Every place has a Vianarra. Not every place knows how to tell it.

Guest experience audits and staff storytelling for wineries, boutique hotels, and restaurants.

A hospitality storytelling practice founded by Patrick R. Dunn for premium wineries, boutique hotels, and independent restaurants.

"What you captured so beautifully was something much larger: the care, intentionality, and genuine hospitality that our team strives to deliver every day."

Michele Smith, Director of Marketing, Edgewood Tahoe Resort

Who this is for

Wineries and tasting rooms

wine club conversion, tasting room culture, and staff who can carry the story through a Saturday rush.

Boutique hotels and inns

a front desk that tells the same story the brochure promises, return stays, and consistency across the season.

Independent restaurants

regulars, wine list storytelling, and a service team that holds the standard when the room is full.

Where this usually starts

Most wineries that reach out have the same number in front of them. Club conversion is down, the tasting room feels fine on a Saturday, and nobody can say exactly what changed.

It is rarely the tier structure. The story stopped reaching the guest at the bar, and no depletion report shows that.

Wine club conversion is a messaging problem.

Guest Experience Audit

A firsthand read of your guest journey, and whether your story is reaching the person at the bar.

I visit your property as a guest, with your permission, and walk the whole thing. The arrival, the tasting room culture, how the staff carry the story, the flow of the space, the wine list, and how it holds under a peak-hour rush.

You get a blunt findings report, the gaps ordered by what they are costing you, and a forty-five minute call to walk through it.

Staff Workshops

Training a team to carry the story in their own words, not a script.

I run customized workshops on your property for servers, bartenders, tasting room staff, and front desk teams. They learn to read a room before they speak to it, hold the welcome when a rush hits, and tell your property’s story naturally.

Recorded, so part-time and seasonal staff can take the training on their own time, and it does not walk out the door when someone leaves.

Brand Narrative Program

The story a property already has, written into the channels it already runs.

A twelve-month engagement that builds storytelling into the channels a property already runs. Wine club letters, newsletters, social, the copy on the tasting menu. It adds to existing marketing rather than replacing it.

For properties that have found the story and need it carried consistently, month after month, without hiring a writer.

From this week’s newsletter

July 22, 2026

Thirty Feet from the Answer

She had the guest for the length of the room. Forty feet, maybe, from the barrel racks to the door, and a glass of the estate red still working on him. He liked it. He said so twice. Then he set the glass down, thanked her, and walked out with nothing, and she turned to the next pour without seeming to notice that a sale had just left through the front door.

I thought about her a few weeks later, in Atlanta, from the wrong side of the same problem.

Vianarra Library

The second afternoon

August 4, 2026

Oportuno, Rua do Comércio do Porto. Poças colheita 1967, Douro DOC. The first visit lasted about twenty minutes. We had...

You Can’t Read a Room You’re Running Through

July 30, 2026

Sonoma is picking Pinot in July. Not as a curiosity. The first fruit came off the Russian River Valley on...

The Fourth Wine

July 28, 2026

The event was Saturday, the day before the conference opened, which meant everyone drove themselves. Fourteen of us, in fourteen...

How Vianarra works

Most engagements start with the audit. I visit as a guest, walk the whole journey, and give you a plain account of where your story is reaching people and where it isn’t. That grounds everything that follows in what your guests actually encounter rather than what anyone assumes.

Where the gap is in people, the workshops close it. A team that knows the wine but can’t reach the guest in front of them needs practice, not a script. Where the story is landing but isn’t being carried consistently, the brand narrative program builds it into the channels you already run.

The audit finds it. The workshop trains it. The narrative program keeps it going.

As seen in

Business Insider — Featured travel columnist. I should have followed Rick Steves’ packing advice

Edible Reno-Tahoe — Featured columnist on hospitality, wine, and regional food culture. Tea with an Edge

Next steps

The audit. Where most work starts. A firsthand read of your guest journey. See how it works

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A read of your floor. An unannounced visit at my expense, then thirty minutes on the single largest gap I found. No charge, no obligation. Book a call

patrick@vianarra.com · 650-418-0507

Frequently asked questions

Why is my wine club conversion dropping when the tasting room still feels busy?

Conversion usually slips for a reason that does not show up on a busy Saturday. The room feels fine, the wine pours, and the one thing that would have turned a first visit into a membership never gets said. It is rarely the tier structure or the price. Most often the story stopped reaching the guest at the bar, and that is the gap Vianarra works on.

What does a Vianarra guest experience audit look at?

The audit follows the whole guest journey, from the driveway to the goodbye. It reads the arrival, the tasting room culture, how staff carry the story, the flow of the space, the wine list, and how it all holds under a peak-hour rush. You get a blunt findings report, the gaps ordered by what they are costing you, and a call to walk through it.

Do you work with hotels and restaurants, or only wineries?

Wineries, boutique hotels and inns, and independent restaurants. The work underneath is the same: finding the story a place already has and building it into how the team talks to the guest in front of them. For hotels that means direct bookings and return stays. For restaurants, regulars and the table-side story. For wineries, wine club conversion and tasting room culture.

Will this turn my staff into a script?

No. A memorized corporate script is usually part of the problem. Vianarra trains front-of-house teams to read a room, hold the welcome when a rush hits, and tell the property's story in their own words.

How is this different from mystery shopping or sales training?

Mystery shopping tells you what happened. Sales training drills a technique. A score tells you your conversion number; this tells you why it is that number, and the why is the part you can actually change. The audit does include a firsthand, guest's-eye visit, but the aim is a service culture that holds on a Tuesday afternoon when no one is watching.

How do we start?

Most work starts with a visit. I come through as a guest, at my expense, and then we spend thirty minutes on the single largest gap I found. No charge and no obligation. If it is useful, that is when we talk about a full audit.