Until today I had tasted wine more or less everywhere, but on the seaside, on a rocky cliff, I had not.
To be honest, Veneto was also missing from the list of my wine tours, so the opportunity proposed by Lionella Genovese of Eleganza Veneta seemed like a great opportunity that I simply could not refuse.
We are in Caorle, a fishing village that clearly wants to declare its welcoming spirit through a truly surprising approach. An approach made of colorful houses, tidy beaches, extreme cleanliness, art and communication.
Yes, communication. Caorle’s appeal is not accidental, just as it is not accidental that every single resource the town can offer to visitors is “systematically organized”.
But let’s talk about Wine&Art 2022. Definitely a great idea and a very successful event.
The title of this article says “when wine meets the sea”. The tasting tables are in fact lined up along the Scogliera Viva, a seafront made of rocks sculpted by artists. A location made of sun and sea, right in the center of Caorle. A solution that is undoubtedly difficult to manage but fascinating and very impactful.
The main protagonists on the tables were mostly wines from Veneto and Friuli, with a few exceptions from other regions. For me, Wine&Art was a great opportunity for a “close encounter” with Veneto’s Tai and Friuli Venezia Giulia’s Friulano.
At “Wine&Art 2022” the presence of the territory is constant and very strong. I can say without any doubt that this event can be considered an excellent example of effective territorial marketing.
If we were to analyze the event more closely, I would say that regarding the “Wine” component, the DOCG Lison played the leading role — a role that became even more evident when we sat down at the table, where the food and wine pairings proved more than appropriate. And then the food: even the local restaurants seemed to be part of this well-tested mechanism of territorial promotion — only locally caught seafood, only top quality.
The “Art” component, on the other hand, relied on a spectacular visual impact — with the Bell Tower of the Cathedral rising in the square of Caorle and the Shrine of Madonna dell’Angelo marking the end of the seafront along the cliff — two landmarks wonderfully explained by our guide and further enhanced by the stories of Alex Kornfeind, tourism communication consultant for Caorle.
There was also discussion about Wine Tourism in the council chamber of the Municipality of Caorle. It was an interesting meeting where many important topics were addressed: from territorial analysis and visitor behavior to the enhancement of local resources, the role of institutions and — last but not least — a subject that is very dear to me: the involvement of young people in the concept of “hospitality”. I would have had a thousand questions to ask, but I returned home (unfortunately) with one certainty: in tourism planning, “latitude” is an important parameter, as is the size of the city, which is also fundamental in determining the responsiveness of a public administration.
I should conclude this article, but I cannot do so without one final observation.
At 11:59 PM on both evenings, the cliff was still full of people walking with a wine glass in hand. Not wine experts, but people who simply wanted to enjoy the seafront while tasting wines from the region. I think this is a wonderful way to bring people closer to wine and maybe — why not — nurture new markets, helping consumers learn about a territory, a grape variety and a winery.
One might think that this success was helped by the pleasant weather during two days of relief from the scorching heat of recent weeks, but I believe that the success of this event lies in a beautiful story made of great synergy between private and public sectors, of the great effort required to organize a logistically complex event and, above all, of a territory that truly works.
No one is paying me to say what I am about to say at the end of this event:
well done Lionella, well done Caorle. I will take inspiration from you for my future territorial marketing projects 🙂
