A day in the vines beats a tasting room. Here is where to spend it.
Which Douro quinta feeds you properly. What a Chianti half-day out of Florence really costs. Whether Napa is worth the bus from San Francisco. Reviews of the vineyard days you can book, region by region.
Four wine countries, four completely different days out.
Portugal down a river, Tuscany over one hill, Catalonia up a mountain track, Georgia into a clay pot in the ground. What each one costs and what the people who went say.
- 01The day on the waterDouro Valley Tour: 2 Vineyard Visits, River Cruise, Winery LunchTwo quintas above the Douro, lunch at the second one and the boat back down the water. The day people fly to Porto for.
02The half-day escapeHalf day Chianti Vineyard Escape from Florence with Wine TastingsOut of Florence after breakfast, two Chianti cellars, back before the afternoon heat. The cheapest way to see why Tuscany is famous.
03The mountain trackPenedés Vineyards Tour by 4WD w/Wine & CavaA four-wheel drive up into the Penedés from Barcelona, where the cava is made and the tour bus cannot follow.
04The clay-pot dayKakheti Wine Region Tour with 10 Wine TastingsNine or ten pours across Kakheti, poured from vessels buried to the neck in the floor. Under twenty dollars, and nothing else tastes like it.
Six countries where the vineyard day is the whole reason to go.
Terraces cut by hand above a Portuguese river, cellars under Bordeaux limestone, a Tuscan hill with two estates on it, Catalan cava caves, Californian tasting rooms an hour from the Golden Gate and an island of New Zealand vines you reach by ferry.
The wine-country day trip, and the three shapes it comes in.
Almost nobody stays in wine country. You go out for the day from a city an hour or two away, and the only real decisions are how far the minibus drives and whether lunch is included. Three versions, what boarding each one costs, and where it runs.
The vineyard days more travellers take than any others.
Every vineyard review on the site →Porto, Napa, Kakheti and Saint-Émilion carry the whole catalogue between them. What each day includes, and what it costs to get on it.
1
2 Wine Regions, Farm-to-Table Lunch & Boat
Spend 9 to 10 hours with WSET-certified guides such as Luis, Jose, Pedro, or George, visiting family-run wineries in Amarante and the Douro. Expect Vinho Verde, Port, olive oil, regional food, a chef’s meal, and a one-hour private boat cruise from Pinhão. The day is wine-heavy, social, and not suitable for children under 10.
From · $94
Read our review →
2
Napa and Sonoma Wine Country Full-Day Tour from San Francisco
from $165
3
Douro Valley Tour: 2 Vineyard Visits, River Cruise, Winery Lunch
from $101
4
San Francisco Super Saver: Muir Woods & Wine Country w/ optional Gourmet Lunch
from $179
5
Day Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine Tastings
from $29
6
Toledo Tour & Vineyard Walk with Wine Tasting from Madrid
from $133
7
Kakheti Wine Region Tour with 9 Wine Tastings
from $29
8
Half day Chianti Vineyard Escape from Florence with Wine Tastings
from $53
Tuscany sells the hill. The wine is what keeps you up there.
Chianti Classico sits between Florence and Siena and takes half a day to do properly: two estates, a cellar dug into the hillside, sangiovese poured beside the barrel it came out of. Go in the morning and the vans have not arrived yet.
Every Tuscan vineyard day →
France puts its cellars underground and its prices on the gate.
Saint-Émilion runs on limestone galleries you walk down into; Champagne keeps kilometres of Roman chalk under Reims; Alsace lines its road with half-timbered villages and riesling. The tasting is the cheap part. The visit is the appointment.
- 1Grand Cru Classé Winery Visit and Tastingfrom $23
- 2Saint Emilion Half-Day Trip with Wine Tasting & Winery Visit from Bordeauxfrom $133
- 3Bordeaux Vineyard Tour and Wine Tastingfrom $21
Past the gate: the cellar, the barrel room and the tasting bench.
