Around the World in Eighty Wines Wins Gourmand International Wine Book Prize

January 23, 2018 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, Shameless Self-Promotion, wine, wine awards, Wine Competitions, wine tourism 9 Comments

My new book Around the World in Eighty Wines has received the Gourmand International 2018 award for best U.S. book in the wine and spirits tourism category and will now compete for “Best in the World” with winners from other countries. The global gold, silver, and bronze medals will be announced this May at award ceremonies in Yantai, China.

The Gourmand International awards are important and I have been fortunate to be recognized in the past for best U.S. and bronze medal “world’s best” wine history book (Wine Wars, 2012), world’s best wine blog (WineEconomist.com, 2015) and world’s best wine writing (for Money, Taste, and Wine: It’s Complicated, 2016).

Here is the list of international champions in the wine and spirits tourism category:

Austria – Kulinarische Tourismus und Weintourismus (Springer)
Canada – Les Paradis de la Biere Blanche (Druide)
China – Compass to the ocean of wine (Zhejiang S/T) 9787534179549
France – Des Vignes et des Hommes (Feret)
Georgia – Georgia, Miquel Hudin (Vinologue)
Germany – Seewein, Wein Kultur am Bodensee (Jan Thorbeke)
Portugal – Vinhos & Petiscos (Caminho das Palavras)
Scotland – I love champagne, David Zyw (Freight Books)
Singapore – Cracking Croatian Wine, Charine Tan, Dr Matthew Horkey
Switzerland – Randos bieres en Suisse Romande, Monika Saxer (Helvetiq)
USA – Around the world in 80 wines, Mike Veseth (Rowman & Littlefield)

I am especially pleased to see that Cracking Croatian Wine by Charine Tan and Dr. Matthew Horkey is also on the list. Sue and I met Charine and Matt at the 2016 UNWTO global wine tourism conference in Tbilisi, Georgia and we like and admire them a lot. Their books are valuable additions to the resources available to wine tourists in particular and wine enthusiasts generally.

I don’t know who will be named the “best in the world,”, but I appreciate this recognition. Good luck to Charine, Matt, and all the other national champions in all the categories.

Field Notes from a Visit to Madeira: The Island Where Old Barrels Go to be Reborn

December 19, 2017 By Mike Veseth in wine, wine history, wine tourism 5 Comments

Madeira is a Portuguese island off the coast of Morocco, a short 80 minute flight from Lisbon. When it was discovered in 1419 it was uninhabited, but now a quarter-million residents plus hundreds of thousands of tourists fill the island.

Madeira is famous for soccer (the Funchal airport is named for native son and Real Madrid striker Cristiano Ronaldo), its beaches, gardens, and mountains, too, which rise more than 1500 meters above sea level. And wine, of course.

I had been vaguely aware of Madeira (“Have some Madeira my dear”) for some time when I had the good fortune to read a terrific book called Oceans of Wine by David Hancock that opened my eyes to Madeira’s unexpected wine history (America’s founding fathers toasted the signing of the Declaration of Independence with Madeira) and unique production technique, where heat and long barrel-aging play important roles.

There followed a number of memorable Madeira experiences, which I recorded in my book Around the World in Eighty Days. Sue and I twice enjoyed a 1875 Barbieto Malvasia Madeira wine at the end of great meals at The Herbfarm restaurant in Woodinville, for example, and we shared a special bottle of Broadbent Madeira with her parents and their neighbors on another occasion.

Calling My Name

I could hear Madeira calling my name, but the opportunity to visit did not present itself until a few weeks ago, when Sue suggested that we add a long weekend in Funchal to a trip to Madrid and Porto, where I spoke to groups of local wine producers about U.S. market export opportunities.

Tourists come to Madeira for many reasons. The big draw seems to be the beach scene and the coastline near Funchal is lined with busy resort hotels. Others are attracted by walking and hiking opportunities in the beautiful mountain areas. Funchal is also a cruise ship port, so hundreds of tourists flood into town each day and disappear back on board each night at dusk. They find the attractive market, the beautiful gardens, and lots of cafes and restaurants.

Sue and I stayed at a small hotel just behind the cathedral, which put us right in the mix of tourists and local residents and just a short walk from Blandy’s, one of two Madeira lodges we visited during our stay. Blandy’s was founded in 1811 and has been throughout its history a family-owned business. A few years ago it partnered with another family firm, the Symingtons of Porto, to create the Madeira Wine Company, which makes and markets several Madeira wine brands.

1957

Madeira Wine History

Our tour of Blandy’s gave us a sense of the rich history of Madeira wine. The upper floors of the lodge were uncomfortably warm for us, but the barrels of wine seemed pretty happy there. The reason for the heat, if you don’t know the story, is that many years ago some Madeira producers noticed that the wines they sent abroad seemed to be transformed by the time they spent in hot ship holds.

Initially they thought that the rough movement of the ocean was the key, but they eventually learned that it was the heat that helped the wine oxidize in a particular way that made it both delicious and gave it long life. Madeira wines today spend years in old barrels (no new oak flavor is imparted) in warm rooms and the results are just as striking as they were in Jefferson’s day.

The high acidity of the base wine keeps Madeira fresh through its maturation process. Although we think of Madeira as a sweet old wine best paired with Christmas cake, Madeira ranges from dry to sweet and invites extended study — characteristics it has in common with Sherry wines.

New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov recently released his very personal list of 2017’s most memorable wines. A Blandy’s 1992 malmsey was highlighted. It was unforgettable, he said. We enjoyed the wines we tasted at Blandy’s, including the fresh and lively 1957 Bual pictured here.

