Latest news with #wineries
Forbes
18 hours ago
- Forbes
Best Winery, Distillery, And Brewery Trips For Father's Day
This Father's Day, take Dad to breweries, distilleries, and wineries with unique tasting and touring experiences. Americans love their drinks and their drinking experiences, and while we have our pick of establishments across the U.S., there are some true standouts. This Father's Day, take Dad on a trip that features the best winery, brewery, and distillery experiences, all just a short drive or flight away. These are distinctive local experiences where tastings, tours, classes, and atmosphere go beyond the traditional and where Dad is sure to feel loved. Toast to Father's Day at Berryessa Gap's winery located in Winters, California. You only live once, so it's fitting to take dad to Yolo, California, where he'll see every step of the wine process, from root stock to pour. Berryessa Gap Vineyards began as a root stock company and grew into an award-winning winery. Then owner Corinne Martinez pursued and earned AVA designation for Winters Highland, where Berryessa grows its grapes. Dad will love the Root Stock Tour with co-owner Dan Martinez, followed by a tasting of five wines. Then stop at L'Apero Le Trois Aperitif, just across the street from the winery in downtown Winters, where Berryessa Gap wines are infused with seasonal fruit to create aperitifs for every taste. In Prosser, Washington, you'll find a cool concept known as Vintner's Village, a beautiful, walkable hamlet with about a dozen wineries, all just steps from one another. Wit Cellars, Bunnell Family Cellars at Wine O' Clock, and Coyote Canyon are just three, and each winery has something different to offer. Within the village, you'll also find shopping and dining, and it's easy to find shuttles and limos for the drive back to your hotel. For the dad who likes something a little unusual, consider a sake tasting at Sake One in Forest Grove, Oregon, just 30 minutes from Portland. Between the easy-to-understand tour and the highly knowledgeable servers, Dad will fully appreciate the nuances of sake versus grape-based wine. And Sake One's hand crafted product is delicious – it's made with Willamette Valley water and Sacramento Valley rice to create five unique brands: Naginata, Momokawa, g, Moonstone, and Yomi. You'll taste them all and likely buy a few bottles to enjoy at home. Barrel tasting is luxurious but unpretentious at Jeptha Creed Distillery in Shelbyville, Kentucky. The Kentucky Bourbon Trail is legendary, with 46 distillers spread across beautiful bluegrass countryside. Jeptha Creed Distillery in Shelbyville is a standout – their whiskey is made from 100% estate-grown corn, including their own Bloody Butcher corn that carries a deep, earthy flavor. Sign up for their barrel tasting experience – you'll be taken by bus to tobacco-style barns and taste bourbon from woodfired, charred oak barrels. Just 18 minutes away, Dad can have an entirely different tasting experience at a perennial favorite, Bulleit Distilling Company. Go all in for the private sensory tasting experience where you'll learn about the 'warm Kentucky hug' of their various bourbons, including their bottled in bond 2025 edition. Meet master distiller Jeff Arnett, well-known as Jack Daniels' former distiller, at Company Distilling in Townsend, Tennessee, just down the road from the Cades Cove entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Arnett will share generous pours with dad and personally educate him on all things whiskey. Choose your poison from six whiskeys, ryes, bourbons, gin, moonshine, and beer. And don't forget—you're in the Smokies, so hiking or at least a scenic drive (before drinking commences, of course) is a must. If Dad prefers a more tropical vibe, head to Outer Banks Distilling in Manteo, North Carolina, on the Outer Banks. Their home-crafted Kill Devil Rum made them famous, but they give Dad many reasons to check them out. Aside from the distillery tour, you'll be entertained at the bar, where artisanal cocktails showcase the liquors distilled on property. There's a good chance you'll cross paths with one of the four owners, former brewers and mixologists who love their jobs and encourage you to stay for hours, Jimmy Buffet style. Cycling through Houston as part of Tour de Brewery brings history, sightseeing, and excellent local craft beers. Is Dad active and a little adventurous? Then get him moving on a cycling brewery tour in Houston. Tour de Brewery offers two small group biking tours: the Suds and Stadiums route, which winds through downtown's sports arenas, and History and Hops, which visits greenspaces, murals, and some of the