Wine connoisseurs from Italy, Spain and Portugal will visit Lagoa, just 4kms from Carvoeiro, to judge around 600 Portuguese wines in November.
The Convento de São José is the chosen venue for the first Wine Cities Competition to be held in Portugal over three days, starting on November 26. The winner will automatically be entered in the European wine competition “Città del Vino” which will be held in Italy between May 20 and 23 next year.
“Città del Vino” is the only competition that matches wines with boroughs and offers not just a prize for the winemakers, but also for the municipality of the winning winemaker.
Every participating wine in the Portuguese competition can also enter the Italian one. With Italy entering over 1,000 wines, Portugal will not be far behind should all 600 wines from the country choose to enter.
The secretary-general of the Association of Portuguese Wine Municipalities (AMPV), José Arruda, stated in the presentation of the event last week that Algarve is the third region with the most wines entering the competition in November and Lagoa is conspicuous with the most local wines (22) entering.
Lagoa’s mayor, Luís Encarnação, believes that wine tourism could be the solution to the region’s seasonality (tourism activity currently, for the most part, takes place during the summer) and António Ventura, a reputable oenologist and president of the competition’s judging panel, concurred saying that Algarve is the “region with the most potential to explore wine tourism”.
Pedro Ribeiro, president of AMPV, has seen “winemakers reacting and reinventing their businesses digitally, finding new markets and other distribution channels” during the pandemic. He continued that “Algarve has responded well” and has “much to offer in the future”.
Algarve has an interesting Wine Route that takes in many different wineries and the tourist office has a digitally guide to the wine estates.
So, with the region having a fabulous choice of gastronomical delights, together with wines and other local produce, there is much to keep palates happy.