Hilde Essers, chairman of H.Essers and Gert Bervoets, CEO of the same company, will, together with Jan Gorissen (Palmers Insurance & Real Estate), convert the castle farm of Gors (Borgloon) into a wine estate. They will plant the surrounding agricultural lands with grape vines to make a top chardonnay.
Terroir du Limbourg is the name of the new company that the three entrepreneurs founded ‘as a hobby’. The goal is to restore the dilapidated farm in Gors and turn it into a wine experience center. About 2.5 hectares of agricultural land will be converted into a plantation, with the aim of producing a real top Limburg wine. “For the time being, we are still better at drinking wine than at making wine, but the intention is to grow to a high level, like our neighbor Peter Colemont of Clos d’Opleeuw,” Gert Bervoets notes in Het Belang van Limburg.
“It is not our main intention to make a lot of money from this,” Bervoets adds. A statement that fellow winegrower (and professor) Ghislain Houben also endorses. “There is one way to become a wine millionaire, and that is to first be a wine billionaire,” Houben joked on Thursday at the first Limburg Winemaking Congress 360°, which took place on the Corda Campus. Which does not alter the fact that Limburg wine growers are doing excellently. Their number, and therefore also the volume delivered, is increasing. And yet the quality is highly appreciated by top restaurants and culinary guides.
“The economic importance of this sector is increasing,” says Johann Leten, managing director of Voka Limburg. “That is why we have established a network in which we unite Limburg winegrowers and wine professionals to exchange knowledge and experiences.” Such as at the first Limburg Wine Congress, which welcomed 120 participants and therefore turned into a great success. Next year the conference will move to Dutch Limburg.
