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Wine tourism is a significant component of both the wine and tourism industries. Wine and tourism have been intimately connected for many years, but it is only recently that this relationship has come to be explicitIy recognized by govemments, researchers and by the industries themselves. For the tourism industry, wine is an important component of the attractiveness of a destination and can be a major motivating factor for visitors. For the wine industry, wine tourism is a very important way to build up relationships with customers who can experience first hand the romance of the grape, while for many smaller wineries direct selling to visitors at the cellar door is often essential to their business success. In her standard work on wine, Jancis Robinson (1994: 980) records that