9 of the best wine-tasting holidays in France

Times

18-05-2025

Buying wine is easy. You go to Tesco, Waitrose or Booths and pick up a bottle. But that's also how you buy ketchup. It just doesn't do the subject justice. What you need is a wine-tasting trip — and to France, the world's (please: no argument) foremost wine nation. This is fun, gives your wines a human backstory — 'I source my reds from Jean-Pierre' — and gets you under the skin of local culture as no other consumer goods can.
Plus the wine world needs you. The amount of French wine drunk has dropped about 60 per cent in 60 years. The harvest in 2024 was not promising. Our visits are crucial. But let us be clear: the suggested visits below are not necessarily to the best wine domains — France has 59,000; no-one knows them all — but to ones I appreciate and where I can guarantee good wine and a decent welcome.
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The Bordelais has a head start. It has been the planet's greatest wine region for 2,000 years. Although, obviously, the majority of its 5,400-plus vineyards are not the big-bucks superstars, you'll still need to suspend belief and trust that wine is the most vital element in life's rich tapestry. That's how they think round here. For an overview, start at the Cité du Vin in Bordeaux — Europe's finest wine gallery-cum-museum. Meanwhile, A La Française runs smart small-group tours into the vineyards, including a full day in the Médoc and Saint-Émilion, with picnic lunch (alafrancaise.fr). Under your own steam, favour Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion in Pessac-Léognan, a tram ride out of Bordeaux centre (les-carmes-haut-brion.com). Château La Dominique is a great choice in Saint-Émilion; don't miss lunch at the winery's Terrasse Rouge restaurant (chateau-ladominique.com).
Bang centre in Bordeaux, the Hôtel Majestic has a good elegance-to-price ratio and is in a great location next to the city's Grand Théâtre.
The wine tour specialist Grape Escapes has a top-end, five-day trip to the region, taking in nine wineries.
grapeescapes.net
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Burgundy was a big player in medieval Christendom. Monks were the wine men, so fleshly fulfilment retains a spiritual aspect. Burgundy's wine production is much smaller-scale than Bordeaux's and more agricultural too, across a ruffled landscape where — notably along the Côtes de Nuit and Côte de Beaune — vines appear to be stitched into the slopes. My favoured stop in the region's north is elsewhere, at Domaine La Croix Montjoie in the hillside village of Tharoiseau. Its Vézelay whites are similar to chablis, but cheaper (lacroixmontjoie.com). To the south, make for Anne-Françoise Pidault's Château de Pierreclos. It rises from a knoll outside Pierreclos village, west of Mâcon. The Pouilly-Fuissé wines are ace, the château accommodation fit for Marie Antoinette (chateaudepierreclos.com).
Try the British-owned Abbaye de la Bussière, a medieval abbey at La Bussière-sur-Ouche, southwest of Dijon. Gloriously converted and featuring an excellent restaurant, it makes an ideal base.
Cycle Mâcon to Beaune on a six-night trip from Inntravel which will take you through the heart of big-time wine Burgundy.
inntravel.co.uk
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In his Aspects of Provence, James Pope-Hennessy writes of 'an ancient English longing for the south'. That longing now most certainly embraces the rosé wines of Provence. On a sunny day, a bottle of rosé shining grey-pink and beaded with condensation exerts an appeal so lascivious that you can't keep your hands off it. I can't, anyway. This is all the truer now that the pinks have gone beyond their beach-bag image and become jolly good. The evidence? Show up at the Combard family vineyard, Figuière, on the coast at La-Londes-les-Maures (figuiere-provence.com). Inland, among dozens, try Château Sainte Roseline at Les Arcs. The wines are first-rate, and 14th-century Sainte Roseline herself may be seen, blackened but more or less preserved, in a casket in the on-site chapel (sainte-roseline.com).
Head for the British-owned Château de Berne wine estate at Lorgues. Good wines, excellent accommodation, Michelin-starred dining.
Smooth Red will tailor-make a trip — or supply one ready-made, such as three nights of top-end tippling based in Aix.
smoothred.com
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Everyone knows Beaujolais, but few know where it is. North of Lyons is the answer, where the region undulates via often perpendicular vineyards and gold-stone villages — Oingt, Ternand — which out-pretty Provence. Beaujolais Nouveau is decried by wine buffs, but buffs understand nothing. November-released Nouveau is not for sipping and analysing. It's fermented fast to fuel festivity, full stop. And it's not even half the story. Beaujolais Villages and the ten crus — Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent and similar — have absorbing qualities. Find the evidence at the magnificent, 17th-century Château de La Chaize at Odenas whose Morgon, Fleurie and Côte de Brouilly wines are estimable (chateaudelachaize.fr).
The Hôtel Villa Alexandre at Régnié-Durette slots the contemporary into the 18th century, with a good restaurant to boot.
For tours, the best bet is the regional tourism website which offers dozens of options, from walks to electric scooter, 4×4 and Segway outings.
