WINE TOURISM

BACK ON THE AGENDA

By AJ Linn

 

 

Wine tourism has taken a big hit this year for reasons that do not need explaining. However, it is climbing back into favour as protective regulations are being adopted in all bodegas offering visits and tastings. And since visiting a winery need not involve close contact with other people – and nor do vineyard tours present any problem – sampling wine inside a capacious bodega can even favour such activities. Enjoying a good lunch, as happens in many hospitable establishments, may be more problematic, but the measures that will be taken are no different from that of any restaurant these days. Winery visits are actually not a new ritual, as many believe. The Empress Eugenia visited the Alvear bodega in Montilla and Jerez’s Gonzalez Byass bodega in 1862. Spain’s last but one king, Alfonso XIII, was a welcome guest at Codorniu, Domecq and Bodegas Franco Españolas in Rioja. It has always been assumed that wine tourism is a courtesy on behalf of the winery, giving faithful customers the opportunity to taste in situ, as it were, the wines they drink at home and in restaurants. This is only partially true, although that is certainly how it all started. These days many smaller bodegas cannot survive without paying visitors, owing to the fact that the epidemic has already caused them to take a hit on their profits from regular wine sales.

Wine tourism has become such a fixture that there are some Spanish universities offering degree courses, which sounds like a very enjoyable study choice if you are a wine buff. It is true nevertheless that Spain has lagged behind other countries in developing wine tourism. While national visitors numbered 2.4 million annually at a recent count, the figure for France in the same period was 15 million, and in one day (unrecorded as to which) 1.3 million tourists visited Italian bodegas. Apparently Spain’s wineries were offering tours many decades back but, as often happens in this delightful country, someone forgot to take into account that these things need promoting, and it is not enough to put a “Visitors Welcome” sign on the door and then sit back and wait. Spain is catching up fast, however… taking as an example the wellknown Protos winery in Ribera del Duero.

Last year it had 40,000 visitors at €11 per head. Add in what must be a substantial number of purchases from the on-site shop, and the income makes it all worthwhile. Obviously there are practical considerations. Outside the frenetic weeks of the grape harvest, it is easy to die of boredom in a bodega. Quite simply, there is little to do, and even the most reticent oenologist would prefer to spend the downtime chatting away to some inquisitive backpacker than mooching around a warehouse full of endless rows of barrels. There is no record of when the first bodegas opened their doors to visitors, but it was probably in Jerez de la Frontera around the 1950s. Back then it was possible to visit several bodegas each week for a year without repetition (there were hundreds of bodegas then). All for free! Although the average visit price in Spain is currently around €10, this is likely to increase soon with the building of show bodegas for the express purpose of attracting visitors. One that has just started construction in Rioja is a multi-million-euro investment where the actual making of wine is incidental. All the income will come from visitors’ pockets.

Hopefully it will be a long time before Spain gets to the level of some Californian showplaces. At Napa Valley’s Castillo de Amarosa a visit costs €18,000, although this does include the “gift” of a barrel of wine or ageing plus 288 bottles of their best Cabernet Sauvignon, a leatherbound photo album of the tour, and a box of Monte Cristo cigars. On this side of the pond, France’s Duval-Leroy Champagne house lets visitors blend their own cuvée for the thousand bottles that will eventually be shipped to their home, for a mere €40,000.

 

 

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