Local firm tailors wine tasting trips
Tours
By Tammy Cilione
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Spencer Ainsley/Poughkeepsie Journal |
Debbie Gioquindo wants her customers to be able to experience the world's best wines -- where they are made.
Gioquindo, owner of Personal Touch Travel in the Town of
After a 10-day wine tasting trip that included
"I did what most other people do. I booked a hotel, rented a car and went from winery to winery," she said of her trip.
Knowing what she now knows, she would have done it differently. A liaison that could put the tourists in touch with the wine makers and provided an educational experience would have been ideal.
"I would've liked to spend one day, if not two with a local representative meeting the wine makers, discussing how they make wine from when they pick the grape until the wine is in the bottle," she said. "It just adds another element when you go with someone who knows the area."
So Gioquindo, who has been a travel agent since the early 1990s, decided to tackle the matter. She launched Exclusive Wine Vacations, a subsidiary of her travel agency, May 27. She is now offering wine tours in
Customized tours of four or more people have flexible departure dates and her first tour, a walking and wine tasting tour of
These tours can be customized to the clients' specific tastes to ensure the precise vacation the traveler is looking for.
She keeps the maximum number in tour groups to 20, which means people get individual attention.
"They come away feeling that they learned something," she said.
And tourists can take wine tours that include biking, walking and cooking tours.
One of these tours is the Chianti Classico by Bike. It includes a 25- to 35-mile morning bike ride accompanied by a support van that provides transportation to Italian vineyards in the afternoon, a visit to a castle and a cooking school.
When assessing clients' needs, Gioquindo acknowledges age is a factor.
Twenty-five to 34-year-olds are more apt to want to take a biking or white water rafting wine tour. And people 35 to 50 want to experience something new with a small group of people, such as taking a cooking class, Gioquindo said.
Karen Lancaster, owner of 13-year-old Cross Country International in Pleasant Valley, which specializes in providing equestrian and walking tours to about 13 international locations, said finding a target market is exactly what businesses need to be successful these days.
''One reason we are surviving the bad economy, SARS and airline bankruptcy is being a niche market,'' said
''Wine is more than a passion, it's more of a lifestyle,'' she said.
Relevant Web link: Exclusive Wine Vacations: www.exclusivewinevacations..com