- Winalist is the leading wine experience booking website in Europe
- Nearly 1,000 wine tourism professionals trust Winalist in France and Europe.
- Thanks to this fundraising Winalist confirms its ambition: to develop its offer internationally
Winalist, a growing startup in the Wine industry
After spending more than 4 hours trying to find wineries that would be open to receive him during a stay in Bordeaux, Nicolas Manfredini, decided to use his skills and his network to help the wine world by launching Winalist: The perfect solution for wineries to list their wine experiences and avoid visitors spending, like him, so much time and effort on finding the perfect wine tour!
During the first year, the concept was tested in the Champagne french wine region, Nicolas’ native region and quickly convinced prestigious wine estates as well as many visitors from all over the world. That same year, Winalist raised 600,000€ to accelerate its national development.
In 2020, the pandemic put a stop to worldwide tourism. At Winalist, the team decided to use this particular moment to joins their efforts in increasing the number of experiences on Winalist and more globally in Europe. Italy was first opened to satisfy our North American visitors demands, quickly followed by Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Germany.
Since then, wine tourism has resumed and is even more trendy. More than ever, Winalist will be the solution for all visitors, to guide them on experience the best of every wine region in Europe.
Becoming the ultimate guide to wine experiences in Europe
Winalist continues to increase its development and announces today a new fundraising of 1.3 million euros. A round table carried out with Business Angels such as the Cointreau family and more institutional french investors. This fundraising goes in pair with the ambition of the start-up to accelerate its development on an international scale while pursuing its mission of supporting local and foreign visitors to find the ideal wine experience.
We, at Winalist, remain at the service of the wine industry by bulding an amazing product that can allow them to list their experiences. That way, we also help all visitors to discover wine growers’ know-how.
As a booming sector of European tourism, both economically and culturally, wine tourism is a real growth driver and contributes to the image and reputation of wine regions and producers’ heritage. Internationally, the need for leisure activities is growing as a result of the pandemic. According to a 2022 study, demand for wine experiences is expected to grow 23% through 2028 to generate $32.5 billion from booking wine experiences alone.
The start-up makes the observation itself, “Since the beginning of the year, Winalist has posted growth of 270%, growth correlated with the recovery of world tourism. Only 30% of our visitors are French, which shows how much wine tourism appeals to foreign visitors. We also note that approximately 50% of our visitors travel as a couple, 25% with friends and 25% with family; it is therefore a form of tourism aimed at a variety of targets. »
Winalist will also launch its “Winalist Excellence” label by the end of the year to distinguish wine estates according to the quality of the location and the wine tourism experience offered to visitors. An attention to details.
“It is important for us to become a referent to guide visitors in their choice. Winalist must be a facilitator but also a third party, guarantee of quality, of the experiences offered. Our wish is not to highlight the biggest houses or the must-visit locations, but rather to shed light on exceptional experiences offered by less known wineries.” adds Nicolas Manfredini.
More than 1200 experiences available across Europe
Since 2019, nearly 1,000 wine estates and professionals have trusted Winalist, in particular large houses such as Champagne Taittinger, the houses of the LVMH group (Moët et Chandon, Mercier,…), Château de Pommard, Colsanto in Italy or even Castello di Radda in Tuscany. More than 300 wineries in Spain, Italy and Portugal have joined the platform so far.
Wine tourism fits perfectly with the evolution in lifestyles we are seeing: it’s not just amusement parks, seaside resorts or large cities that attract tourists. The vineyards which reflect a culture, an ancestral transmission of know-how close to nature, allow everyone to discover a region, a country and its inhabitants. Beyond the creation of added value, the development of the turnover generated, and by extension an objective of notoriety and image with increasingly innovative and differentiating offers for the producers, we will retain the conviviality and the sharing a passion. Winalist has perfectly understood the expectations of consumers and producers, by optimizing an intuitive and efficient relationship. I appreciated Winalist’s vision and the variety of their offer in Europe. For my part, I am positive about the continued growth of the wine tourism market.
A trusted partner for the wine industry
The digitization of the wine offer is spreading more and more and is becoming a major challenge, especially for the smallest estates.
Winalist is positioning itself as an essential partner for promoting the tourism offers of wine estates, but also as a business provider. 71% of visitors who book on Winalist buy wine at the end of their visit and 1/3 of these visitors spend more than €100 per person, which makes opening the doors of the estates lucrative for wineries. All of this without taking into account the fact that it’s pure experiencial marketing.
The start-up also aims to be an hospitality management tool with a perfectly developed product and features such as online prepayment of reservations to avoid no-shows by visitors or a reservation module that each professional can integrate directly into their site to facilitate the management of schedules.
The path to an international development
With this new fundraising, Winalist confirms its ambition: Become the leading wine tourism booking website in the world. First by pursuing it in neighboring European markets, then by offering its services in markets such as the United States or South America.
Access to photos : winal.ist/press-en
