, which absorbs most of the tourist flows. “We’re 60 km south of Rome, but the tourist who goes to Rome often leaves Lazio when they look for wine experiences. There was no destination here: we had to create one ourselves.”
The strategy was multi-layered and very concrete:
- Working with locals, especially people from Rome, who became the main audience and natural ambassadors.
- Creating synergies with local attractions: riding stables, river, outdoor activities, mixed formats (e.g. horseback ride + tasting). “More than 85% of people search for ‘horseback riding’, not ‘wine tasting’. That made us realise the hook is the experience, the territory, the activity. Wine comes afterwards, but it’s there.”
- Investing in digital: social media, content, influencers, constant visibility. “Paradoxically, you reach local people faster through digital channels than by waiting for them to drive past on the provincial road.” The impact is tangible: from a few hundred visitors in 2019 to almost 8,000 visitors a year, with steady growth.
Equally important has been the internal mindset shift: “At the beginning, when Filippo called me, I thought he had the wrong number. Now we have a team that works methodically, and Wine Suite has become an intuitive, almost fun tool that lets you see how things evolve over time.”
Segmentation and the wow effect are two key levers to attract different audiences and generations. The famous vineyard maze created by Carpineti is a perfect example: it speaks to younger visitors, creates “Instagrammable” content, and at the same time becomes an opportunity to tell the winery’s story and, ultimately, to sell.
Digitalization, generations and new visitors: what wineries are telling us
The first round table at the Wine Tech Symposium 2025 makes one thing very clear: there is no single innovation model, but there are some constants:
- Wine tourism works when it is a deliberate, structured choice, not something left to chance;
- Technology is an ally to bring order, read the data and free up time and energy;
- The tasting room remains the place where the brand comes to life and where “real customers” are created;
- The human factor – the team, training, attitude towards the relationship – remains the real dividing line between those who grow and those who stay still.
To fully unlock the potential of wine tourism, Wine Suite offers an innovative platform to manage winery experiences and direct wine sales. Request a free demo here: Contact us