Past and Present

A visit to Blandy’s is all about history, tradition, and romance and I think it should be on every tourist’s must-do list. A visit to Justino’s is a completely different experience. Justino’s once had a lodge in central Funchal like Blandy’s but they moved their operations to an industrial park outside of town a few years ago where the romance level and visitor head count are much reduced in exchanged for increased production scale and efficiency. (Blandy’s also has a modern production facility located away from town).

1999 Winemaker Dina Louis showed us around the facility and helped us taste through the wines. The barrel room was again the center of the visit, but this time it wasn’t the heat that got our attention but the age and condition of the barrels themselves. Both firms employ teams of coopers not to build barrels, as you would expect in a winery somewhere else in the world, but to keep ancient barrels in use, lending distinct character to wines. Madiera wineries scour the world looking for really old barrels in which to age their wines.

There is something about the old barrels and their individual histories and characteristics that Dina Luis finds fascinating and she spoke movingly about a particular barrel that contains her dream wine. Is barrel terroir a thing? Dina convinced us that particular barrels imparted particular subtle influences and made us really want to explore this idea more deeply.

Sue and I stumbled across a project that was underway where used Irish Whiskey barrels were imported and used to age Madeira wine for an Irish client. Then the wine is bottled the barrels will be sent back to Ireland to be filled with more Irish Whiskey — each product lending character to the one that came before. Apparently this sort of barrel fusion is part of the tradition in Madeira, where sailing ships would stop and fill their empty barrels (which previously contained other wines or spirits) with Madeira wine.

Champagne, Madeira, and a Resolution

As we toured Blandy’s and Justino’s and tasted the wines I couldn’t stop myself from finding parallels between Madeira wine and Champagne. Nobody would confuse the two wines in a tasting, but they do share several characteristics. Both begin with acidic base wines, the acidity necessarily to retain freshness through the production process. (Conventional table wines are made in Madeira and we tried as many as we could, but only found a couple that we liked — I think it must be difficult to find balance with such high acid levels).

The base wine for both Madeira and Champagne is then manipulated through an extended process — a second fermentation in the bottle for Champagne and long, hot barrel-aging for Madeira. The art of blending is important in both cases, too, with non-vintage multi-year blends most common. We like to say that wine is made in the vineyard, but these wines are both really made in the cellar.

Madeira’s ability to age makes it special, although we tasted lovely 3-year and 5-year wines, too. The oldest Madeira on my personal tasting list remains that 1875 Barbieto, but the 1934 Justino’s that Dina Luis let us sample is just as memorable.

Sue and are very lucky — our travels this year took us to Cyprus, where we tasted Commandaria — one of the oldest wines in the world — and to Madeira, where they make wines than can last for more than a century. We found unexpected wines in Spain, Portugal, and Argentina, too. But you don’t have to travel so far to discover new wines — globalization brings a world of wine to your neighborhood shops.

What’s the takeaway here? The world is full of interesting and delicious wines and maybe we ought to try a little harder to take advantage of this great diversity. Seek out new wines from new places and then circle back to under-appreciated old wines from old places. That sounds like a worthy New Year resolution!

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Many thanks to António Filipe for helping to arrange our visit to Blandy’s and to Bartholomew Broadbent for doing the same at Justino’s.

What’s Ahead for Wine Tourism in Mendoza? Lessons from a Rock Opera

November 28, 2017 By Mike Veseth in Argentina, wine, wine brands, wine tourism 1 Comment

The United Nations World Tourism Organization’s global wine tourism conference in Mendoza, Argentina was full of contrasts as you might expect in a high desert region that is punctuated by isolated vine-filled green oases. The morning sessions featured conventional conference formats — speakers, panels, Powerpoint slides, dark rooms, coffee breaks (and really good simultaneous translation — thanks for that!). And then …

Hardly Working?

The afternoon and evening session moved out of the conference center and into the wineries, so that international participants could take in the landscape, marvel at the wonderful winery architecture, appreciate the warm hospitality, sample the many winery experiences, and of course enjoy food and wine as any wine tourist would.

Does this sound like hard work? Very few of our friends feel sorry for us when we post about these experiences on Facebook, but it really is work because Sue and I are always observing and analyzing both what the wineries do (and how they do it) and the reaction from their guests.

This was particularly interesting at the UNWTO conference because our fellow delegates were mainly tourism people who see opportunities in wine whereas Sue and I come at this more from the wine side, where tourism is one important element. The organized winery visits were interesting to us because they highlighted the tourism offerings rather than the wines themselves.

A reception at Bodega Séptima, for example, showed off its striking architecture and invited guests out to the big patio to stare at the moon and stars through telescopes while sipping wine. Wine tourism and astrological tourism combined.

A visit to Bodega Norton featured an opportunity to ride bicycles through the vineyards followed by a late lunch and then a chance to paint with wine (I saw a rabbit in the vineyard, so that was my artistic contribution). Norton’s program stresses active involvement, which is always more engaging than passive participation.

asado The historic buildings and ancient vines were a highlight of our asado lunch at Bodega Nieto Senetiner, where we were treated to a sensory experience organized around a Torrontes perfume and a Malbec cologne. This was interesting even though it violated the first rule of a wine tasting — don’t introduce any scents that might mask the wines’ aromas. It worked as a tourist experience, but would turn off any serious wine lover.

The Missing Link?

Sue and I enjoyed these experiences, but we noticed that something was often missing. The wineries worked very hard to show off their delightful wine tourist offerings, but they missed many opportunities to tell their stories and reinforce their brands. Perhaps this was by design because of the special character of the UNWTO audience, but it seems to me that it is always important to tell your story and build your brand.

Two of the most effective wine tourism programs we have experienced are Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley and Sandeman in Porto. The two wineries differ in almost every way but this: there is a clear story, which is told in several ways, and everyone you meet tells the same essential story, reinforcing the message.

