The official launch ceremony of the EU-funded project Sea of Wine took place in Yerevan. The aim of the EU-funded project is to create a consolidated wine route connecting Armenia, Georgia, Greece, and Ukraine.

The 26-month project is funded by the European Union and will be co-implemented in 2020-2022 by the International Center for Agribusiness Research and Education Foundation (Armenia), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Georgian Center for Agribusiness Development (Georgia), and Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies (Ukraine) in close collaboration with the Joint Technical Secretariat of the Black Sea Basin Joint Operational Programme 2014-2020.

“We strive to establish the Black Sea region as a wine travel destination on the global travel map through the Sea of Wine initiative, as well as to support local businesses including wineries, travel agencies, accommodation facilities, and gastronomic locations. The partner countries are part of the Historic World of Wine, which, if aggressively marketed, has the potential to attract a lot of attention and interest from tourists”, said Arthur Grigoryan, Director at the ICARE Foundation, Armenia.

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Image by: ICARE Foundation

Partner organizations aim to promote the Black Sea region as a wine tourism destination by creating a platform, organizing various impressive events, and most importantly, implementing wine routes, thus developing them into a single Black Sea Wine Route. The latter will be available at an in-house ICT platform, helping businessmen across the region to breathe life into their businesses and catering for travelers with everything they need.

All in all, the desired result the project is about to achieve is as follows:

- to develop an ICT platform that will include all the necessary information about the region as a wine production and tourism destination;

- to launch one-of-a-kind Let’s Talk about Wine event series;

- to hold The Wines of the Black Sea event intended to enhance the cross-border cooperation and positioning of the Black Sea region as a single wine tourism destination;

- to introduce the common label, The Black Sea Wine Glass Member will unite the countries and bring more recognition to the region as a wine tourism destination.