A vineyard visit is really three rooms. The rows, where somebody explains the soil. The cellar, ten degrees colder than the car park. Then the bench, where five glasses are lined up and nobody is in a hurry.
What a day among the vines actually costs, from Georgia to Napa.
Every vineyard day on the site, sorted by the per-head price. The gap between the cheapest and the dearest is a factor of seventy, and the cheap end is not the worse day.
Kakheti marathons, Saint-Émilion family estates, island bodegas and a walk through the rows with two pours at the end.
The standard full day out: transport from the city, two or three estates, lunch somewhere with a view.
Private drivers, Burgundy in a car of four, Champagne by helicopter-money and the harvest-season table bookings.
Three wine countries that do it in a way nowhere else copies.
Most wine regions share a template: rows, a cellar, a bench. These three broke it a long time ago and never went back.
The Douro’s Hand-Cut Terraces
The whole valley is schist, and every flat surface on it was built by somebody with a crowbar. Terraces climb from the river to the ridge in steps a metre deep, planted so steeply that harvest is still done on foot. It has been a demarcated region since 1756, which makes it the oldest on earth, and the boat back down to Porto passes under the lot of it.
- 1Douro Valley Tour: 2 Vineyard Visits, River Cruise, Winery Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,542 reviews
- 2Douro Valley Wine Tour: 3 Vineyard Visits, Wine Tastings, Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,562 reviews
- 33 Douro Valley Vineyards Tour with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 705 reviews
Georgian Qvevri
Georgians have been fermenting in egg-shaped clay vessels buried in the cellar floor for eight thousand years, skins and stems included, which is why the whites come out amber. Family houses across Kakheti still do it that way and open the cellar to anyone who knocks. Nine or ten pours is a normal afternoon and the whole day costs less than a bottle in Bordeaux.
- 1Day Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,774 reviews
- 2Kakheti Wine Region Tour with 9 Wine Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,541 reviews
- 3Kakheti Wine Region Tour with 10 Wine Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,160 reviews
The Crayères Under Reims
The Romans quarried chalk under Reims and left cone-shaped pits fifty metres deep. The houses moved in, because chalk holds a steady ten degrees and never moves, and there are now kilometres of galleries stacked with bottles resting on their sides. You go down cold stone stairs in July and come up again needing a jacket.
- 1Jeep tour of the vineyards with tasting and visits★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 70 reviews
- 2Champagne Vineyard Experience: Delve into the terroir★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 52 reviews
- 3Gourmet walk in the heart of the vineyards with Champagne tasting near Epernay★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 45 reviews
Four vineyard days that will not be there when you land.
Most of a wine trip can be sorted over breakfast. These four run on harvest dates, appointment books and cellars that take eight people at a time, and none of them care what day your flight gets in.
- 01Champagne Vineyard Experience: Delve into the terroirThe houses receive by appointment in small groups, and plenty of them close through the winter. There is no walking up to the gate.
- 02Douro Valley Tour: 2 Vineyard Visits, River Cruise, Winery LunchHarvest runs September into October and the quintas that serve lunch fill their tables weeks before it starts.
- 03Day Trip to Kakheti Wine Region Including 9 Wine TastingsRtveli, the Georgian harvest, lands in September, and the family cellars that pour ten wines take one group a day.
- 04Napa and Sonoma Wine Country Full-Day Tour from San FranciscoCrush is August to October, the tasting rooms cap their numbers by law and the Saturday slots go first.
Somebody has to drive home from the tasting, and it should not be you.
The one constraint every vineyard day shares: the good estates are in the countryside, the pours are generous and the road back is narrow. That is the whole argument for a day trip with a driver, a bike with a battery, or a sidecar somebody else steers. Decide that before you decide the region.
By country — where the rows are
By the shape of the day — half a morning or a whole table
Bordeaux to Reims: the wine road people drive once and talk about forever.
Bordeaux
Beaune
Colmar
Épernay
ParisThe estates and cellar doors written up most recently.
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