A goal might be for each winery visitor to encounter the defining story three times in three different ways during a visit and to be able to share it with friends. You might call it the “Tommy” tactic (after the rock opera composed by The Who). See me, feel me, touch me, heal me. Stimulate all the visitors’ senses and touch them in a way they won’t soon forget.

The Next Step?

Perhaps this is the next step that Gabriel Fidel hinted at in his conference presentation, which encouraged the Mendoza wine tourist industry as well as the rest of us to think beyond the current focus on creating experiences. The facilities in Mendoza are world class and the experiences, including food pairing sessions, vineyard walks and rides (on both bikes and horses), and so forth are great, too.

All the pieces are here in Mendoza. Now the wineries and local wine tourism officials need to steal a tune from Tommy so that they all come together with the defining stories of the wineries and the region to create an total experience that resonates with visitors from around the world.

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Four Takeaways from the Global Wine Tourism Conference in Mendoza

November 21, 2017 By Mike Veseth in Argentina, emerging wine regions, wine, wine tourism 4 Comments

uco Sue and I are back from the second United Nations World Tourism Organization global wine tourism conference in Mendoza, Argentina. It was an intense and interesting few days in a welcoming and dynamic part of the wine world. Here are a few things we think we learned at the conference. More to follow.

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

Mendoza has come a long way as a wine tourist destination and they are justifiably proud of their accomplishments. Unlike Napa Valley, which is next door to cosmopolitan San Francisco and fast-paced Silicon Valley, Mendoza takes a bit of effort to visit, so its emergence as a tourist hub, is noteworthy. We were impressed with the renovated airport, which features more flights to more places more often and will surely help boost wine tourism in the future.

When Sue and I visited Mendoza a few years ago we noted that it wasn’t very easy for an independent traveler to visit many of the wineries and this problem has been addressed in several ways. Some wineries have opened tasting rooms in the city, effectively bringing the vineyard to the tourist. Among the other efforts is a special hop-on hop-off bus that visits select wineries. How convenient! We also saw many tour operators who put together custom tours of wineries as well as the many other visitors options in region.

Mendoza has a lot to be proud of when it comes to wine tourism, but the many Argentine officials and local dignitaries who spoke at the conference’s first session perhaps could have shown greater restraint. Bad news: the talking went on so long that lunch, which was scheduled for around 2 pm, was actually served closer to 6 pm. Good news: our lunch began with deep-fried empanadas served hot and fresh outdoors in the Bodega Norton vineyard. Incredible. lunch2

Don’t Look Back

Gabriel Fidel is a sort of Renaissance man. Scholar, business leader, public servant, politician — he wears many hats in Mendoza and he has been influential in the rise of the wine and wine tourist sectors. His talk charted the evolution of wine tourism in this region and included a warning not to be too proud of the past, because the future holds more challenges.

Twenty years ago, Fidel explained. The challenge was to get wineries to accept visitors at all. They just get in the way! Okay, then once wineries got the messages about the importance of visitors there was a need for facilities, then services and trained staff, and then finally some attention to creating experiences beyond the typical tasting room offer. Wine tourism does not take place in a vacuum, so wineries need to match the programs in other wine regions and take into account the level of service that tourist expect in non-wine settings, too.

Now the challenge, Fidel said, is to move ahead again rather than just taking satisfaction in past achievements. Don’t look back, Satchel Paige said, something might be gaining on you. And in this competitive environment, it is gaining fast.

Wine Tourism and Sustainable Development

My contribution to the conference was a short speech on how wine tourism can be a tool for sustainable regional development. Done right, I argued, wine tourism can benefit people, planet and profit. Done wrong … well, there can be real problems. I cited specific success stories as well as critical issues, highlighting the strategies needed to anticipate and address problems.

One journalist who attended the conference wrote to me to say that she hadn’t really thought much about the impact that tourism can have on local people and the world they live in and now she could appreciate its importance. I guess my message got through.

We visited one winery where our guide quite unintentionally revealed how wine tourism transforms local communities. His father was in the construction business and, were it not for winery development, that’s what he would be doing, too.

But now the opportunities are in wine tourism and hospitality more than traditional occupations such as construction. His family struggles a bit to understand the changing local labor scene (and the changing nature of work itself) and how exactly he can earn a living drinking wine, as they see it, and talking to strangers like us all day rather than working hard to make, build, or grow things.

Mendoza to Moldova

The transformative impact of wine tourism will be tested in Moldova, which was named as the host nation of the 2018 UNWTO global wine tourism conference. Moldova is probably the most wine-dependent country on the planet. Wine is the largest export category and the country is working very hard to open up markets in the west and in Asia and to reduce its long-standing dependence on the unreliable Russian market for wine sales.

Selling more wine at higher prices would be great for Moldova, but wine tourism is perhaps strategically more important because of its ability to increase rural incomes outside of wine production and sales. Wine tourism done right stimulates the hospitality industry with potential impacts on crafts and other local industries. Wine tourism has great potential to draw visitors to Moldova and stimulate rural development.

Hosting an international conference like this is a big, expensive job. Good luck to our Moldovan friends as they plan next year’s events.

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Sue took the photos above — the view from Bodega Moneviejo in the Uco valley and the delicious late-lunch empanadas at Bodega Norton.

Book Review: Cracking Croatian Wine

November 14, 2017 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, emerging wine regions, wine, wine tourism Leave a comment

Cracking Croatian Wine: A Visitor-Friendly Guide, by Dr. Matthew Horkey and Charine Tan, published by Exotic Wine Travel.

The Wine Economist and I (Mrs. Wine Economist) live in a community with a distinct Croatian history, with many Croatian-Americans residents, and a Slavonian American Benevolent Society that dates from 1901. A home nearby regularly flies a Croatian flag. Our city, Tacoma, Washington, and Hvar, Croatia, are sister cities. So Cracking Croatian Wine: A Visitor-Friendly Guide, by Dr. Matthew Horkey and Charine Tan, seemed like a logical extension of our local culture as well as an opportunity to learn more about Croatian wine.

