The standard a listing has to earn.
DrinkCard is not a directory. A person on our team visits, books and reads every experience before a guest can find it, and we turn down most of who applies. This page is the whole standard — the five checks, the process, and where last year’s applications actually ended up.
The five checks, in full
They make what they pour
Production happens on site or under the producer's own control. A tasting room reselling someone else's juice — however lovely the porch — is a bar, and bars are not what we list. On the visit we ask to see where it is made, and we expect to be shown.
Someone on staff hosts it
The winemaker, distiller, brewer, roaster — or a trained member of their own team — runs the experience, and the listing names them. Hired third-party guides working from a script are the single most common reason a promising application stops here.
The photos are the actual room
Shot on the premises within the last 18 months. No stock photography, no borrowed barrel hall, no glassware that lives in a prop cupboard. We stand where the photos were taken and compare.
The price on DrinkCard is their price
No booking markup, and no upsell required to get what the listing describes. If the same seat costs less at the cellar door, the listing is wrong and comes down until it isn't.
It holds a 4.3 after 10 visits
Reviews only come from guests the producer marked as attended, so the score means something. Fall below 4.3 and we pause the listing, talk to the producer, and re-review before it returns. Forty-seven listings were removed this way in 2025.
How a listing goes live
You apply
Your story, your photography and one experience you would host yourself. No fee, and no fast lane — $0 is what a producer can pay for placement, at any stage.
A person reads it
Not a scoring model. Expect questions about production, hosting and pricing — applications are reviewed in about 9 days, and most that stall are missing the person who will host.
We visit and book like a guest
Someone from the team books, pays and attends the experience as written. What we check on the visit is the list on the left — nothing secret, nothing extra.
The listing goes live — and stays earned
You keep your calendar, your prices and your guest relationship; we keep reading reviews and revisiting. Going live is the start of the standard, not the end of it.
Where applications end up.
- 1,284
- producers applied in 2025
- 31%
- were approved and went live
- 47
- listings removed after going live
- $0
- a producer can pay for placement
- Approved
- 398
- Sent back for changes
- 311
- Declined
- 575
Most declines are the same three things: the producer doesn’t make it, the host is a hired guide, or the experience is a queue at a bar. “Sent back for changes” is not a decline — most of those return with better photography or a named host and go live.
All figures are demonstration data, like every listing on this site.
Think your room clears the bar?
Apply from the waitlist and we’ll be in touch before producer onboarding opens. And if something you booked didn’t meet the standard, tell us — listings come down when guests say what we missed.