If interpretation creates meaningful connections and if wine can connect people – then what is better than sharing stories while tasting wine?
Wine can tell us many stories and reveal secrets. Not only because of the old Latin saying “in vino veritas”, but also because of something that the famous artist Salvador Dali described: “He who knows how to enjoy, no longer drinks wine, but tastes secrets”.
The Danube macroregion has many secrets. And wines. And stories.
Here, along the Danube, we share many stories about lifestyle, tradition, cooperation, influences, but also about sustainability and diversity. Wine (and food) is all about variety. And diversity is actually identity.
In the ‘Transdanube Travel Stories’ project, we tried to inspire local, small family wineries to prepare new tourist products, using an interpretive way of connecting guests with their heritage, through wine. So, all those stories about tradition, history, influences, special events, families and their relationships with other people, nature or terroir can reveal many secrets.
The Danube has a unique identity, but every small place, village… even every family, has some special unique points of identity. In marketing, we know it as a USP – a Unique Selling Point.
In Tourism, we can definitely say: our heritage (it doesn’t matter if it is a personal or national level of heritage).
It was an honor to be invited to speak in front of a collection of great winemakers, experts, sommeliers, historians, museum curators, and journalists. It was a great opportunity to share a few thoughts in an interactive presentation on how to inspire our guests, evoke resonance in them using the attitude towards their daily life and provide them with a real opportunity to get closer to our destination in a way that is understandable and relevant to them, through our local specialties – to feel the place. Or, in this case, maybe it’s better to say: taste the place. All participants of the presentation agreed that education for an interpretive approach in Eno-Gastro tourism can add additional value to the already high-quality wines in the Danube Region. And also, the desired recognition
To finish, I will share just one small personal observation and a big thing about gastronomic interpretation: Along with good wine and food, half the work in these meaningful experiences is actually done by them themselves with their taste, smell, and color. Meaningful relationships are just beginning to flow like wine.
Max Dubravko Fijačko is an award-wining heritage interpreter and an IE Certified Trainer for interpretive guides (CIG). He is IE’s Gastronomic Heritage Coordinator. He was involved in the Interreg project ‘Transdanube Travel Stories’ as an educator and guest speaker. You can get in touch with him at: dubravko.fijacko@gmail.com.
To cite this article: Fijačko, Max Dubravko (2022) ‘Sharing of wine is sharing of stories’ in Interpret Europe Newsletter 4-2022, pg.16
Available online: https://interpret-europe.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Newsletter-2022_4-winter.pdf