Horkey and Tan, the force behind Exotic Wine Travel, explore off-the-main-tourist-path wine destinations. Cracking Croatian Wine follows on the heels of Uncorking the Caucasus, Wines of Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia. For both books, the authors spoke to (and tasted with) wine makers, sommeliers, and others with expertise and experience. The wines in both books are generally not available in our upper-left-hand corner of the United States, but some are available by mail. Even in our Croatian-heavy community, Croatian wines are rarely seen. (If anyone knows if they are available locally, let me know.)

uncork The real value is for the visitor to Croatia. Those who are visiting Croatia for beaches or historical cities and just want to enjoy a regional wine with a meal will find several options. Those who want to dive in deeply into Croatian wine will find plenty of opportunities to explore. The lists of wineries, wine bars, and wine shops offer good starting points.

Horkey and Tan write in a consumer-friendly, conversational style that is accessible to both the casual wine drinker and the aficionado. They present “wine and a story,” beginning with descriptions of the regions. Each featured wine includes helpful information about the place, the winemaker, the grape, wine-making techniques, and what they found in the glass.

I especially appreciate that they categorize wines for the connoisseur, the adventurous palate, and “fun and easy.” They also offer suggestions for those looking for budget wines.

It is clear that they immerse themselves not just in the wine culture of a place, but in the broader culture as well. Their brief discussions of Croatian history, cuisine, and geography are helpful — and necessary — for context but do not overshadow the wine-centric focus of the book.

Two aspects of the book were disappointing. The first is that the pronunciation guide does not appear until page 33; by the time you reach it, you already have encountered strings of consonants and accents. The pronunciation help along the way (the grape varieties, for example) is welcome.

Of more concern is the lack of good maps. The only map is a half- page, gray-scale map of the whole country, without showing its neighbors for context. More detailed maps of each region would be helpful to those who are not familiar with Croatia’s geography.

Belated full disclosure: my own ethnic background is half Serbian-American. I hope Horkey and Tan will produce a book on Serbian wine.

— Sue Veseth, Contributing Editor

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Reading through Croatian names reminded me of The Onion’s 1995 classic “Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia; Cities of Sjlbvdnzv, Grzny to Be First Recipients,” read here by Tom and Ray Maggliozzi.

Economic Impact of California Wine Country Wildfires: Preliminary Analysis

October 17, 2017 By Mike Veseth in Economic impact, wine, wine tourism 4 Comments

Like most of you I have been intently focused on the wildfires that have swept through the California North Coast wine region and their tragic human impact. It is difficult to accept that such loss of life and property is possible, but the fires and the winds that drive them have been relentless.

I started getting calls from reporters as soon as a wildfire emergency was declared and, like many others, I declined to comment on the economic impacts. Too soon to know, I said, and not the real story in any case. More important to tell the human story and help people come together and cope with loss.

Still Too Soon

It is still too soon to know the economic impacts. The fire danger continues and the fatality and property damage reports are still coming in. But I have started to think about the nature of the potential losses to the wine industry. As Tom Wark wrote last week, we need to think about what happens when the fires are finally out, even if that’s not the most important immediate concern.

Here is what I am thinking now. The direct impact of the wildfires on California wine will very unevenly distributed, because that’s how a wildfire works, but the indirect effects are likely to be even larger and widespread. It is important to get out the message that California wine is open for business.

Uneven Direct Impact

The North Coast region (Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake counties) is very important in terms of the value of the wine it produces, but is dwarfed by Central Valley production in terms of volume. The huge quantities of California appellation wines that fill the nation’s retail shelves will not be much affected by the wildfires. This is important to realize since some press reports link the wildfires to the tight global wine market that has resulted from poor harvests in Europe this year, which risks giving a false impression about wine supplies in California.

While some North Coast vineyards and wineries lost everything, others suffered little or no direct damage to cellar, vineyard, or wine stocks. The floor of the Napa Valley, for example, is not much damaged so far. But that doesn’t mean that wineries without direct damage won’t suffer an economic loss.

Wine Tourism Losses

No way to put a dollar and cents figure on the direct losses until individual assessments of winery destruction, vineyard damage, loss to stored wines, possible smoke taint issues, and so forth are made. But we can already see the indirect cost in one area: tourism.

napa1 Wine tourism is incredibly important to Napa and Sonoma these days, both for the high-margin direct sales that wineries there increasingly rely upon to compensate for escalating grape costs and for the hospitality industry that has grown up to serve wine tourists. The economic impact of wine tourism is very large for the region.

On a typical day in 2016, according to the latest Napa tourism economic impact study, there were almost 17,000 tourist in the Napa Valley who spend more than $5 million. These are not typical days and the income and jobs those numbers represent are nowhere to be seen for now.

The wildfires have obviously interrupted wine tourism even for wineries that are not directly affected by the fires and it is not clear how soon anything like a normal tourist flow will return. This is complicated by a number of factors including the perception that the whole region is badly burnt and therefore closed for business, damage to transportation and hospitality infrastructure, and problems for the workers who support both the wine and hospitality industries.

It’s a People Business

Many of the workers who live in the region are dealing with personal losses or are busy helping those in need. The hundreds of workers who live outside the local area and commute to jobs in Napa face obviously obvious obstacles, too. In the short term I am told that it is actually the shortage of staff more than the direct impacts of the fires that limits winery operations in many cases.

The bottom line is that while the direct damage from the firestorm is large but unevenly distributed, the indirect costs are likely to be even bigger and affect almost everyone in the region, wine people and non-wine folks, too. It is not entirely clear what normal will look like when the smoke clears and it will take some time to find out. But, as Tom Wark writes, Napa Stands Strong (and Sonoma, too) and it is important to press ahead.

