World's Best VineyardsAcademy Chair
Oct. 2018London, United KingdomThe Academy The World’s Best Vineyards Academy is the mechanism used to create The World’s Best Vineyards list. The Academy comprises nearly 500 leading wine aficionados, sommeliers, and luxury travel correspondents from across the globe. Each has been selected for their expert opinion of the international wine and wine tourism scene. To create the Academy, and give it a fair representation of the global wine scene, we divide the world into geographical regions. In each region we appointed an acknowledged expert as the Academy Chair. They were responsible for recruiting 36 individuals (a balanced mix of wine aficionados, sommeliers, wine trade, luxury travel correspondents and anyone whose regular hobby and passion is visiting wine regions) to nominate their seven top vineyard experiences. The voters could nominate up to 3 vineyards inside their voting region and at least 4 from outside their voting region. There were no preset list of requirements but the Academy went beyond the wines and looked at the whole experience. The restaurant, tour, ambiance, staff, the view, the price, reputation, accessibility, everything that makes a vineyard visit a valuable and rewarding experience for visitors.