For the second year in succession, historic wine estate, La Motte of Franschhoek is South Africa’s Best of Wine Tourism champion. Dating back 300 years, La Motte as South Africa’s national winner joins the illustrious company of some of the world’s most famous wine producers.
The Great Wine Capitals, a network of the world’s leading wine-producing countries that shares international best practice to advance standards in wine tourism across the world, announced the results in Florence, Italy, at a gala dinner attended by leading wine tourism practitioners from around the world.
GWC’s members, in addition to Cape Town-Cape Winelands, include Mainz-Rheinhessen (Germany), Bilbao-Rioja (Spain), Bordeaux (France), Florence (Italy), Mendoza (Argentina), Porto (Portugal), San Francisco-Napa (United States) and New Zealand’s Christchurch.
La Motte’s win was based on its overall performance, taking first place in the Sustainable Wine Tourism category, and second position in both the Arts and Culture and in the Wine Tourism Services categories. Last year the estate earned the top score in the Arts and Culture category. Other category winners were Grand Dédale of Wellington (Accommodation), Grande Provence of Franschhoek (Arts & Culture), Tokara of Stellenbosch (Restaurants) and Waterford of Stellenbosch (Wine Tourism Services).
This finding of the judges was borne out, he said, by the growing international vote of confidence amongst tourists in Cape Town and its surroundings. Earlier in November, Cape Town was named second-best city in the world and best city in Africa by readers of US-based travel publication Condé Nast Traveller. Its annual survey this year drew almost 50 000 readers and saw Cape Town beaten only by southern US city Charleston, but coming out ahead of Florence, Bangkok, Vancouver and Sydney.
For more information visit: www.greatwinecapitals.com.