oldest buildings in Houston. Both offer quaffing stops at popular Texas breweries like Gristworkz, Equal Parts Brewing Company, and 8th Wonder Brewing. In an historical church in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, you'll find Topsy Turvy Brewery, where Dad can learn all about this neck of the woods. All the beers are named after Wisconsin inventions, tourist attractions, or historical places, and if Dad is traveling with a non-beer drinker, there's a wine and cocktail list as well. The interior of this brewery is stunning and eclectic—picture a tear-shaped, multi-colored stained-glass window flanked by stainless steel barrels and fronted by a stacked wood, Jenga-looking bar. More stained-glass windows fill the brewery, and the outdoor beer garden is the perfect place to people watch. Topsy Turvy is in the center of downtown Lake Geneva, so the entire family can make a vacation out of the visit. As Asheville, North Carolina, continues to rebuild after Hurricane Helene, it's a great time to visit and spend some tourist dollars to help with recovery. Mills River Brewing Company offers five custom tours, depending on your interests. Beer Geek is 3 hours of in-depth exploration into the brewing process. Trip in the Woods takes a different approach with a 1.5 mile hike around the farm property—where sustainability is the focus—and into the brewhouse. The simple Brewhouse Tour is just 25 mins and covers the basics. Whichever you choose, don't miss the chance to grab your favorite brewski and sit by the French Broad River, enjoying life and being thankful for Father's Day. MORE FROM FORBES
Daily Mail
02-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Revealed: Spain's quiet and uncrowded hidden gems that still want tourists
Spain might be one of the UK's favourite summer holiday destinations, but protests against tourists in leading hotspots such as Barcelona and Majorca have left some Brits put off. But while more than 18 million British tourists visited Spain in 2024, there are a few regions that fall outside the limelight. So, where are Brits unlikely to run into other tourists in 2025? La Rioja According to Spain's National Institute of Statistics (INE), La Rioja was the country's least visited region in 2024. The gorgeous destination, known for its wine production, welcomed just 123,123 visitors last year. La Rioja is an inland region in northern Spain and deserves far more attention than it tends to get. Lonely Planet reveals: 'Wine goes well with the region's ochre earth and vast blue skies, which seem far more Mediterranean than the Basque greens further north. 'This diverse region offers more than just the pleasures of the grape, though, and a few days here can see you mixing it up in lively towns and quiet pilgrim churches, and even hunting for the remains of giant reptiles.' Head to the Museo de la Rioja, a history museum located in an 18th-century baroque building, to find out more about the region's past. And of course, make sure to visit one of the region's more than 500 wineries to sample one of it's world-renowned reds. El Hierro and La Gomera While the Canary Islands are one of Spain's busiest destinations, a couple of the islands get much less attention. According to Statista, both La Gomera and El Hierro received just 69,000 visitors in 2022. And Marek Bron, travel expert at the Indie Traveller, told MailOnline Travel that La Gomera is the most underrated of the Canary Islands. He said: 'It has these very lush forests that feel like rainforests and they're amazing for hiking.' Meanwhile El Hierro is the smallest Canary Island with far fewer crowds than popular spots like Tenerife and Lanzarote. Tourists can visit the pretty hidden gem by taking a ferry or plane from Tenerife or Gran Canaria. Marina Lucense According to statistics from the INE and Turespana, Mariña Lucense is the Spanish stretch of coast that's the least visited. The breathtaking region is located on Spain's northern Galician coast where some of the country's least well-known beaches are. While the weather can't be guaranteed to be sunny, the beaches in Marina Lucense are much quieter than in the Costa del Sol or Costa Blanca. Visit Spain explains: 'The Marina Lucense has around 100km of coastline where you'll find old whaling ports and a variety of landscapes.' One of the region's most spectacular beaches is As Catedrais, or the Cathedrals. The 1.5km long beach earned its name from the Gothic-looking rock towers and arches on its sands. Cabrera Maritime-Terrestrial National Park Of Spain's 16 national parks, the Cabrera Maritime-Terrestrial National Park is the country's least visited according to INE statistics. Just an hour's boat ride from Majorca, the archipelago will 'definitely surprise you', says Spain's tourism board. It says: 'This oasis has one of the best-preserved examples of marine life in the whole of the Mediterranean Sea. 