The Great Wine Capitals Special Achievement Awards recognize outstanding lifelong accomplishments by wine tourism related companies.
During the Awards Ceremony and Gala Dinner marking the end of the 2023 Annual Conference of the Great Wine Capitals Global Network in Lausanne, the Vivanco Foundation received the Network’s third Special Achievement Award. The first award was in 2019 for La Cité du Vin (Bordeaux) and the second, in 2022 for WOW (World of Wine) in Porto.
The inspiration for the Vivanco family to create the museum and foundation was, in the words of Pedro Vivanco “To Give Back to Wine What Wine has Given to Us”.
Vivanco has been an important member of the Rioja wine community for three generations. The family owns and operates several wineries and a thriving grape and wine brokerage business.
Co-owner Santiago Vivanco told Inside Rioja during the gala dinner in Lausanne that his father Pedro first intended for the museum to house his collection of antique wine presses. Pedro’s wife Angélica Sáenz and the rest of the family convinced him to broaden the scope of the museum to include a collection of wine antiques, sculptures and paintings where wine was the artists’ inspiration, as well as an impressive collection of corkscrews and recipients for drinking wine.
A Roman mosaic showing Bacchus (Photo Tom Perry)
The museum occupies an area of 4,000 square meters (43,000 square feet), with five rooms and Bacchus’s Garden with 220 grape varieties planted.
A visit to the museum is a tour de force covering every aspect of wine culture. The Vivanco family is indeed giving back what wine has given them.
The tour begins in Hall One (Being Born, Growing, Maturing), relating the history of grape and wine culture from the beginning in the Caucasus region over 8,000 years ago to the present day.
Hall Two (Save the Essences) tells the story of the evolution of bottle, barrel and cork manufacture, with interesting audiovisual presentations about each product.
Hall Three (The Winery, the Dream): Here, the visitor discovers the processes carried out in the winery, among which are fermentation and the sensations of a wine tasting – color, aroma and taste as well as the transport of wine.
Hall Four (Wine, Art and Symbol) takes the visitor through art and archaeology from Egypt, the Greeks and Romans and the Judeo-Christian traditions.
An impressive collection of Roman mosaics, sculptures with intricately carved ivory inlays and paintings by world-renowned artists like Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Juan Gris, Joaquín Sorolla and others show how artists have used wine as inspiration for their works.
Wine goblets with ivory inlay (Photo Tom Perry).
Hall Five (Open, Serve and Drink) houses 3,500 corkscrews from the time corks began to be used as closures to the present. There is a collection of glassware, bottles, decanters and other recipients to serve and drink wine.
These displays are impressive, even more so when you discover that what is shown accounts for only about a third of the family’s collection.
The museum also houses the headquarters of the Vivanco Foundation, and a documentation center with a vast library of wine books and magazines where scholars can carry out research on wine culture.
Visitors to the museum can enjoy a restaurant and gift shop as well as participate in wine tastings and courses.
There is a conference center and meeting rooms.
The museum and foundation have received numerous honors including several Best Of’ Wine Tourism awards from the Great Wine Capitals:
- 2005 National and International awards for Art & Culture.
- 2007 National award for Architecture, Parks and Gardens for Bacchus’s Garden.
- 2008 National award in the Art & Culture category for the Documentation Center.
- 2010 National ‘Best Of ‘Wine Tourism award for temporary Exhibits over nine years.
- 2013 National and International awards for Art & Culture.
At the Lausanne awards ceremony, Santiago Vivanco, co-owner and president of the Fundación Vivanco and Vivanco Enoturismo y Experiencias, explained,
We are extremely proud and happy to receive this award that highlights all the work done by the Vivanco family for over 20 years to share the culture of wine of our region and our country. It is an exclusive recognition that puts us on the map alongside most outstanding wine tourism destinations worldwide… This distinction is very important for us because it not only gives us a boost to continue our research and efforts to raise awareness, but also because it gives our wine and wine tourism culture the place we believe it deserves in the world.
Vivanco Museum of Wine Culture and Foundation
Carretera Nacional 232.
26330 Briones, La Rioja, Spain.
Museum Opening Hours & Book your tour
Text by Tom Perry, Inside Rioja
Featured photo: GWC/Elsa Mesot/MUTO.
Other photos: Tom Perry.
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