A second stage of the 8th Liberty Seguros Grand Prix, scheduled for this Sunday, the 13th, a route of 186,6 kilometers, starting at the Municipal Auditorium of Lagoa (10:50 am) and ending at the Municipality of the municipality (15:30 pm), is the next big event of the Lagoa Cidade do Vinho 2016 initiative .
Luís Encarnação, councilor of the Lagoa Council and responsible for organizing the vast program that, throughout the year, will celebrate the viticulture of Lagoa and Algarve, said in an interview with Sul Informação, that this will be a way of «taking advantage of the media coverage of cycling and the very public that it normally attracts» to promote the wines of Lagoa.
The Cidade do Vinho commemorations, which include «cultural, sporting and promotional events», began in early January, with the King's Day, and in February, with the Gala, which filled the Arade Congress Center and culminated with a concert by the group Ala dos Namorados.
These were already two of the events in the mandatory program that all applications to Cidade do Vinho must include. The next one will be the Queen of Harvest National Election Gala, scheduled for September 24th. «In 2015, the election was in Reguengos de Monsaraz and there were 16 candidates, from Viana do Castelo to Lagoa. This year, because the gala will take place at the Arade Congress Centre, which has a capacity of 960 people, and we are in the Algarve, we hope to attract even more people», stressed councilor Luís Encarnação.
Also within the mandatory program, on November 13, to mark the European Day of Wine Tourism, educational visits will be promoted, for the general public, journalists, hotels and restaurants, to the four wineries in Lagoa and to the Cabrita winery, in the neighboring municipality of Silves .
"We want to awaken the region to wine tourism, alerting to the importance that this niche may have, both for wine producers and for tourism itself," said the official.
But, in addition to the obligatory events, there will be many others, all to celebrate the viticulture of Lagos. Is that, if today there are only four wine producers in the county – the Single cellar, successor of the cooperatives, the fifth two vouchers: Mount of Salicos and the Edd's – there were times, until the 70s of the last century, when wineries and grape and wine producers proliferated. In the then town of Lagoa alone, «in the 50s, there were as many as 16 wineries», recalled Luís Encarnação. It was in the times when the name «Lagoa» was synonymous with wine, in the four corners of the country, a reputation that still persists today, although without the benefit of the past.
Therefore, there are many events to celebrate the Cidade do Vinho 2016. The next one will be the Lagoa Wine Show, from 22 to 24 April, with the presence not only of wines from the county and the Algarve, but also from all national wine regions.
On the 3rd of May, the Algarve Wine Contest will take place, to choose the best products of the region, while on the 13th and 14th of May, the Lagoa Agriculture Festival will be recreated, the old agrarian festival, which took place before the 25th of April , and which connected in a procession the Igreja do Carmo, located on a farm, now ruined, and the then village. “It was a party that was lost in the meantime, but that we want to return to, with different aspects”, explained the councilor.
Meanwhile, in the cellars of Adega Única, where one of the exhibitions of the Lagoa Photography Encounters took place last year, an exhibition, bilingual and with a catalogue, on origins and the rise of that cooperative winery, with period photographs and other documents. This is an exhibition organized by the Lagoa Municipal Archive, with material from its vast collection.
This year, Fatacil will also have an area «dedicated only to wine», while, in the event's catering area, «each day will be dedicated to a wine-producing region of Portugal, combining national gastronomy and ethnography. », revealed Luís Encarnação.
The person responsible for the dynamics of the entire Cidade do Vinho highlighted it in his interview with Sul Informação, that «the wine will be the highlight of Fatacil 2016, which will receive all wine regions, so that this is an event with a national dimension».
In terms of sporting events, in addition to the stage of the 8th Liberty Seguros Grand Prix, which takes place on Sunday, the 13th, with arrival and departure in Lagoa, there will also be a mountain bike race on the 9th of October, a Swimming tournament at 15. of the same month and also a March-Race, on the 18th of October.
On the cultural front, this year the Lagoa International Guitar Festival will have the theme of the City of Wine. The fact is that, noted councilor Luís Encarnação, «the guitar matches well, with the cellars and the wine». There are surprises in preparation to link this festival to the theme of wine.
Carvoeiro's walkway will also host an event, called «Astros e Vinho». It will be on the night of October 9th, with an astronomical observation accompanied by wine tasting. It will literally be to see stars!
Meanwhile, Lagoa Cidade do Vinho 2016 has been promoting itself in Portuguese and national tourism fairs. He has been at BTL – Bolsa de Turismo de Lisboa, at Fitur, in Madrid (Spain), at International Tourism Exhibition in Nantes (France), is now at ITB, in Berlin (Germany), and will also go to Barcelona and London. On Easter weekend, from 25 to 27 March, he will be at «Vidigueira Branco – Wine and Singing Fair», and will also attend the National Gastronomy Festival, in Santarém, and Ficos, the Cork Fair, in Coruch.
Luís Encarnação, who speaks with enthusiasm of the vast program already outlined to celebrate Lagoa Cidade do Vinho 2016, adds that the already quite long program could still be enriched with other events. "We have a wide range of other events that are arising and we are complementing the program," he added.
The idea, he stressed, is, as it was written in the application that Lagoa presented, “to use wine as an instrument to promote the territory”.
«A few years ago, wine in the Algarve was going through a very big crisis, which led to the closure of three of the four cooperative wineries that existed at the time. But now there are new producers, many of them already with internationally awarded wines, making a very serious bet on quality wines», underlined the councilor.
One of the areas that Luís Encarnação would like to see more structured is wine tourism, even taking advantage of the Algarve Wine Route, already created by the Algarve Tourism Region and by the Regional Wine Commission. «Wine is among what tourists most recognize in Portugal».
Councilor Luís Encarnação, responsible for the entire organization, stresses that «this Lagoa Cidade do Vinho project is supra-municipal, it is above all a project in the Algarve. Therefore, we have the partnership and support of all municipalities, entities, wine producers and the university».
In this year dedicated to promoting Lagoa wine (and beyond), the City Council expects to spend 556 thousand euros, «an investment that will pay off, not only to bring more notoriety to the council, but also to wine producers and tourism and restaurants. in general, throughout the Algarve region'.
Comments