The great grape escape? It’s a mouthful alright but that is exactly what a vineyard tour means – a chance to sip and stay in the most scenic places of the world and at the same time exalt in the face of a fine bottle of excellent wine.
If you are up for a relaxing vacation where nothing is required of you besides to enjoy the grand view of the rural landscape and a glass of your favorite bubbly or red, then a tour of the wine regions of the world might just be what you are looking for.
With areas that are located away from the hectic urban life, vineyards present you with the ideal escape, whether you are in the mood for a simple but enjoyable walk through rows and rows of grape vines or a quiet evening over an excellent dinner, and wine, of course.
A vineyard tour is a great way for you to sample the authentic vineyard life. Many tour operators offer demonstrations of how wine is made – from the time the grapes are handpicked (to avoid crushing the fruit and squashing the inner part against the purply red pigment of the skin) to when they are actually crushed and finally bottled.
And if this is not included in the package, many vineyards are more than willing to show you an impromptu display of how grapes travel a long way from vines to the wine glass.
Wine tasting is yet another perk to touring the wine regions. It is a whole new experience tasting wines with you standing in a relaxed atmosphere on the very soil where the vine was cultivated and with the very people who helped grow these vines.
Certainly, it is different from tasting wine in some hotel in some part of the city with strangers all around, wine snobs and wine wannabes included. In a vineyard tour, you get to savor the wine and the place where it was born.
In many wine region vacations, vineyards usually offer guided tours of their facilities, lasting anywhere from an hour to half a day, before concluding with a wine tasting.
Traditionally, vineyards offer wine tasting only as a complimentary, but as more and more people begin to appreciate the subtleties of wine and oenology in general, wineries are also beginning to charge a small fee for a broader range of wines to taste.
Going on a tour through the wine regions of the world gives you a chance to learn about the wine making process. As a result, wineries benefit from the publicity. Offset the two and you get a guided tour with tremendous value.
Vine and Wine for an Excellent Time
The best time to visit the wine regions for a vineyard tour is, of course, during harvest season. This is when the vineyards are most alive as workers start picking the grapes and loading them in waiting trucks to be brought to the winery.
However, most wineries are open year-round, giving you more leeway in terms of when to leave home for a sip and a taste.
Visiting vineyards during off seasons is a good idea. There are fewer people so you won’t feel cramped and have a real good time relaxing in the quiet scenery of rolling hills and valleys.
As an added benefit, off season is also the time to take advantage of lower airfares, reduced room rates, and other bargains one can find at low peak.
Top Wine Regions to Visit
From the elegance of France’s classic castle scenes and Tuscany’s sun-kissed vineyards to Western US soils where America’s marvelous wine regions stretch from California to Oregon and finally to Canada’s Niagara region, a lesser known wine producing area but touting scenic wonders to rival many of European sherry and port centers.
And if that is not enough to satisfy your appetite for more wine regions to visit, head on to the Southern Hemisphere where the coveted harvest season springs forth as the winter in the north draws to a close.
Here are the top wine regions to visit when you go on your next vineyard tour:
Andalucía
The sun is not the only thing that sizzles during Spain’s summer season. Andalucía, Spain’s most famous wine region, also sizzles, in the way glorious sunset does, as the prime tourist season draws to a close and bottles of the finest sherries are uncorked to cap the season off.
The vinicultural tradition of Spain owes much to this southwestern province and its best product – sherry. Sure, the English may be credited for making this drink such a success overseas, but Andalucía is the birthplace of this much revered drink. Its official name? D.O. Jerez-Xérès-Sherry-Manzanilla de Sanlúcar de Barrameda. A mouthful to pronounce but its moniker, Jerez, is thankfully short.
But Sherry is not the only wine that you can find here. With more vineyard acreage than anywhere in the world, Andalucía offers you some of the most diverse wine region tours in Europe and the finest arrays of wines.
So where do you start?
Most Andalucía vineyard tours start off in Seville and head to Jerez de Frontera, the Sherry capital of the world. Traveling through the snaking mountains offers you a unique chance to experience Spain’s warm Mediterranean transform into the frozen north. And at the end of the road, you find the famous Andalucían Pueblo Blanco (White Village), appearing like great white apparitions nestled against a backdrop of black mountains.
Wine tours in Spain are virtually untouched by tourists so if you want a hassle-free, tourist-free Andalucían vineyard tour, this is it.
California
Known for its wine tasting tourism and sublimely flavored vintages, California is the largest wine producing area in the United States.
Its prime wine regions, Sonoma and Napa Valley, are internationally recognized not only for their excellent bottles but for their explosive wine tourism, a fact that is bolstered yet again by the release of the popular film Sideways (2004), showcasing the state’s Santa Barbara wineries.
So why do people love to visit California’s wine regions?
Once you see the place, the answer is obvious. Many of California’s wineries are family-owned and small enough to give that quaint country appeal. Neatly tucked away in the scenic rolling vineyards, the word to aptly describe the whole atmosphere is: cozy.
Most visitors discover these wineries only by stumbling over them as they tour the whole region, looking to sample many of California’s excellent vintages.
Loire Valley
This is arguably the most beautiful wine region in the world – France’s Loire Valley that is famous for its regal chateaux and excellent choices of white and red wines. The great Loire River sinuously makes its way through the famed fertile valley seeped in rich history and viticulture and more than seventy appellations.
But for the best vineyards in the Loire, head on to the almost exclusively south-facing slopes where the vines get a chance to capture the last glimpse of the sun’s rays.
Vouvray and Savennières are the first two locales that come to mind but there are also many great vineyards found on the left bank of the Loire, such as the ones at Coteaux du Layon, Passavant-sur-Layon down Chalonnes, and Sèvre-et-Maine.
People used to consider the Loire Valley as the “northern limit of wine” but with global warming, that may no longer be true.
Today, the Loire continues to produce excellent wines, throwing forth a vibrant plethora of whites in all styles – crisp, refreshing, rich, oak-influenced, fine, mineral, sweet, hedonistic, and botrytised – and many fine reds.
Hunter Valley
Spring comes to the Down Under state as the northerly winter closes. As such, this is often the best season to visit some of Australia’s great wine regions. Hunter Valley is located in the South Wales Valley just two hours north of Sydney.
With first-rate vintages and over 60 wineries, this wine region also offers fantastic views of verdant vineyards and their shops and restaurants.
Most of the wineries in Hunter Valley offer free wine tasting, boutique-style, and guided strolls through the vineyard.
But if you feel like you want to sit back and let someone else take the reins, then you are also going to enjoy the horse drawn carriages offered. And at the end of it all, a picnic lunch served with authentic Australian wine.
Champagne in the early morning while on a hot air balloon is a great way to take in the sunrise. You will get a view of this scenic wine region like no other and even spot kangaroos hopping about as you soar over their sleeping area.
There are also mini coaches, mini buses, vintage cars, limousines, bicycles, or even double decker buses, all available for you to explore this beautiful location and enjoy the fruit of Australia’s vines.
There are, of course, several more wine regions dotting the whole world that if we were to create a multi-colored map of them, the result would be a fine mesh of colors and lines. So for the unforgettable scenic route to discovering the bounties of the world’s wine regions – take a wine tour now!
Touring the Wine Regions