Renewal and Rebirth

The videos I have seen of the fire damage bring to mind scenes of burning Napa vineyards that appear in a wonderful 1942 book by Alice Tisdale Hobart called The Cup and the Sword (which was made into a terrible 1959 film called This Earth is Mine starring Rock Hudson and Jean Simmons and set in Napa and Sonoma).

Hobart’s novel is about the resilience of the strong women and men who built the California wine industry and the vineyard fire signifies rebirth from the ashes because, with some effort and care, the sturdy vines in the novel do come back to life. It is an image to keep in mind today when recovery, rebuilding, and rebirth are on our minds once again.

Wine Tourism in Mendoza: Rethinking Best-Practices with the UNWTO

September 19, 2017 By Mike Veseth in Argentina, sustainability, wine, wine tourism 3 Comments

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The Wine Economist will take a break for the next two weeks while Sue and I travel to Mendoza, Argentina for the second Global Wine Tourism conference organized by the United Nations World Tourism Organization and hosted by the Argentina Ministry of Tourism. It will be great to return to Mendoza and to have a chance to discuss wine tourism strategies with both old friends and new ones.

Asking Questions, Rethinking Answers

Good conferences succeed because they work on several levels at once. Keynote speakers, for example, are most useful if they stimulate discussion among conference participants to allow them to shape and share their own thinking.

My keynote is about “Wine Tourism for Sustainable Development: Opportunities, Strategies, Pitfalls” and my goal is not to tell people what to think and do but instead challenge them ask new questions and rethink the answers to old ones.

The UNWTO welcomes this kind of thinking and rethinking. The organization recently adopted the UNWTO Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics, for example., reflecting the fact that global tourism is now big business and its significant economic, social and cultural impacts must be fully considered.

Thinking and then acting — that’s what it’s about. Other speakers will share their experiences from around the world, giving us all a lot to think about!

The UNWTO has developed a wine tourism framework or prototype. Yolanda Perdomo, Director of the UNWTO Affiliate Members Program, will present the prototype and Gabriela Testa, President of Ente Mendoza Turismo, will discuss how it is being implemented in the Mendoza region.

Mendoza has enormous potential for wine tourism as I explained in my 2013 book Extreme Wine. I highlighted two very different wineries for their tourist experience: Tempus Alba and Salentein.

Situated close to Mendoza city, Tempus Alba hosts many young wine tourists who visit on bicycle. They enjoy the wines and food at the restaurant, of course, and receive an education about Malbec and the vineyard. The vibe is casual and fun, but the approach is seriously thoughtful. I’m a big fan of what Aldo Biondolillo and his family are doing at Tempus Alba.

Bodegas Salentein is located high in the Uco Valley and I don’t think many people bike there from Mendoza. It was the first destination winery in this now-booming wine region and features an art gallery, a stunning barrel room dubbed the “wine cathedral” and fine dining, too. As is the case of many Mendoza wineries, the architecture rivals and reinforces the dramatic Andes mountain scenery. Fantastic.

Theory and Practice

The UNWTO conference balances the theory and practice by including a number of local wine tourist experiences in the afternoon sessions. These winery visits will be a lot of fun, of course, but they will be most useful if participants give serious and critical consideration to what works (and why) and what could work better (and how can this be achieved). And then the trick is try to apply those sharpened critical skills to wine tourism offerings, strategies, and policies back home.

I will paste below the tentative list of wineries and experiences that will be available to the UNWTO conference participants and, by the way, to adventurous wine tourists generally when they visit Mendoza. The list gives a concrete sense of the diversity of wine tourism offerings available in this beautiful part of the world.

Come back in two weeks for more Wine Economist! Cheers (and adios!).

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Bodega Norton: Restaurant La Vid, Chef Patricia Suárez Roggerone Experience: Winery bicycle tour
Bodega Renacer: Restaurant Renacer, Chef Sebastian Weingand Experience: Virtual reality and winery visit by an oenologist, The Appassimento
Susana Balbo Wines: Restaurant Osadía de Crear, Chef Marianela Pizzonia Experience: Blending competitions
Bodega Terraza de los Andes: Restaurant Residencia Terrazas de los Andes, Chef Noelia Scquizziatto Experience: Tasting from barrels and cooking class, deserts
Bodega Lagarde: Restaurant El Fogón, Chef Lucas Olcese Experience: Historic winery tour, which is DOC MALBEC certified and was the first denomination controlled by
America
Entrecielos Luxury Wines & Spa: Restaurant Katharina, Chef Federico Castro Experience: Limited Edition Vineyard Loft & Spa Hammam, traditional Turkish relaxation and leansing methods
Bodega Trivento: Restaurant Espacio de Arte, Chef Sebastián Flores Experience: Art & Wine; Delhez family wine exposition; Bicycle tasting tour in Finca Los Vientos through its sustainable irrigation system
Bodega Trapiche Restaurant Espacio Trapiche, Chef Lucas Busto Historic winery and the arrival of the railway. Re-creation of two programs that are part of the Wine Tourism Events Calendar: “Wine and Cinema” and “Tango in the Vineyards”
Casa Vigil: Restaurant Casa Vigil, Chefs Santiago Maestre and Federico Petit Experience: Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy in the heart of Chachingo, The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso from Alejandro Vigil’s point of view
Bodega Vistalba: Restaurant Vistalba, Chef Jesus Cahiza Experience: Royal Staircase to Calicata and tasting of exotic varieties
Bodega A16: Restaurant Finca Papa Francisco, Chef Felipe Bakos Experience: Art exposition at Plaza de Esculturas, “Augure Stone” by local artist Alfredo Ceverino and Cooking Class, Regional Argentinian Cuisine
Bodega Chandon: Bistró Chandon, Chef Maitas Gil Experience: Travel through the paths of Chandon, the first subsidiary of Moet Chandon outside of France
Bodega Ruca Malen: Restaurant Ruca Malen, Chef Juan Garcia Ventureyra Experience: Brush & Bottle, Wine Cathedral
Bodega Nieto Senetiner: Restaurant Nieto Senetiner, Chefs Daiana Farías, Jorge Cardozo and Gabriela Barrientos Experience: Wine scents experience
Bodega Tierras Altas: Restaurant Juana María, Chefs Blanca Espinosa and Lucca Evangelista Experience: Malbec blind tasting
Bodega Los Toneles, an urban heritage winery.
Bodega Monteviejo: Restaurant Monteviejo, Chef Nadia Haron
Bodega Solo Contigo: Wine village, visit Solo Contigo WTC
Bodega Corazón del Sol: Wine village, visit ¨Tasting the Willows¨, wines of the Revana family
Salentein: Restaurant Killka, the Wine Cathedral
Bodega Andeluna: Restaurant Andeluna, High altitude wines from Valle de Uco
Bodega Piedra Infinita: Restaurant Piedra Infinita

