World’s Best Vineyards to Visit announced in London

Pic-Courtesy CNN.Com

The 2019 winner is an Argentinean winery in the lush heart of the Uco Valley, at the foot of the Andes mountains. A family-run business founded in 1963, the Zuccardi Valle de Uco unveiled a stunning new modernist bodega in 2016.

Uruguay's Bodega Garzón, in second place, was praised as a leader in sustainability. As with the other stars on the list, it offers a top-class program of tastings and events, and its 120-seat restaurant offers Uruguayan cuisine and panoramic views of the surrounding countryside.

Spain's López de Heredia Viña Tondonia -- a Rioja winery in the Station District of Haro run by the López de Heredia family for close to 150 years -- took the prize for third place and was named Best Vineyard in Europe.

Quinta do Crasto run by Miguelle Roquette and his family has a beautiful vineyard, winery and a guest house with a swimming pool overlooking the meandering Douro River and offers a stunning view of the Valley hundreds feet below, was at the fourth place.  

New Zealand's Rippon, a biodynamic vineyard on the shores of Lake Wanaka, was in eighth place and named Best Vineyard in Australasia.

North America's highest entry was Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa Valley. It produces world-class Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve and Oakville District Cabernet Sauvignon but, said Barden, "it's not just the winery, the food is supreme."

Cape Town's Vergelegen Wine Estate, with its pristine gardens, excellent cuisine and 300-year history, that was one of the first wineries I had visited in /south Africa over a decade ago, was No. 34 on the list and named Best in Africa.

The traditional wine regions of France and Italy put in a less impressive performance. The highest-place French vineyard was Château Smith Haut Lafitte, near Bordeaux, at No.16, although the country made up for this with seven placements in the list overall.

Italy's best vineyard was Antinori nel Chianti Classico in Tuscany, my personal favourite, placed 18th. Its new cellar, opened in 2012, is an impressive brick-red structure of terracotta and wood, barely visible from the highway going to Meremma coast and which has more the feel of a place of worship than a place for storing wine.

There were 17 countries represented in the top 50,(Source: Daily Mail)

The Competition was announced in February this year. 1,500 wineries around the world were nominated for the awards, with around 3,500 votes cast by an international academy of wine tourism experts.

"Wine is a reflection of its individual surroundings, its terroir," said the awards founder Andrew Reed. "It's not just about the wine; it's a total package." India was one of the countries that participated.

Subhash Arora

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