SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 29 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Cabildo de Tenerife and the Lavinia wine distributor, one of the largest in Europe, have launched a campaign to promote the island’s wines in Madrid for a month.
The campaign, which will run until May 15, includes meetings between the participating wineries and gastronomy, hospitality, distribution and gastronomic communication professionals, such as those held this week, which have brought together more than 200 people around to the wines of Tenerife.
The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, has indicated that the purpose of this project is to publicize the island’s wide range and facilitate access to and sale of Tenerife wines throughout Spain.
“The promotion of wine and products from Tenerife cannot be a one-off act. It has to be a continuous process, together with the winemakers, who are the ones who best explain what our wines are like,” he says in a note.
The objective, maintains Martín, is to achieve “that it is natural that in Madrid or in any other part of Spain you can buy the wines of Tenerife, that they are on the menus of the restaurants”.
In his opinion, it is ultimately about “positioning them firmly in the market, so that wine growers continue to be encouraged to cultivate, so that there is generational change and so that in the end that treasure that we have on the island is not lose, because we are capable of opening the market and we are showing it”.
The campaign, launched on April 18 by the Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries area and Tenerife Tourism, will run until May 15 and will run in the Lavinia Ortega y Gasset stores (the largest wine cellar in continental Europe ) and Lavinia Moraleja Green, as well as in Lavinia’s virtual store.
On Wednesday, in the Lavinia space in the center of Madrid, a meeting was held between winemakers and representatives of Designations of Origin of Tenerife with a total of nine members of the Madrid Academy of Gastronomy, to publicize the wines and their specials. characteristics and try to position them in the restaurants of the capital of Spain.
The dishes were prepared by Braulio Simancas, from El Silbo Gomero Restaurant, who paired his dishes with wines from the DO of Tenerife.
LAVINIA: “THEY ARE A FASCINATING PRODUCT”
The president of the Madrid Academy of Gastronomy, Luis Suárez de Lezo, assured that “it has been a pleasure to be able to participate in such an interesting event to learn about the gastronomic culture of Tenerife, the wines of Tenerife are a fascinating product and the choice of wines with Braulio’s dishes it has been wonderful, in Madrid all gastronomic cultures are welcome and Tenerife, of course, too”.
The event was attended by the Island Director of Tourism, Laura Castro; from the director of the Telva cooking school, Sesé San Martín, and from internationally renowned journalists, such as Harold Heckle, from the European Pressphoto Agency, and Alberto Luchini, a journalist specializing in culture and gastronomy and editor-in-chief of Metrópoli, of the newspaper El Mundo.
On Thursday, between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., a sample of Tenerife wines took place in the Lavinia space, which could be tasted and with which some cheeses from Benijos were served, one semi-cured smoked goat cheese and another aged cured cheese. 8 years of healing.
The exhibition was attended by more than 150 guests including gastronomy professionals, the hospitality sector, sommeliers, international journalists and Lavinia’s own clients.
The director of Lavinia Spain, Juan Manuel Bellver, assured that with this initiative they aspire for Lavinia to become the embassy of Tenerife wines in Madrid.
“We have enriched our range with 12 wineries and fifty wines. Dry, sweet, fermented in barrels, with skins, sparkling. Everything has seemed very exciting and gastronomic and the truth is that now we want the public, the gourmets , fans of wine from Madrid and Spain discover the wine wealth of Tenerife”, he indicated.
The island councilor for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Javier Parrilla, stressed the great opportunity that this agreement represents for the marketing of the island’s wines, still little known on the Peninsula.
“We want our wines to be present on the best tables and menus in Madrid and Spain, and for the diversity and richness of our wines to be known and truly appreciated beyond our borders,” he said.
The winemakers, for their part, thanked the Cabildo for its efforts to boost and promote wines in recent years and agreed on the important national and international showcase that Lavinia represents, as well as the “unique opportunity” that it represents this campaign to publicize, position in the market and give prestige to the wines of the island.
WINE SECTOR IN TENERIFE
Currently, the vineyard represents the second most important crop in the Canary Islands in terms of surface area, with 6,816 hectares, only behind the banana plantation.
Tenerife, which has six Denominations of Origin (Abona, Valle de la Orotava, Valle de Güímar, Tacoronte-Acentejo, Ycoden-Daute-Isora and Canary Islands), accounts for almost 47 percent of this area, with 2,977 hectares.
There are more than 100 wineries registered in the management bodies of the Denominations of Origin of the island, and each year around 5,000,000 kilograms of grapes are harvested and controlled, which account for around 60 percent of the total produced on the island. island.