Flashback Friday: Can Wine Tourism Take Center Stage in Valpolicella?

September 8, 2017 By Mike Veseth in Italian wine, wine tourism 1 Comment

Sue and I have wine tourism on our minds these days because we are getting ready for the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s global wine tourism conference in Mendoza, Argentina later this month.

We were in the Veneto at this time three years ago and wine tourism was on our minds there, too. Here is a Flashback Friday column from 2014 about wine tourism in Valpolicella.

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Valpolicella is well known for its great wines — Valpolicella Classico, Valpolicella Superiore, Ripasso della Valpolicella and of course Amarone. (It should also be known for its sweet wine, Recioto della Valpolicella, but that’s another story.)

But what about wine tourism? Sue and I were guests of the Valpolicella Consorzio earlier this month and one of our tasks was get a sense of Valpolicella as a wine tourist destination using a new wine tourism app (available as free download for Android and Apple mobile devices). Here is a brief report.

There’s an App for That!

Whenever I asked the winemakers we met if wine tourism was an important part of their business the answer was “yes!” but I think it is fair to say that for many of the actual tourists wine is at best a secondary reason for their visit.

The fact is that most tourists come to this part of Italy for non-wine reasons — for the history, culture and opera of Verona to the east, for example, or the resorts of Lake Garda to the west. Lying between these two attractive poles, Valpolicella is the perfect “day out” diversion (especially if it is a rainy day as has too often been the case in 2014) but not always the primary destination.

Come for Opera, Stay for Wine

Come for the beach or opera, stay for the wine! That could be Valpolicella’s wine tourism motto, but it would be selling the region short. What do dedicated wine tourists look for? Well, these days they want the complete experience — the wine and wineries, of course, plus beautiful scenery, great food, comfortable lodgings and that something extra to tell their friends back home about. Valpolicella would seem to tick each of these boxes.

The vineyard scenery is certainly spectacular — I really wasn’t prepared for the beautiful vistas. What a stunning setting! A great opportunity for fit cyclists with a nose for good wine or anyone willing to pull off the road and take in the panorama.

The wineries we visited using the Consorzio’s app showed the great variety of experiences available, which ranged from the super-modern architecture at Monteci to the classic and traditional at Valentina Cubi (one of our favorite stops). The sense of history was particularly strong at Santa Sofia, which is located in a villa designed by Andrea Palladio in the 16th century. You cannot dig much deeper into the soul of the Venteo than that!

Zymé, Celestino Gaspari’s ambitious winery in Pietro in Carlano deftly balanced the very old and the very new. The winery building features cutting edge architecture — see the photo taken looking out from the structure towards the nearby hillside vineyards. Wow!

The Zymé cellar and caves are carved into the hillside and touring them gives a sense of both history and nature. One of the best surprises was in the cavern than has become the working part of the winery. A spring that was discovered during construction was incorporated into the design and you can actually look down dozens of feet into the crevasse that the water has carved out over the years. A stunning sensory experience (and great for the humidity needed for barrel storage).

Beyond the Wine

Wine tourists need a place to stay and there seem to be many attractive options (this part of the Consorzio app is still under development). Although we stayed in a basic business hotel on this trip, we encountered a number of options, including very appealing apartments at Valentina Cubi.

If you want luxury, well there seem to be a number of five star experiences available. SalvaTerra’s beautiful estate includes vineyards, the winery, a small hotel and what must be a fine restaurant (judging from the number of chefs we saw working the kitchen as we passed by).

We have no doubt about the food at Villa Cordevigo since we were fortunate to have dinner at this estate that includes the Villabella winery, its vineyards, a fantastic hotel and spa and the sorts of amenities that make you want to linger forever. Or at least that’s how it seemed to us as we looked out over a garden to the pool and the vineyards jvust beyond with a full moon in the distance.

It’s the Food, Dummy

People talk about coming to Italy for the art and architecture, but let me tell you the truth. It’s the food! And we were fortunate to sample many typical dishes of the regional cuisine and they are worth the effort to seek out. Typical is an interesting word in this context — you see it everywhere in Italy and that’s a good thing. Here in the U.S. “typical” is sometimes a term of derision — Big Macs are “typical” fast food, for example. Ordinary. Unexceptional. Nothing to write home about. That’s typical for us.

In Italy, however, typical means “true to type” or authentic. And that’s why we Americans go gaga over Italian food — the authenticity just blows us away. And the authentic or typical dishes of Valpolicella, many prepared with the wines themselves, are enough to make any foodie go gaga. We enjoyed great meals at the Villa Cordevigo, Ristorante La Divina (overlooking Garda from high on a hill), Locanda 800 and the Enoteca Della Valpolicella.

