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New York Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Starter Pack for Aspiring Wine Lovers
Here's a little secret about wine — it's great fun. It's delicious, too. You would never know this to hear people talk about wine. Too often, it is buried under a mass of nonsense that has nothing to do with the pleasure and joy it offers. It's discussed with painstaking precision using complex terminology and pretension, as tasters grapple with metaphorical descriptions of aromas and flavors, and conjecture about methodology and equipment. They ultimately deconstruct wine like anatomy students dismembering a cadaver. It makes wine seem like very serious business, which, for many people, is a turnoff. Wine does deserve academic discussion. It can be complicated, with many mysterious elements that people strive to understand. Yet it's also a simple pleasure, a great drink. The serious, rational side of wine should not overwhelm its emotional appeal. Dry talk about learning to 'appreciate' wine obscures the fact that people deeply, passionately love it. It's the difference between fulfilling an obligation and being moved by desire. Reconciling these two sides of wine can be baffling. It's no wonder that people are hesitant about wine, especially young people, many of whom also fear alcohol as risky. Almost everybody finds it intimidating and often more expensive than other alcoholic drinks. Nonetheless, people are often curious, too. Perhaps they've seen people enjoying it, and they may have heard that humans have considered wine a great pleasure for thousands of years. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
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Travel + Leisure
26-05-2025
- Travel + Leisure
This 8-day Cruise Takes You to Some of Europe's Most Festive Christmas Markets—and You Can Buy Tickets Now
While the holidays might seem far away, it's never too early to plan a yuletide escape—yes, even before the start of summer. This holiday season, Abercrombie & Kent invites travelers on a luxurious journey through the heart of Europe with its "Christmas Markets on the Rhine" cruise. For eight festive days, passengers sail along the scenic Rhine River, stopping in storybook towns aglow with twinkling lights and the holiday spirit. From charming market stalls to historic squares decked with seasonal splendor, this itinerary offers a convenient way to experience Europe's most beloved Christmas traditions. Beginning in Strasbourg, France, known as the "Capital of Christmas," guests can wander through one of Europe's oldest and most popular Christmas markets, set against a backdrop of timber-framed houses. A highlight of Strasbourg is a visit to the Cave des Hospices, the city's oldest wine cellar, where guests can sample local vintages and learn about the region's winemaking heritage. From Strasbourg, the cruise makes its way to Freiburg in Germany's legendary Black Forest. Here, market stalls brim with handcrafted ornaments, traditional nutcrackers, and the irresistible aromas of bratwurst, roasted chestnuts, and steaming cups of spiced glühwein (mulled wine). The route also winds through several quaint villages in the Alsace wine region. In Heidelberg, Germany, guests are transported to a fairytale holiday setting, nestled beneath the romantic ruins of the town's historic castle. Notable activities include an exclusive cocktail reception and a gourmet chef's table dinner, with plenty of time to visit the festive holiday markets that line the city's cobbled streets. In Rüdesheim, travelers can explore the famed Drosselgasse, a picturesque street lined with charming shops, and take a guided walking tour of the medieval town of Koblenz. In the evening, the Captain's Gala dinner provides a celebratory event on board with fine cuisine and Rhine River views. Next, the itinerary leads to Bonn, the former capital of West Germany and the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven. A visit to the Beethoven-Haus Museum offers a glimpse into the life and legacy of the legendary composer. The cruise concludes in Cologne, home to one of Germany's most awe-inspiring cathedrals and some of its most beloved Christmas markets. After exploring the Cologne Cathedral, guests can meander through festive stalls and try lebkuchen —the spiced gingerbread holiday favorite. This exciting eight-day trip, starting from $7,995 per person, runs from Dec. 1 to Dec. 8 and includes a one-night hotel stay before and after the cruise. Guests will sail aboard the luxurious and modern Amadeus Star , enjoying hotel-style comforts, gourmet cuisine, and private small-group excursions led by an experienced resident tour director. For more information, visit
Times
18-05-2025
- Times
9 of the best wine-tasting holidays in France
