Wine tourism: why now?

Almost all of the midterm presentations talked about wine tourism as one of the trends that would benefit the region that they presented, starting from our midterm on Austria to Mexico, South Africa and New Zealand. Literally regions all over the world. I was curious to know more about wine tourism and found this interesting article that talks more about it and why it is growing so fast:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/food-and-wine-holidays/best-destinations-for-wine/

Some quotes from the article:

“The tourism business structure has changed. It used to be mainly male, mainly people who already knew about wine. These days, we’re taking couples, younger people and small groups of friends.”

“Travel itself is now cheaper and easier. And wine is almost always produced in beautiful places to which you’d want to go anyway.”

“Like no other agricultural product, wine also acts as a passport to the heart of these lands, their culture and past, their food, festivals, jollity and people. Especially the people.”  

A Gilded Age

This wine barrel may not actually be gilded, but it costs as much as a gilded barrel might. It took a team of expert craftsmen from Lalique glassworks over two years to construct the entirely crystal barrique (a smaller vessel holding 225L of wine) in honor of the 400^th birthday of Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey.

In 2014, the Chairman and CEO of Lalique, Swiss businessman Silvio Denz, acquired the 396-year-old Château in France’s Sauternes region. Denz commissioned a crystal series by his glassworks business to honor the Château’s upcoming quadricentennial celebrations; the series includes the barrel, a Semillon (the varietal used in Sauternes) leaf, a bunch of (non-botrytised) grapes, and a five-liter bottle.

Though the official cost of the barrel has not been released, it is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of euros. For comparison, a typical oak barrel costs between $500-2000. The final crystal product weighs a whopping 400 kilos and houses 300 bottles’ worth of the estate’s 2013 Premier Grand Cru Classé Sauternes, (one bottle of which retails between $55-80 in the US, according to Wine-Searcher).

As beautiful as it is, the barrel itself will have almost no effect on the wine inside. Barrel ageing typically changes the wine by imparting flavors and tannins from the oak itself and through the oxygen that passes through the porous oak. The crystal barrique offers neither benefit; however, the wine it holds had already been aged and bottled prior to being stored in the crystal. Plus, it sure is beautiful.

http://www.chateau-lafaurie-peyraguey.com/home/

https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/lafaurie+peyraguey+sauternes+bordeaux+france/2013

https://www.foodandwine.com/news/lalique-crystal-wine-barrel-400-anniversary

https://www.vitisphere.com/news-88956-Worlds-most-expensive-wine-barrel-is-made-from-crystal.htm