The Sea of Wine Project to Promote the Black Sea Region as a Wine Tourism Destination

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  • 26/01/2021
  • 2021

Teaming up with other partner organizations in Greece, Georgia and Ukraine, the ICARE Foundation launched its Sea of Wine project.

Though 2020 was a year full of hardships, losses and challenges, we kicked off the Sea of Wine project that isimplemented within the Joint Operational Programme Black Sea Basin 2014-2020funded by the European Neighbourhood Instrument. The 26-month project will help wine and travel sector businesses and stakeholders in the four participant countries develop common approaches for presenting and promoting their products and services.The project involves project partners and stakeholders from Armenia, Greece, Georgia, and Ukraine. Apart from the ICARE Foundation, the project partners include The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Georgian Center for Agribusiness Development, and Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies.

Today wine tourism is defined as the best representation of the ‘wine and territory’ combination, providing unique experiences that include natural landscape, culture, traditions, artistic beauties, and atmosphere of a region. Furthermore, wine tourists prefer destinations that can offer a wider range of related services and activities. Wine routes are usually proposed as the most comprehensive and successful way for organizing thematic networks able to increase the potential of wine tourism, in relation to the local cultures. The Black Sea wine routethat will be developed during the project will provide economic and sociocultural benefits within the region and promote wine tourism business practices.

The final positioning and promotion will be achieved through a series of online and offline activities and initiatives. The main initiative is to develop and implement country-level wine routes and incorporate them into a single Black Sea Wine Route. The Black Sea Wine Route will be available at an in-house built ICT platform that will provide travelers and businesses from all of the world with all the necessary information about the route, countries and their offerings, and how they can visit and enjoy one of the oldest and most unique wine regions in the world. The introduction of the common label, The Black Sea Wine Glass Member is another initiative that will unite the countries and bring more recognition to the region as a wine tourism destination.

Along with creating and promoting wine routes and the ICT platform as a single point of contact, the project partners will hold a series of events dedicated to wines in the region, Let’s Talk about Wine, as well as a large-scale wine event, The Wines of the Black Sea, which will be conducted according to the standards of the International Organization of Vine and Wine.

The combination of these activities and project participants’ commitment will significantly enhance the recognition of the Black Sea region as the Historic World of Wine.

The project will be co-implemented in 2020-2022 by The ICARE Foundation, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Georgian Center for Agribusiness Development, and Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies through the Joint Operational Programme Black Sea Basin 2014-2020funded by the European Neighbourhood Instrumentin closecollaboration with the Joint Technical Secretariat.

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