For the second year in succession, historic wine estate, La Motte of Franschhoek is South Africa’s Best of Wine Tourism champion.

The 2013 winner of the annual competition run by the Great Wine Capitals (GWC) once again came out narrowly ahead of Waterkloof Estate, Helderberg’s biodynamic winery situated on the slopes of the Schapenberg.

The GWC, a network of the world’s leading wine-producing countries that shares international best practice to advance standards in wine tourism across the world, announced the results on 8 Movember in Florence, Italy, at a gala dinner attended by leading wine tourism practitioners from around the world.

GWC’s members, in addition to Cape Town-Cape Winelands, include Mainz-Rheinhessen (Germany), Bilbao-Rioja (Spain), Bordeaux (France), Florence (Italy), Mendoza (Argentina), Porto (Portugal), San Francisco-Napa (United States) and New Zealand’s Christchurch.

La Motte's win was based on its overall performance, taking first place in the Sustainable Wine Tourism category, and second position in both the Arts and Culture and in the Wine Tourism Services categories. Last year the estate earned the top score in the Arts and Culture category. Waterkloof’s position as South Africa's runner-up was earned by coming first in the Architecture and Landscapes category, as it did last year, and by coming second this time in both the Sustainable Wine Tourism Practices and the Restaurant categories.

André Morgenthal, spokesperson for the awards, said the virtual tie between La Motte and Waterkloof was a reflection of the extremely high standard of entries. “The difference between the scores was very slight.  We had higher scores across virtually all categories compared with previous years.  It is very encouraging to see that since the inception of the competition over a decade ago, there has been a steady advance in the quality and sophistication of wine tourism experiences entered for consideration.”