Wine & Hospitality Trade Adventures
Forget another supplier presentation in a windowless conference room. Take your team, customers or fellow wine professionals somewhere extraordinary.
From Georgian qvevri cellars to Moldova's underground wine cities and Armenia's ancient vineyards, Tipple Tours creates unforgettable wine trade adventures combining remarkable producers, brilliant food, fascinating cultures and a thoroughly healthy disregard for boring itineraries.
Our Wine Trade Credentials
Tipple Tours grew from the world of independent wine retail. It was born out of The Smiling Grape Company, the independent wine merchant we founded in 2008.
We understand wine lists, margins, obscure grape varieties, difficult customers and the particular thrill of finding a producer nobody back home has heard of. So we don't just hand people a glass on holiday: we know what makes a winery visit genuinely worthwhile for the trade.
Recognition for our wine merchant, The Smiling Grape Company
Winner · 2015
International Wine Challenge
Regional Merchant of the Year, Eastern England
Shortlisted · 2016
Grocer Gold Awards
UK Drinks Retailer of the Year
Finalist · 2014
Drinks Retailing Awards
UK Independent Drinks Retailer of the Year
Finalist · 2013
Harpers Awards
Best Top Merchant of the Year (up to 3 stores)
Two very different trips, both built around the people who make the wine.
Staff & Trade Education Trips
Reward your team and build real product knowledge by meeting the people who make the wine. Technical tastings, winemaker discussions, regional comparisons and production visits, with plenty of culture in between.
Ideal for: Merchant and retail teams, importers and sales teams, restaurant and bar staff, sommeliers and wine educators.
Customer-Hosted Wine Adventures
You've spent years introducing customers to brilliant wines. Now introduce them to the people who make them, over a Georgian feast, in an underground Moldovan wine city or beside an Armenian winemaker with a very generous pouring arm.
Ideal for: Independent wine merchants, wine shops, importers, hospitality businesses and wine clubs.
For customer-hosted trips
Your shop. Your customers. Your wine tour.
A private trip just for your customers, club members or mailing list. You choose the destination, dates and group size; we build the itinerary with you.
Two brands. One brilliant adventure.
A trip featuring your business and Tipple Tours, promoted to your customers with agreed materials.
Example: The Grape Escape Wine Merchants Goes Georgian
You bring the people. We bring the passport stamps.
You travel as host, bringing your knowledge and personality to producer meetings, special tastings and group dinners.
All arrangements are subject to agreed group numbers, supplier availability and commercial terms.
Every partnership is tailored, so here's what we can put on the table, and who does what.
Commercial options we can discuss
Marketing support
Tipple Tours
Acts as travel organiser, takes all customer bookings and payments directly, and delivers the agreed travel arrangements.
You
Promote the trip to your community using agreed materials and, if you like, join as host. You never take payment on our behalf.
In writing
Commissions, host places, branding and each party's responsibilities are agreed in writing before anything is promoted. Nothing is automatic.
We never create public partner pages or use your logo without written permission.
Selling to travellers rather than the wine trade? See our travel partnerships.
Example Customer Adventure
Five days of ancient qvevri cellars, boutique producers, indigenous grapes and Georgian hospitality with ten of your best customers. They get a remarkable adventure; you get a shared experience they'll talk about long after the final tasting.
Illustrative group set-up
Illustrative only: not a confirmed itinerary, price, availability or commercial return.
8,000 years of winemaking, amber wines from clay qvevri and supra feasts where the toasts never end.
Potential experiences
Underground wine cities you can drive through, boutique producers and grapes your customers have never heard of.
Potential experiences
Mountain vineyards, indigenous varieties, a thrilling new-wave wine scene and, for good measure, Armenian brandy.
Potential experiences
All experiences are examples, subject to producer and supplier availability.
Small, privately organised groups with local partners who know the producers.
Staff trip, trade visit or customer adventure? Tell us who's coming and what you'd like to discover.
Georgia, Moldova, Armenia or somewhere else with interesting grapes and excellent stories.
We design the itinerary with local partners and agree pricing, group numbers and any partnership terms in writing.
We deliver the agreed arrangements. You enjoy the discoveries.
Reviews from guests on our public Tipple Tours wine trips.
“Went on my own and came back with seven new friends. Also discovered I quite like Georgian orange wine lol!”
“One of the most fun trips we’ve done. Great wine and a lovely bunch of people. Had such a good time.”
“Thanks for such a fun trip! Moldova really surprised me. Fantastic wines, interesting places and plenty of laughs. Brilliant company and really well organised... highly recommended!!!”
Tell us about your business and the trip you have in mind. We'll come back with ideas and a tailored quote.
They can be discussed. Depending on group size and trip costs, a partner may receive a commission, discounted place or complimentary host place, but nothing is automatic and every arrangement is agreed in writing before promotion.
Tipple Tours. Each traveller books and pays us directly, and receives our booking terms before paying. Partners promote the trip but never take payment on our behalf.
We're happy to request them. Visits depend on each producer's availability, so we'll confirm what's possible before you book.
We aim to include producer meetings and technical or educational tastings wherever possible, arranged with our local partners and subject to availability.
Trade adventures are designed for smaller groups, typically around 6–20 people. Larger groups can be considered on request.
Yes. Branding, promotional materials and any use of logos are agreed with you in writing before anything is published.
Yes. Private trips are planned around your dates, subject to supplier availability, and if you have another wine region in mind we'll tell you honestly whether we can make it worthwhile.
Ideally 4–6 months ahead, or longer if you're promoting the trip to customers, so there's time to agree the itinerary and marketing.
Bring your team, customers or fellow wine enthusiasts somewhere extraordinary.
We'll find the wineries. You bring the curiosity.
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