When wine enthusiasts visit a tasting room, they usually have a general knowledge of the winery’s reputation and its wine region. They’re looking forward to tasting and learning more about the wines and enjoying the culinary experience. They may research the area before traveling, follow the winery on social media, search Google, or reach out to friends and family for ideas on other things to do on their trip. 

Visitors often ask tasting room staff for recommendations on places to stay, the best restaurants for dining, and other wineries and attractions to visit. While the winery team is always happy to help, they’re often too busy to help with more than a few quick suggestions. 

Innovative mapping company HipMaps has a solution. The company works with a winery, chamber of commerce, grower association, hotel, or event organization to design a map customized to their needs and branded with their logo and style. The map can include anything from recommendations and reviews about lodging, shops, restaurants, and museums to trails and even local “hidden gems,” like the location of the best Taco truck.

 HipMaps are both printable and used on the HipMaps interactive app, engaging the younger generations who prefer digital to print. In the HipMaps app, guests can see their location on the map, read the winery’s comments about each place, link to websites, and get directions. The app comments are personalized by the winery team, such as “Sandy’s favorite place to relax after a busy day is Dillon’s Bar on Fifth Street.”

The inspiration that led Rachel LeRoy to create HipMaps in 2020 came from her lifelong fascination with maps. “Maps are my way of spreading joy — they make people happy,” says LeRoy. “Whether they’re a paper map on the wall or a digital map on your phone, maps are always helpful. They’re also a great connection to the thoughtful people who gave you the map.”

LeRoy and her team also design print-only maps for tasting rooms and winery marketing use, which is a helpful tool to show vineyard locations, AVAs, terrain, and other pertinent information that a winery would like to use to educate its customers. “The tasting room maps help visitors better understand how the wine relates to the area,” LeRoy explains. “The extra visual is a nice way to add another dimension to the sensory experience of a wine tasting.” Memento Mori displays their vineyard map on their website and also prints laminated versions to distribute at their events. Another winery that has embraced a vineyard map is Tongue Dancer in Healdsburg, which creates 5×5” maps for their annual wine shipments, showing a map of vineyards and AVAs on one side and the year’s releases on the other. 

“Since all the maps we design are images,” LeRoy explains, “they can be printed on merchandise like a tote bag. One winery turned their map into a jigsaw puzzle that customers could purchase.”

No matter if it is a HipMap or a vineyard map, every map begins as a blank slate, with the client supplying their branded artwork and the locations, facts, and images that will be most valuable to their guests. LeRoy’s team turns that into a design that highlights the most pertinent information in the winery’s style. When it’s ready, the winery can have its map printed and mounted on its tasting room wall, laminate the maps to reuse in tasting presentations, or print them as paper maps for customers to take with them. 

Whether it is a HipMap full of recommendations or a map of vineyard locations, maps are a creative visual tool to help a winery — or any other business — make a special connection with its customers. To learn more about how HipMaps can add value to your winery, visit their WISS booth and find them at HipMaps.com.