As grape growing season commences, travellers now have the chance to see their favourite tipple go from grape to glass when visiting Europe’s vineyards. Vineyards are much more than just wine – they’re also renowned for their picturesque beauty and stunning landscapes.
However, new research by travel expert and ferry operator DFDS has analysed over 500 European vineyards to find the continent’s most stunning vineyards. The team looked at more than 20,000 Google reviews to determine the results with keywords such as “beautiful”, “picturesque” and “scenic” used to find how beautiful it was.
The study also analysed the overall positive, neutral, or negative sentiment of reviews to assign a normalised satisfaction score. These were combined to award an overall score/100 for each vineyard. They found Vinarija Rizman in Croatia as the top winery receiving an overall score of 94/100. Meanwhile, it got a near-perfect beauty score of 97.9/100.
The family-owned Croatian vineyard outranked wine destinations such as Italy and France to bag the top spot. The vineyard is owned by the Štimac family, whose great-grandfather, known by the nickname “Rizman”, planted the very first vines and began a decades-long tradition of winegrowing in the family.
Now, the organic estate features 23 hectares of new vineyards and 1,700 olive trees, all of which are pruned and harvested by hand. It’s easy to see why thousands of reviews hailed its beauty, with acres of thriving vines that overlook a stunning sea view. The winery also houses a tasting room on an outdoor terrace, allowing visitors to admire the sights while sampling specialty wines like the Rizman Pošip, a dry white wine.
Here are the top 10 most beautiful vineyards in Europe, according to DFDS.