Last week we hosted a fifth year class from the tourism section of the “IIS A.De Pace” of Lecce in the “Negramanti” room of our cellar. The purpose of the visit was to tell the now twenty-year experience of Fiefs of Guagnano in the field of wine tourism hospitality.
“If wine tourism is on demand” is the title of the master class in which the De Pace students participated with particular attention and interest. The reason for this statement lies in the particularity of the requests of wine lovers to which our cellar responds by diversifying its wine tourism offer from time to time.
In fact, alongside the wine tastings that we will call “standard”, the winery creates unique and exclusive wine experiences upon indication of the user himself. A dinner or lunch among the rows of negroamaro, a hen party with aperitif in the vineyard followed by a dinner among the barriques, a night among the Primitivo trees or the “Let’s drink it strange” tasting with the wines freshly taken from the barrels.
But even imagining yourself as a “winemaker for a day” or preparing a special lunch with homemade orecchiette and meatballs is part of the experiences requested and achieved.
And in September, then, you can experience the thrill of the tourist harvest: picking the bunches of negroamaro, pressing them barefoot and then after a few months tasting the resulting wine.
All this, but not only, is “wine tourism on demand”, quality wine tourism, experiential wine tourism. This is what an advanced tourist is looking for for whom simply tasting one or more wines, seeing a barrel cellar or a row of steel tanks is no longer enough. The wine tourist wants to feel like a supporting player in the wine experience: in a word, he or she seeks emotions.
At the end of the “participatory story” a healthy tasting could not be missing since all the students were adults. And the opportunity seemed ideal to discover, despite the presence of an unrepresentative sample, tastes, preferences and frequency of consumption of the drink wine.
Therefore we have proposed a sparkling wine from Verdeca Method Martinotti (Souls), a still white wine from Verdeca (Cuccimannè verdeca), a still rosé wine from Susumaniello (Cuccimannè susumaniello rosé) and a still red wine from Malvasia Nera (Ten years Malvasia Nera). All 4 wines have a gustatory and sensorial structure that I would define as easy to read, moderate complexity and above all good drinkability: all attributes suitable for the palate of a young drinker.
The Palme d’Or, as expected, went to sparkling white wine. Following, just a few points below, the rosé susumaniello and the black malvasia (which to tell the truth we thought was last in our choice).
A painful and obvious point, because it has been the subject of statistical analyzes for some years now in all wine producing and consuming countries, is the frequency of consumption: the majority of those interviewed (80% of the sample) declared that the last time they drank a wine dates back to more than a month or even 2 or 3 months before.
Not just words and wine tastings though. The attending students had the opportunity to view approximately 50 works of contemporary art by Italian and foreign artists as part of the DIVINARTE exhibition.
Wine, art, culture, tourism and economy: an interesting and original blend that we practice every day!