We also appreciated the lunches that several wineries put together for us including a wonderful (typical!) meal of local meats and cheeses with polenta at Scriani, a satisfying buffet at Santa Sofia and a rather elaborate multi-course feast of typical dishes at the Cantina Valpolicella Negrar. All the food was wonderful — the meats and cheeses at Cesari and the completely addictive “crumb cake” we had with Recioto at Secondo Marco. Foodie paradise? You be the judge. And great wines, too.

That Something Extra

Valpolicella seems to have all the elements of a great wine tourism experience and I think the Consorzio’s app ties things together into a functional package. It will be even more useful when it has time to fill out with more wineries, restaurants and hotels.

Is the app alone enough to bring Valpolicella to center stage? Of course not. Some of the wineries obviously embrace wine tourism more completely than others, for example. It is important that three or four true “destination” wineries emerge that will make it easy for wine tourists to see that a two-day or longer visit can be fashioned that will sustain their interest and enthusiasm — with dozens of other wineries providing rich diversity (and reasons to return again and again) as happens in Napa, for example. And finally there must be even closer ties among the elements of the hospitality sector — wine, food, tourism and lodgings — which is not always easy to achieve.

It takes a village to build a wine route. But all the pieces are there and the app is a good way to bring them together.

But what about that “something extra” I mentioned earlier. What does Valpolicella offer that will push it over the top? Well, the towns and villages have the churches, squares, museums and villas that Italian wine tourists expect — it takes only a little effort to seek them out and I must confess that I actually enjoy the “small moments” more than the three-star attractions, so this suits me very well.

But maybe I am making this too hard. What’s that something special? Maybe it’s the chance to tack an evening in Verona or a day on Lake Garda on to your Valpolicella wine tour experience? Perhaps its time for the wine tail to wag the Veneto tourist dog and not the other way around! (Gosh, I wonder how that will sound in Italian?) Food for thought!

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Here’s a musical tribute to the merry band of wine bloggers on our Valpolicella tour.

Mauro Fermariello has created a beautiful video of our Valpolicella wine blogger tour, which can be found in his website, www.winestories.it .

When is a Wine Tourist Not a Wine Tourist? Lessons from Cyprus

July 18, 2017 By Mike Veseth in wine, wine tourism 1 Comment

nelion We were sitting on the terrace at Nelion Winery, perched on the famous Paphos-Troodos road, talking with winemaker Marinos Ioannou and tasting his excellent wines. (We loved a dry red made from the indigenous Ofthalmo grape variety and brought home a bottle to share with friends here).

A Happening Place

Nelion was kind of a happening place while we were there. Lots of traffic, lots of visitors. This is not an accident. The Paphos-Troodos road draws many visitors who come to Cyprus and want to see the signature sights of the island.

Nelion provides a range of experiences for them. You can taste 3 wines for free or all 9 wines at the bar for €5 per person. Ten euro per head will get you a seated 9-wine tasting on the terrace with cheese and salami and €15 buys a winery and vineyard tour plus the terrace tasting and snack plate.

Tourists are critically important to the winery, which produces around 25,000 bottles each year and sells most of them at the cellar door during the tourist season, supplementing this with bulk wine sales to local residents during the off-season.

We heard lots of languages and accents — British, Russian, Israeli, French — and saw lots of wine go out of the tasting room into waiting cars. Marinos had been in the audience when I spoke at the wine symposium earlier in the week and it is clear that he already understood why I stressed wine tourism as an industry strategy.

No Wine Tourists Here?

nelion3 So I was more than surprised when he brought up the topic and said in a matter-of-fact way that there are no wine tourists in Cyprus.

No wine tourists? What about all these people who come here and taste and buy your wine? They are tourists, most of them, but they aren’t wine tourists. And he was right.

So what is a wine tourist?

I often talk about wine tourism in the Napa Valley, where it is a booming industry, and I think the term applies pretty well to what is going on there. Most of the tourists are drawn there by the wine, although maybe it would be better to say that they are wine lifestyle tourists, since wine and winery are not the only parts of the package on offer in the Napa Valley.

In many places including Cyprus, what we think of as wine tourists are really tourists of a different stripe who take advantage of the opportunity to visit a winery and perhaps buy some wine as a sidebar to their main tourist focus. For these visitors, wine tourism is an alternative to the main agenda– something to do when rainy weather keeps you off the beach — or an attractive bonus stop on the road to Troodos, for example.

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Can Wine Compete?

Cyprus has lots of tourists — I think it is the island’s most important industry now — and has developed several wine routes to help tourists find their way around. But as Marinos noted, real wine tourists are still few and far between. What needs to happen to change this?

At first glance it is difficult to imagine how wine can compete for tourists in Cyprus. Cyprus has important historical sites and a deep and attractive culture. Cyprus is a playground, with beaches and mountains to enjoy. Cyprus has wonderful food, with many regional specialties. Cyprus was great weather, which attracts European tri-athletes who want get a jump-start on training. How in the world can wine compete?

Easier Said Than Done

The answer, as you have probably already guessed, is not to compete but to cooperate. Wine is part of Cyprus’s long history, a key component of its culture, and a perfect match for the great food. The key, as work done by the United Nations World Tourism Organization has stressed, is to bring these threads together with wine at the center.

This is not necessarily an easy task. Wine producers in Cyprus struggle at times to work together to promote their national “brand,” so expanding cooperation to include museums, archaeological sites, restaurants, hotels, national and regional tourist agencies and so forth is easier said than done. Creative use of the wine route concept, linking it to other regional structures, may be a good way to begin.

