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See the international winners of the Great Wine Capitals 'Best of Wine Tourism' Awards 2017.Over two hundred delegates from the Great Wine Capitals Global Network, the Port wine trade, as well as local and regional officials gathered on November 10 at Porto’s São Bento da Vitória monastery for the gala dinner and international ‘Best Of Wine Tourism’ awards ceremony. The event marked the close of the network’s annual meeting.
The awards have gone from strength to strength since their inception. To date, 3845 companies have entered the contest and 574 properties have received an award. This year there were 359 entrants and 59 local award winners.
The international award winners for 2017 are:
Seppeltsfield Estate
Seppeltsfield, in South Australia’s Barossa Valley has weaved art, culture and design into its interesting wine and gastronomy tourism experience. Visitors can watch artists at work, buy handcrafted Australian products in the shop and attend a variety of cultural events on the estate.
Bodegas y Viñedos de Páganos
The winery, in the Alavesa subzone of Rioja, was founded by the Eguren family, with several generations’ experience in grapegrowing and winemaking, whose wines have earned them an excellent reputation in Spain and abroad. It features two spectacular vineyards – ‘El Puntido’ and ‘La Nieta’ as well as a modern winery sculpted underground like the wineries of the family’s ancestors. In the large underground caves the company ages the wines produced in the vineyards above.
Château Marquis de Terme
Marquis de Terme in Margaux in the Médoc, was rewarded for its innovative wine tourism offer featuring a 10 kilometer bike tour through the vineyards focusing on the grape varieties and terroir of Margaux. Visitors can also enjoy an ‘Apéro au Château’ combining tapas and grand crû classé wine.
Vergelegen
Vergelegen, in South Africa’s Cape Winelands, is one of the region’s most famous wine estates, founded in 1700. In addition to its traditional winery tourism offerings of food, cellar tours, heritage and garden tours through the buildings and grounds, the estate is carrying out South Africa’s largest private environmental restoration project, returning over 2000 hectares of the estate to a pristine native habitat with the Cape’s natural flora and fauna.
Rheinhessen Vinothek
This wine shop, located in the historic, listed Proviantamt warehouse in Mainz’s old town, is a treasure chest of Rheinhessen wines. Here, consumers can taste and purchase wines, attend wine tastings, wine-related events, consult wine experts, either in person or online and sample the local cuisine.
Familia Zuccardi
The Zuccardi family group of wineries is one of Mendoza’s most well-estabished estates. This year, however it was honored for its vineyards in the Uco Valley (Piedra Infinita, Canal Uco, Los Membrillos, San Pablo and Gualtallary). These vineyards are framed against the spectacular backdrop of the Andes mountains as well as for the design of its new winery, made with natural materials to blend harmoniously with the landscape.
Quinta do Bomfim
This historic estate in Pinhão in northern Portugal’s upper Douro Valley is owned and operated by the Symington family, who have worked in the region for five generations. Bomfim was opened to wine tourists in May 2015, offering a tour of the winery, the old cellars and the vineyards and a tasting on the terrace, offering a spectacular view of the Douro valley.
Trefethen Family Vineyards
With a nearly 50-year legacy of world-class wines crafted from their own grapes, family-owned Trefethen is one of Napa Valley’s classic wine estates. For the first time in their history, the family is now welcoming guests in the Villa Trefethen. This former residence, built in the early 1900s and surrounded by beautiful gardens, is a gorgeous example of the Arts and Crafts Movement in California. The estate also includes an important historic landmark, a three-story wooden winery building originally constructed in 1886, during the first era of viticulture in the Napa Valley. That building, which has stood as a sentinel for the Napa Valley for decades, was damaged by an earthquake two years ago and is expected to re-open to the public in early 2017, after a full restoration. The winery won the award for their efforts in the restoration.
Portofino Restaurant
Valparaiso’s Restaurante Portofino, on Cerro (hill) Esperanza overlooking the Pacific Ocean, delights guests with a spectacular view and an extraordinary menu featuring fresh fish and seafood from the waters off the Chilean coast.
About the Great Wine Capitals Global Network
Founded in 1999, the Great Wine Capitals Global Network is an alliance of ten internationally renowned wine regions – Adelaide|South Australia; Bordeaux, France; Cape Town|Cape Winelands, South Africa; Mainz|Rheinhessen, Germany; Mendoza, Argentina; Porto, Portugal; Bilbao|Rioja, Spain; San Francisco|Napa Valley, USA, Valparaiso|Casablanca Valley, Chile and Verona.
The Best Of Wine Tourism awards serve as an industry benchmark for excellence and recognize leading wineries and wine-tourism related businesses within each Great Wine Capital that have distinguished themselves in areas such as innovation, service and sustainable practices. For more information visit the Great Wine Capitals website.
