Escorted France Wine Tours from the UK
France gave the world the idea that wine should taste of the place it comes from, and the two regions on this page make the argument better than most. Bordeaux built a city on the wine trade and surrounded itself with villages whose names appear on labels in every wine shop in Britain. Champagne turned a cold, chalky plateau into the most famous sparkling wine there is.
Our France wine holidays travel by air from the UK, stay in four-star hotels and put a guide between you and the language, the driving and the cellar door. Tastings, visits and most meals are arranged before you leave home.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our France Wine Tours Tours
No. Guides pitch a cellar visit at people who like drinking wine rather than people who study it, and the interesting parts are usually the geography, the family history and the work in the vineyard rather than tasting vocabulary. Regular wine drinkers pick up plenty; complete beginners are not left behind. If you would rather taste less and look at more, that is entirely normal on these tours.
Both of our French wine holidays include return flights from the UK and transfers at the destination, four nights or more in a four-star hotel, breakfast daily, evening meals and a number of lunches, transport throughout and English-speaking escorts and guides. Listed visits and tastings are included as well. The details differ between the Bordeaux and Champagne tours, so check the inclusions on the individual tour page, or ask us and we will go through them with you.
Yes. Our Open Group departures are made up largely of individual travellers and couples who have booked separately, and solo travellers are common on wine tours in particular. Prices are quoted per person sharing a twin or double room, and a single supplement applies if you would like a room to yourself. Ask us for the current supplement on the departure you are considering.
Most people do. UK customs allowances currently permit a generous quantity of wine for personal use, with sparkling wine counted separately from still, so it is worth checking the government's published allowance before you travel and packing accordingly. Bottles need to go in checked luggage, protected properly. Some producers will arrange shipping to the UK for larger purchases, though terms and costs are theirs rather than ours.
Bordeaux, Saint-Émilion and the Atlantic coast
Bordeaux is a city of pale eighteenth-century stone, built on the profits of shipping claret to England. The old riverside quarter, the Port of the Moon, is UNESCO-listed, and the water mirror opposite the Place de la Bourse is the most photographed square inch of pavement in the south-west.
Half an hour east, Saint-Émilion sits on a limestone shelf above merlot vineyards, its streets steep and cobbled, its church hollowed out of the rock beneath the village rather than built on top of it. Across the Gironde estuary, the citadel at Blaye is one of Vauban's fortresses, thrown up to guard the river approach to the city.
The coast is part of the pleasure too. Arcachon grows oysters in its shallow basin and keeps a quarter of Belle Époque villas in the pines, and the Dune du Pilat rises to around a hundred metres of pure sand, the tallest in Europe and still moving slowly inland.
Chalk cellars and the champagne method
Champagne is farther north than most vineyards can sensibly manage, which is exactly why the wine turned out as it did. The subsoil is chalk, cool and free-draining, and beneath Reims the Romans quarried it into deep pits, the crayères, now filled with bottles resting at a steady ten or twelve degrees.
Three grapes do the work: chardonnay, pinot noir and meunier, usually blended, usually across several vineyards and sometimes several years. The bubbles come from a second fermentation inside the sealed bottle, followed by months or years on the lees and the slow business of turning each bottle to work the sediment into the neck.
Épernay's Avenue de Champagne is the industry's front door, a straight run of grand houses with miles of tunnels underneath. Up the hill at Hautvillers, the abbey where Dom Pérignon was cellar master looks out over the Marne valley.
The rhythm of a tasting day
Days on a wine tour tend to follow the same shape. A morning visit to a producer, walking through the press house and down into the cellars, then a tasting of three or four wines in a room off the courtyard. Lunch somewhere nearby, often long. An afternoon that is lighter, perhaps a town, an oyster shack or the estuary.
A few practical notes. Cellars are cold whatever the weather outside, and there are usually steps, sometimes worn ones. Spitting is normal and nobody minds; the glasses in front of you are an invitation, not an obligation. If steps or standing are a concern, ask us before you book and we will tell you honestly what a particular visit involves.
September is harvest, when the villages are busy and the presses are running. June and early July are quieter, greener and generally kinder for walking.