Nelion winery has made a modest start to this. The tasting room is also a sales room for a variety of local foods and some craft items. This shows the winery as embedded in the local community, with its food, culture, and beautiful landscape.

Fostering real wine tourism is not a Cypriot problem — it is everyone’s problem. Everyone who wants to see wine tourism prosper and achieve its great potential to develop wine, wineries, and wine regions has an interest in converting tourists who stop at wineries into wine tourists.

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This is the final column in our series on wine and wine tourism in Cyprus. Sue and I would like to thank once again the Cyprus Tourism Organization for inviting us to attend the Cyprus Wine Competition, to visit wineries, taste the wines, and meet such interesting people. Thanks to you all!

Goodbye Columbus? Three Variations on a Barcelona-Based Wine Tourism Theme

June 13, 2017 By Mike Veseth in Spain, wine, wine tourism 1 Comment

The monument to Christopher Columbus at the foot of the Las Ramblas promenade must be one of the most-viewed sights in very scenic Barcelona. Standing atop his tall column, Columbus points to the sea, an act that makes sense both for Columbus himself and for Barcelona, a city that has long turned its face to the sea and to the international influences that it provides.

Columbus points to the sea — that’s what people think he is doing. But I have another, somewhat less literal theory. I think that he is really pointing, in a vague and perhaps somewhat misguided fashion, away from Barcelona’s bright city lights and toward the not-too-distant vineyards — to the Penedés and Priorat wine regions. Tourists, he is saying, you need to visit wineries and learn about Spanish wine!

My evidence? Wishful thinking, of course (reinforced by a poor sense of direction), but more significantly this fact: if you walk down the stairs in the base of the Columbus’s column you will find not a maritime museum as you might expect but a wine tourism center, there established to help you enjoy winery visits in this region.

Visitors to Barcelona really should make time to visit wineries — and many thousands of them do. Columbus was busy during our visit, so we relied upon FEV, the Spanish Wine Federation, to organize our itinerary. Here are three case studies that show different sides of wine tourism in this part of Spain.

Arte Nouveau Cava at Codorníu

History is an important part of any visit to Codorníu-Raventos. Josep Ravenos was the first to make a Spanish sparkling wine using the traditional method and it is a leading producer of Cava wine today.

Codorní receives about 80,000 guests each year and most of them begin their visit in the extravagant arte nouveau hall that you see here (the exterior architecture is just as fascinating and unique). The tour makes good use of the beautiful gardens, which hold many delights including a fascinating wine museum in another striking arte nouveau building.

We met with the head winemaker, who was excited help us understand Cava today and to show us the lab where he experiments with micro-fermentations in a constant effort to raise quality and draw out new expressions of Cava. It was an intense and fascinating visit.

Take the Frexinet Cava Train

The architecture is distinctive and historic at Freixenet, but what’s inside the building (and underground, too) was more the point here. We walked down, down, down — deep underground — to the miles of tunnels where Cava was stored for second-fermentation in the bottle for many years.

Like most of the 90,000 visitors who come here each year, Sue and I boarded a small train to tour the tunnels — if you have visited Champagne you may have taken a similar ride there. One of our stops was at the yeast lab — Freixenet believes that their distinctive yeast variety is one key to the unique quality of their wines and so they put much effort into yeast research. Fascinating.

A special tasting was set for us with Pedro Bonet, head of the Freixenet winery family and President of the Cava DO. The goal of the exercise was to show us the enormous diversity of Cava and it was an eye-opening experience. Cava isn’t one thing or two, but a whole spectrum of tastes and aromas. Delicious!

Both Cava winery visits impressed us with the fact that while Cava is a product that uses traditional winemaking techniques, it is also constantly changing both to improve quality, develop new expressions of the wine, and to achieve more efficient production. The market for sparkling wines is very competitive — both among Spanish producers and between them and international rivals. Robots and machines now replace workers where possible for routine jobs, freeing human creativity for higher tasks.

There was much more to see and do at Freixenet, but we had to move on. Lunch was waiting at our next stop!

The Torres Experience

wineday One of the brochures we found at the wine tourist center at the base of the Columbus monument was for Miguel Torres. “Wine Day at Torres Winery” presents a number of options for Barcelona tourists including a seven hour guided bus tour with stops at Torres, Jean Leon and Saint Sadurni d’Anoia wineries for €71 (children under 8 ride free) or an 8 hour guided bus tour with stops at Torres, Montserrat (with tastings of traditional liqueurs), and a tour of scenic Stiges for €63.

Not everyone likes a bus tour so train and auto options are also on offer. Take the train from Barcelona to Vilfranca del Penendés, for example, then a shuttle to the nearby Torres winery for a visit, tasting, and return trip with a tour of the scenic village. The trip lasts about 5 hours and costs just €15. I think it would be very pleasant way to spend a day riding the train, seeing the countryside and enjoying the wine experience, too.

There are many options for Torres wine tourists with their own transportation, which you can view at the Club Torres website. Our tour of Torres began with lunch at the winery’s Restaurant Mas Rabell, which features a daily set menu of traditional cuisine paired with Torres wines, of course. What a great way to taste the wines! We enjoyed chatting with Miguel Torres, who had attended my FEV talk in Valladolid and asked the toughest questions.

Then we toured the Mas La Plana vineyard and winery with a winemaker. The vineyard, planted to Cabernet Sauvignon vines, redefined the idea of wine in this region and the Mas La Plana wine, which has its own winery, raised the bar, too. The tour stressed quality, innovation, and sustainability.

Torres, Freixenet and Codorníu are three case studies of wineries that have invested in wine tourism and are gaining the benefits, both for themselves and their communities. They are great role models for other ventures around the world.

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Goodbye Columbus and Barcelona, too. Sue and I loved visiting the city and learned a lot at our winery visits. Thanks to everyone we met for their kindness and hospitality.