'Its almost untouched sea shore hosts a wealth of species native to the Balearic Islands.' The national park can be enjoyed on a boat trip and is home to more than 400 botanical species and 200 fish species.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Supreme Court Said States Can't Discriminate in Alcohol Sales. They're Doing It Anyway.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the seminal Granholm v. Heald case, in which the United States Supreme Court struck down protectionist alcohol shipping laws that discriminated against out-of-state wineries. Seen at the time as a harbinger of a truly national e-commerce marketplace for alcoholic beverages, Granholm continues to be treated more like a legal inconvenience than a binding precedent by lower courts. In Granholm, numerous wineries challenged a Michigan law that allowed in-state wineries to ship directly to state residents but required out-of-state wineries to sell their products through wholesalers. Because the case was a consolidation of several legal challenges, it also involved a New York law that only permitted out-of-state wineries to engage in direct-to-consumer shipping if they had a "branch factory, office or storeroom within the state of New York." In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down both laws as a violation of the so-called "dormant Commerce Clause," which establishes the principle that state governments cannot blatantly favor in-state economic interests by discriminating against out-of-state economic actors. Importantly, the law ushered in a host of state-level legislative victories that allowed wineries to ship their products directly to their customer base, thereby circumventing the notorious three-tier system of alcohol regulation. Despite nearly always being referred to as a "landmark" ruling, Granholm has been treated more on par with an obscure 19th-century SCOTUS case that has long since been reversed. In the years immediately following Granholm, the so-called Arnold's Wine line of cases—named after the Second Circuit's Arnold's Wines, Inc. v. Boyle case—came out, in which lower federal courts effectively limited the Supreme Court's Granholm decision to alcohol producers (not retailers). Other federal courts rejected such a cramped reading of the Granholm precedent, and eventually, the dispute forced the Supreme Court to weigh in again in the 2019 case Byrd v. Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association. In Tennessee Wine, the Court held—this time by a 7–2 vote—that a Tennessee law requiring liquor store owners to have been residents of the state for at least two years before applying for a license was unconstitutional. Again, the rationale was based on the fact that states were not permitted to discriminate against out-of-state economic interests unless there was a proper health and safety reason to do so. As attorney Sean O'Leary put it, the Court's majority opinion—penned by Justice Samuel Alito—"put to rest any ambiguity on the reach of Granholm." Except, somehow, it apparently didn't, because lower courts almost immediately started to ignore the Court once again. Lower courts have coalesced around what has been called the Tennessee Wine Two-Step Test: 1. Does the alcohol law at issue either facially or effectively discriminate against out-of-state economic interests? 2. If so, is the discrimination still permissible by serving a "legitimate, non-protectionist interest" (such as protecting health and safety)? Lower courts are creatively using these questions to essentially manufacture workarounds for both Granholm and Tennessee Wine. In 2022, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a North Carolina law that allowed in-state retailers to ship wine to North Carolina consumers but forbade out-of-state retailers from doing the same. Although the court agreed that the law at issue was clearly discriminatory against out-of-state economic interests, it seized upon the second prong of the two-step, holding that a state protecting its system of alcohol regulation was in and of itself "a legitimate non-protectionist ground" for the law. The 9th Circuit recently went even further. Hearing a challenge to an Arizona law that requires wine retailers to have an in-state physical presence in order to engage in interstate direct-to-consumer shipments within the state, the court ruled that the law wasn't even discriminatory. Under the court's reasoning, "setting