Prizes for tourist-attracting wineries 29 October 2007

The Cape winners of global tourism awards announced

WIne tourism is big business and there’s plenty of competition around it, both locally and internationally.  There’s also co-operation to encourage winery tourism, and internationally this is most prominently done by the Global Network of Great Wine Capitals. The ‘great capitals’ which are members are Melbourne, Bordeaux, San Francisco, Porto, Cape Town, Bilbao, Florence and Mendoza. Each year the Network makes awards to wineries demonstrating ‘exceptional capability to cater for, and welcome visitors and tourists’.

The first, local leg of the process has been completed and the South African results in various categories announced. Stellenbosch’s Vergelegen, which was last year’s national winner,  is the local champion in both the Arts and Culture and Significant Wine Tourism Experience categories.  Also from Stellenbosch, Delheim won the new category of Sustainable Wine Tourism Practices, presumably created in response to a growing awareness of the importance of ‘green’ issues.

Stellenbosch didn’t quite make a clean sweep of the awards, but Rustenberg won for Architecture, Parks and Gardens. A spokesperson for the organisation says that this years’ near-100 local entries (itself hugely up on last year’s) came from a broader geographic base than in the past, and the Wellington Wine Walk, comprising 14 producers, won the Wine Tourism Service category, and Mont Rochelle in Franschhoek won for Accommodation. For some undeclared reason, the Restaurant category winner has not been established.

• Link to the Global Network of Great Wine Capitals