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. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue 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 ( Under your own steam, favour Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion in Pessac-Léognan, a tram ride out of Bordeaux centre ( Château La Dominique is a great choice in Saint-Émilion; don't miss lunch at the winery's Terrasse Rouge restaurant ( 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. • Great hotels in Bordeaux• Best things to do in Bordeaux 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 ( 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 ( 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. • See our full guide to France 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 ( 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 ( 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. • Best holiday villas in France 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 ( 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. 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 ( 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 ( 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. • Most beautiful places in France (and how to see them) 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 ( 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 ( 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. 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 Barnaut at Bouzy in the Montagne de Reims ( and G Tribaut in Hautvillers, Champagne's prettiest village ( 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 ( The north has viognier whites, too; tackle them at Rémi Niero's place in Condrieu ( 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 ( 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. • Best hotels in Lyons 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 ( and in the Hérault county at Domaine Coste-Moynier of Saint-Christol ( 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 ( 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
Associated Press
17-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
VinoCadre Launches Air Charter Flights, an Exclusive Way to Explore the Elevated Texas Hill Country, Napa, and Sonoma
05/16/2025, Fredericksburg, Texas // PRODIGY: Feature Story // VinoCadre, an innovative marketing platform that unites wine professionals and engages consumers, is excited to announce the launch of its exclusive air charter flights. More than its next business milestone, the release symbolizes the company's commitment to transforming the wine-tasting experience into an unforgettable, palatable journey. To prepare for the first air charter flight on July 7th-10th, VinoCadre is currently accepting bookings, with more expeditions to follow soon after. VinoCadre Founded in 2015 in Saint Helena, California, VinoCadre has since expanded to the Texas Hill Country. The air charter flights will honor both destinations, promoting local wine education, curating unique food pairings, and offering high-end private tours of California and Texas's luscious vineyards. With a helicopter, fixed wing, and ground transportation included, exploring hidden gems has never been easier. Organized by the platform's wine specialists, the experience is as compelling as it is illuminating. This sky-high adventure is led by VinoCadre's founder, Andre Boada, an advanced sommelier, keynote speaker, and wine business consultant. Tapping into his 20 years of industry experience, combined with the intimate knowledge of winemakers, educators, and chefs who will accompany him, Boada's mission is simple: to enrich traditional wine-tasting with a lifestyle-driven philosophy. According to Boada, this is 'the pinnacle of wine-tasting experiences,' and the bespoke itinerary attests to that. This four-day, three-night trip is truly top-scale, from the very first moment guests step into the aircraft. During the flight, travelers can indulge in a high-end champagne seminar arranged by the founder before landing across the scenic vineyards of Napa and Sonoma. The activities that follow bring a unique fusion of adventure and serenity, addressing the needs of all visitors. While a helicopter ride up the mountain to peek behind the scenes of Napa wineries or driving through the vineyards of Sonoma provide the thrill, delectable dishes prepared by world-class chefs—each one paired with the most complementary glass of wine—unite guests over meaningful conversations and laughter. Through a partnership with a high-end local home division, VinoCadre can offer the most luxurious accommodation that further elevates the experience. On July 7th, guests will travel to Villa Montebella, a terracotta-colored mansion nestled amidst green rolling hills, where they will be greeted with a welcome party. Every attendee can enjoy their own suite, lavish amenities like a tennis court or an underground wine cave, and more. Villa Montebella, Wine Cave After the first excursion, VinoCadre is planning two more trips in August: 4th-7th and 25th-28th. Looking ahead, Boada envisions the experience entrenching its footprint across other villas and resorts, with the company continuously working toward a future where wine isn't only savored; it's enjoyed for the rich experience it offers. On a mission to unite communities through the palate, VinoCadre shows that, as the founder concludes, 'The power of wine goes beyond the glass.' Media Contact Name: Andre Boada Email: [email protected]