up a physical storefront in Arizona is not a 'per se burden on out-of-state companies'" because the ability to establish such a storefront is based "on a company's resources and business model, not its citizenship or residency." The 9th Circuit's rationale is already spreading, with a district court in Washington State using the decision as a basis to now conclude that a Washington law that discriminates against out-of-state distilleries in favor of in-state distilleries is similarly permissible. Lost in all the legal slicing and dicing of these post-Granholm and post-Tennessee Wine cases is the simple reality that they're clearly ignoring the main import of these decisions. As Alito noted in Tennessee Wine, "the Commerce Clause did not permit the States to impose protectionist measures clothed as police-power regulations." Unfortunately, that appears to be exactly what states are doing—and they're being readily rubber-stamped by willing federal judges. "The decisions keep getting stranger and stranger," as O'Leary put it in an interview with Wine-Searcher. "I really thought this issue was put to rest when Alito wrote Tennessee Wine. He wrote that Granholm applies to everyone. It was a 7–2 ruling. I thought that was the end of it." States embracing protectionism and clearly thwarting previous rulings may force the Supreme Court to step in once again. The post The Supreme Court Said States Can't Discriminate in Alcohol Sales. They're Doing It Anyway. appeared first on
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Moldova to Host the 46th World Congress of Vine and Wine - in the Country with the Highest Vineyard Density per Capita
What You Should Know About This Wine Nation CHIȘINĂU, Moldova, May 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- This year, the World Congress of Vine and Wine will take place for the first time in the Republic of Moldova – the country with the highest vineyard area per capita in the world, with 4 hectares for every 100 people. Moldova's total vineyard area reaches nearly 110,000 hectares. The country ranks among the top 20 wine producers globally and is the 14th largest wine exporter in the world. In 2024, Moldova exported 144 million liters of wine, worth over 234 million USD. Moldovan wines are shipped to 73 countries, with half of all exports going to European markets. In Moldova, wine is not just an industry – it is part of the country's identity, history, and economy. Over the past few years, the wine sector has grown significantly, thanks to high quality and improved wine tourism infrastructure. Moldova now has over 250 wineries, offering great wines and unforgettable experiences for visitors from around the world. Moldova has built a strong reputation in the international wine world not only through its authentic terroir and ancient traditions, but also through the growing recognition it has earned in recent decades. In the past five years, Moldovan wines have won thousands of medals at top global competitions – including Berliner Wine Trophy, Mundus Vini, Decanter World Wine Awards, and Concours Mondial de Bruxelles. These awards have helped Moldova become known as a serious producer of high-quality wines, able to compete internationally and impress even the most demanding wine experts. A major milestone in promoting Moldovan wines abroad was the creation of the National Office of Vine and Wine (ONVV) and the launch of the national brand "Wine of Moldova: Unexpectedly Great" in 2013. The 46th edition of the World Congress of Vine and Wine will take place from June 16 to 20, 2025, at the Palace of the Republic in Chișinău, Moldova. The congress will bring together 300 experts, researchers, winemakers, oenologists, producers, and policymakers from 51 member countries of the OIV, to discuss the future of the global wine industry. Participants will also take part in 13 technical visits to Moldova's most renowned wineries, and enjoy a festive dinner hosted at Cricova – the world-famous underground wine city known for its vast tunnels and excellent wines. Participation packages are available for purchase on the official congress website: The event is organized by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry of Moldova and the National Office for Vine and Wine (ONVV). Moldova has been a member of the OIV since April 3, 2001 – the first country from the CIS to join the organization. In 2024, the OIV celebrates its 100th anniversary, and the congress in Moldova marks the beginning of its second centenary. Photo: View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE World Congress of Vine and Wine Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