beaujolais-tourisme.comFrench monarchs bestowed distinction on the Loire Valley, moving in there when things got edgy in Paris, so you'd expect there to be good wines. There are. The sauvignon blanc of Sancerre, it is said, 'always delights the palate of an honest man' — test the claim at the Henri Bourgeois winery (famillebourgeois-sancerre.com). There are the reds of Bourgueil, the chenin-rich sparklers of Vouvray, and unnecessarily modest muscadet round Nantes. Last time I was there, I drank a good glassful at Clisson for £1.30. It's a little pricier at the mother-and-daughter Günther-Chereau vineyard at Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine, but you'll like it (vgc.fr).
Stay near Sancerre — Hôtel Restaurant Famille Bourgeois does the business, both bed and food-wise, with local produce to the fore.
Among the Vrbo holiday homes in the region is the 'Beautiful Castles' riverfront four-sleeper at Vouvray.
Once there, contact Myriam Fouasse-Robert for a tour. Myriam is a winemaker's wife, perfectly fluent in English and a great wine guide.
loire-wine-tours.com
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At the hinge of the Vosges mountains and the plain, the Alsace wine route unwinds like a folk tale. Vines roll up the slopes to castles at the top, down to the gates of half-timbered villages distinguished by flowers, wine-filled courtyards and epic homeliness. The food is sustaining, the wines as fine as farming families can produce. Which is very fine indeed. Seek out the Jean Becker winery in Zellenberg, near Colmar, for the rieslings, pinot gris and gewurztraminers you need. The lady of the house, Martine Becker, speaks better English than I do so you're guaranteed to garner all the info and intrigue you so desire (vinsbecker.com). Nearby, the astonishingly pretty Eguisheim combats excess tweeness with muscular Pfersigberg and Eichberg grand cru wines. Try them at the Joseph Freudenreich winery in an old tithe courtyard in the village centre (joseph-freudenreich.fr).
In Colmar, book the 16th-century Hôtel Le Maréchal. It's like staying at the home of minor nobility.
Grape Escapes has a decent range of Alsace wine tours, including a three-day Colmar-based vineyard jaunt.
grapeescapes.net
Pursuit of elegance is a key reason for going to Champagne. Madame de Pompadour put it thusly: 'Champagne is the only drink which enhances a woman's beauty.' Works for men, too, but only if the women are still drinking. We're in a world of glam and glitz and champers as a gift from a beneficent deity. The big champagne houses foster the image, but the reality is out in the vineyards. There, family producers are out and about in wellies and cellars dug out by grandad with a pickaxe. Champagne production remains a branch of farming — still elegant, but rooted. See for yourself at Voirin-Jumel at Cramant on the Côte des Blancs (champagne-voirin-jumel.com), Champagne Barnaut at Bouzy in the Montagne de Reims (champagne-barnaut-bouzy.com) and G Tribaut in Hautvillers, Champagne's prettiest village (champagne.fr).
The contemporary Hôtel de la Paix in Reims is a good base in the city centre with a lovely pool and wellness area.
Not In The Guidebooks has a four-day, high-end champagne tasting and foodie mini-break, based in Reims.
• Finest champagne houses in France
Wine-wise, the Rhône Valley splits in two. In the north the big-name vineyards full of syrah ('shiraz', if you're Australian) — Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage — climb up terraces so steep that harvesters need one leg longer than the other for balance. Much fun may be had at the Tain-l'Hermitage winery, which will set you off on foot, ebike or e-scooter through the vines and up the stupendously famous Hermitage hill, then throw in a tasting (cavedetain.com). The north has viognier whites, too; tackle them at Rémi Niero's place in Condrieu (vins-niero.com). The southern Rhône is more Mediterranean, more productive and more diverse. For insight, contact Englishman Nick Thompson, once a wine producer in Cairanne, now a convivial guide. He can lead a small-group morning at l'Ameillaud winery, or a trip around neighbouring appellations — including Châteauneuf-du-Pape (ameillaud.com).
At Condrieu, the Rhône-side Beau Rivage has a brilliant restaurant and a peaceful garden to relax in.
Further south, the Hotel de Cambis — four-star, great wine bar, 17th-century setting — would be my choice in Avignon.
Expedia has a day-long northern Rhône wine trip from Lyons, which includes a local guide and a wine tasting.
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The great southern wine region, curving around the Med west from the Rhône, used to be France's bargain basement, shipping out plonk for the working classes. Those days are gone. The vineyard surface has been cut by half in 50 years, but Languedoc-Roussillon still produces about 30 per cent of all French wine — and, with it, unbeatable value for money. These are sun-drenched, minerally items that you might find for well under a tenner in the Gard county at, say, the Domaine Saint Octime near Sommières (sainte-octime.fr) and in the Hérault county at Domaine Coste-Moynier of Saint-Christol (coste-moynier.com). Meanwhile, the best Blanquette de Limoux sparklers in the Aude county rival mid-range champagnes for around a third the price; head for Sieur d'Arques in Limoux itself (sieurdarques.com).
Near Béziers, Château St Pierre de Serjac is one of the loveliest wine châteaux in the French south: sumptuous accommodation, good food and a range of wine-related activities.
Pézenas is a central base for a Languedoc wine trip. At nearby Aumes, Vintage Travel has the Drawing House, which sleeps six.
• Best vineyard hotels to visit in France