Wine tourism in Abruzzo takes off with Itineraries from the Wine Protection Consortium

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The “trabocchi” (typical fishing systems found along the Abruzzo coast), pecorino cheese, the writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, Montepulciano wine and the sea, medieval monasteries and 20th-century art. How can all of this be found in Abruzzo? How can it all be combined? Planned routes would be useful . . . That’s right! Let’s make ITINERARIES!

This must have been the thought process behind the new territorial marketing project of the Abruzzo Wine Protection Consortium, presented on October 16 in the Michetti Convent in Francavilla al Mare by its President, Valentino di Campli, and adviser Valentina Di Camillo, who proposed the idea and brought it to fruition. What’s amazing is the short time in which the project was realized; in less than a year an online platform with a corresponding app and an accompanying paper map makes it easy and intuitive for tourists to navigate specific routes. Smartphone in hand, itineraries can be singled out, among the ten that have been created so far, and a QR code can be scanned that enables the traveler to navigate the territory using geolocation. The website provides a preview of each location, on the basis of cultural, artistic, natural, and enogastronomic offerings, at which point each user can choose what to see and in which locality, or simply to stay on the path and enjoy everything that the complete itinerary has to offer.

The itineraries should be, in the minds of their creators, starting points and simple indications for tourists who don’t know this territory well enough – one in which thirty minutes by car takes the traveler from ski trails to the sea. It’s obvious that the 200+ wine producers in the region are the focal point of the itineraries, given that the Abruzzo Wine Protection Consortium has promoted this initiative. Producers expressed their willingness to collaborate on such an innovative project, one that places the Abruzzo Region among the first in the nation and that, in its support of the itineraries, has positioned itself well for significant tourism draw. The goal is not to intercept enogastronomic tourists and offer them something new; on the contrary, the objective is to invite the cultural or eco-tourist to discover the enogastronomic opportunities the region has to offer, and vice versa. Not something “extra” as much as an exchange, a synergy among different tourists for the betterment of everyone. The next step, together with the creation of more itineraries, is to open up to slow tourism; that is, to cycling or walking itineraries.

For the time being, our itinerary – that of “Discovering the Coast of the Trabocchi” (with many references to D’Annunzio: the poet was born in Pescara and always maintained ties to this area) was replete with splendid food (such as ventricina) and superlative wines!

Versione in ITALIANO