Visiting wineries is a waste of time. I already know what I like

July 30, 2026 — 5:00am

Some time ago, in the mists of time, probably during the 1990s, cellar doors became a thing. Three decades on and we’re still visiting them. They’ve become a staple of escorted tours and weekend getaways.

Let me make a confession. Cellar doors aren’t enjoyable, and I suspect I’m not alone in that view. But it’s the dislike that dare not speak its name, because cellar doors tick trendy traveller boxes: cultured, food-minded, local, experiential, social-media friendly.

But I don’t know what the enduring travel fashion for visiting grape farms is all about. Why not pig farms, or pickle farms?

I only need to hear about the wine-making process once. And I only have to see a wine cellar once: rows of old barrels (French oak!) festooned with cobwebs in a gloomy dungeon.

Or OK, maybe twice, since others are warehouses with big stainless-steel vats. But I guarantee that the words, “That was a beautiful industrial vat” will never be part of your post-travel dinner conversation.

The whole wine-tasting schtick is tiresome and awkward. You may be forced to run through a flight of wines when you already know you don’t like chardonnay or shiraz. You have to listen to the winemaker tell you why their wine is the best in Australia when you’re sure it isn’t.

And what’s with the spittoons? They were invented for coughing up phlegm and tobacco in public places, and eventually society rightly decided they were a bad idea.

I don’t know anywhere else apart from dental clinics that still have spittoons. Can I try my Thai curry or pavlova and spit out the rest? The latest sample offered in the supermarket, perhaps?

About 50 years ago in Australia, the term cellar door could be taken literally. Wine bottles were stored in cool cellars and sold to customers who quickly went on their way.

By the 1990s however the emergence of hobbyist winemakers had seen cellar doors become buildings in which passersby tasted wine. They were great for the owners, who benefited from the large margins on each bottle of wine sold.

One of the enduring misapprehensions of cellar doors is that you get a bargain. And although many cellar doors are rustic cliches, many have become agro-tourism businesses run by managers who’ve never picked a grape in their lives.

Cellar doors then began offering restaurants, shops, museums and concerts. They were no longer simply about buying wine, rather about consuming wine on the spot and being upsold an “experience”.

And that’s when cellar doors began to fill up with tour-coach groups, drunken friends, wedding parties, oenophile mansplainers, Instagram poseurs and families with rambunctious kids.

Not many visitors want to buy wine, or to learn much about the skill that goes into winemaking. And fair enough. Most of us already know what types of wine we like.

It doesn’t matter whether the bottle costs $10 or $200, whether you can detect hints of strawberry or old leather, or whether the grapes were picked at midnight under a full moon. You either like it, or you don’t.

What’s more, you know you’re never going to pair your wine again with buffalo-milk cheese, or dark chocolate and sea salt. You’re never again going to realise it tastes less acidic after you’ve eaten a macadamia nut than it did before.

You want something you can drink after work, or with your daily dinner. Something you can reliably find at your local bottle shop. I say skip the cellar door, and just enjoy the wine-country scenery.