In July 2019, a competition of the "50 most extraordinary places for wine" was held in London (England) for the first time. The association International Wine Challenge was the sponsor. The main aim of the annual event is to promote wine tourism. The judging was based on the "overall experience", i.e. not only the top wines of the wineries, but also the view or landscape environment, accessibility, architecture and (if available), hotels, restaurants and event management such as vineyard tours, horse-drawn carriage tours through vineyards, organisation of weddings and celebrations, programmes for sports enthusiasts and exhibitions.
The international jury was made up of around 500 experts. For the evaluation, the wine world was divided into 16 regions. For each of these regions, the main Academy Chair nominated 36 jury members for his region. A mix of wine lovers, sommeliers, representatives of the wine trade and experts from the travel industry was considered. These then nominated their seven personal favourites. Up to three wineries could come from their own region, four had to be outside.
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Thorsten Rahn
Restaurantleiter, Sommelier, Weindozent und Autor; Dresden