I attended Wine and Tourism Week in Porto, Portugal last February. Having attended many wine shows both in North America and Europe my mind was more focused on wine but Wine and Travel Week shifted that focus where the theme was the interrelationship between wine, gastronomy, accommodations and culture. Combine all those elements together and you have wine tourism. A perfect symbiotic relationship where wine is an important but not a sole component.
At Wine and Travel Week exhibitors were not pouring any wine! They were promoting wine tourism. The moral compass of this event as I saw it was to escape the “tyranny of the beach and sun”. Sure hit the beach but why not stop at a winery for a tasting and some top rate food! Perhaps even stay at a winery or nearby. And stop and visit cultural sites while you are at it. Not that sun and beach is bad or for that matter simply focusing on wine at wineries. But there is more!
Let me give you an example. The Wine and Travel Week conference was at the Alfândega which is the old custom’s house an historic building in Porto. At Wine and Travel Week we experienced two gastronomic lunches prepared by top Portuguese chefs and many bottles of wine selected to suit that food. One lunch was surf and the other turf. A gala dinner was at Museu do Carro Electrico (Electric Tram Museum). And then 10 of us flew to Pico Island in the Azores. I had an ultra hip room at the Azores Wine Company where we also tasted wines and ate some awesome nouvelle cuisine. We visited several wineries and ate local dishes at two of them. We visited the Pico Island Wine Museum, a national park, a distillery and stopped for a seaside walk. So we had wine, culture and gastronomic feasts both homey and hipster!
The result was a fuller understanding of Pico Island and a desire to return and give it the two weeks as a minimum it deserves. I understand its topography, some of its history, its food, its culture and its wines. There is more to life than a beach!
Sadly there was virtually no North American presence amongst the media invitees nor any North American exhibitors. Wake up and smell the coffee and get there next year for Wine and Travel Week. Canadian wineries are great at wine tourism so why don’t they tell the rest of the world about it?
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