For wine lovers, visiting vineyards and tasting different wine brands adds a very nice touch to their travels. On those trips, using public transport or joining a guided tour is a must if you want to take full advantage of the wine samples! I prefer small group tours with 20 people at most, and I’m happy when I get to visit well known and beautiful vineyards producing excellent wines. Every winery I visited was different, and you can read the details below, but in any case I totally recommend you to stop by at any of the four places I mention if you ever happen to be somewhere in the region.
Vineyards visited:
Hunter valley near Sydney. September 2012.
It is a big wine producing area with beautiful scenery and excellent visitor service. On one and the same tour you visit up to five different wineries of various sizes with a wide choice of wines to try. The tasting areas are extremely well-organized, with a written list of everything you taste. I booked my tour with Hunter Valley Wine Tasting Tours for 115 AUD, a light meal included, and I really enjoyed that.
Sonoma&Napa California. October 2013.
A famous wine producing area with great wines to offer. Initially I booked the Muir Woods & Wine Tasting tour for 94 USD with Incredible Adventures company. Due to a government shutdown the tour was changed to mostly follow the itinerary of Napa Valley & Sonoma Wine County tours. I especially liked the opportunity to observe the wine making process in Benziger winery. Another interesting fact: to ensure the best quality of wine they don’t water their vineyards, not even during dry spells.
Waiheke island near Auckland. December 2014.
This one was my solo tour by public transport. First I took a boat to Waiheke Island, then a taxi to the first winery, a walk to the second one and a public bus to the third. I enjoyed the first winery most of all – the best ambience and the best views, hands down! That tour was special because the wineries offered numerous quality wines from all over the country, not just the locally produced ones. Beautiful scenery along the way, too, so feel free to follow in my footsteps! Waiheke Island itself is worth a separate day’s visit.
Rudesheim am Rhein. May 2015.
This wine producing area is again different from all of the above: many of its wineries are located not in the fields but in town. To visit the vineyards, I took a cable car up to the Germania Statue and then walked through the vineyards downhill back to Rudesheim, enjoying the beautiful views across the Rhine river. Finding a wine tasting place downtown was not easy! I wound up in Georg Breuer Vinotheque at Grabenstrasse 8, where they offer free wine tastings in their little shop with no available seats. The accompanying stories about the wines were great, still standing all the time was not very convenient, to be honest.
- Published by Anita on November 19, 2015
Author: Anita Sāne
About the author
Anita is a part-time traveller, passionate photographer and a retired career woman from Latvia, travelling mostly solo for more than 15 years. She is a skilled travel planner who plans and executes her travels by herself. Anita wants to show you how to travel the world and open your mind to new experiences. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and Bloglovin.
Report
My comments