As summer fades fast into Autumn, and perhaps for those of us not harvesting grapes, the memory of some 2024 vineyard trips along with it, you might, like me, be turning your attention to next year. Even with one big trip left for me this year, I am doing just that. With vineyard dreams in mind, I thought it might be fun to write about the wine regions I enjoy most. By this I mean effectively as a tourist, not for their wines but for the overall experience.

This article was actually inspired by Jamie Goode. I saw a video he’d taken driving along a part of the Mosel I have cycled along and I was reminded just how thrilling doing stuff like that among the vines can be. It’s funny, but I saw the other day that someone had written an article in the Daily Telegraph which on the face of it looked similar, but thankfully that one bears little resemblance to mine.

My initial shortlist was whittled down to sixteen wine regions, which I have further reduced to a more manageable twelve. This means I think we need this in two parts. I don’t plan to write much, if anything, about the wines. It’s really about experiencing the place. The fact that I love walking and cycling…and cheese, and eating might come into play. Hopefully I can encapsulate what I like most in a few short paragraphs, and perhaps you might be tempted to follow in my footsteps, if you haven’t done so already.

I must begin by saying that I haven’t visited everywhere. I’d love to go and see both the Okanagan Valley and Niagara in Canada, parts of California, Madeira and the Azores, not to mention the vines of Victoria Torres Pécis on La Palma in the Canary Isles. South Africa too!

There are also many places which didn’t make the cut, foremost among them being Alto-Adige, Irouléguy, Tuscany, the Alto Douro, Moravia and Collioure/Banyuls. Of those, the rolling foothills of the Pyrenees around Saint Etienne-de-Baïgorry and Saint Jean-Pied-de-Port, which form the vineyards of Irouléguy, were possibly the hardest to leave out. Perhaps not an obvious choice, but they are so beautiful. Others, like almost any of the diffuse parts that make up Burgundy, didn’t even get a look-in despite these epitomising the viticultural rural idyll for me for so many of my younger years.

So, I have arrived at a dozen wine regions. Who knows, my choice might change by the time I reach Part 2, but the six regions featured here, and the six more that follow in Part 2, are in no specific order. Remember, these are my favourites. This is totally subjective. Feel free to chip in with your own in the comments.

JURA (Around Arbois)

Although I claimed that these wine regions are in no particular order, I had to start with this one. Most readers will know that I have history with the Jura, and Arbois in particular. I first drove in to smell the wood smoke in the 1980s and pretty much made some sort of stop in Arbois, whether to stay a week, a few days, or merely to pass through for lunch and wine buying, every year up until Covid. There is an article on this site called Tourist Jura (published 29/07/2020). The restaurants have changed, significantly, but most of the rest hasn’t. It remains the most read article year in, year out.

Why Arbois in particular? Well, first it is a real town, not especially smart, but among the more mundane shops are some gems, like Les Jardins de St Vincent (natural wine), Hirsinger (pastries and chocolates) and all the wine shops attached to producers (like the shop of Stéphane and Bénédicte Tissot on the Place de la Liberté).

Then there is the walking, which my article talks about at length. Whether it is walking to Montigny-les-Arsures, to Pupillin, to Les Planches, or exploring the ruins and seeking the mouflons up, around La Châtelaine, these walks, along with those in the next entry, form my favourite hiking in France.

After a day pounding the paths around Arbois, the chance to eat some poulet au Vin Jaune et aux morilles and a hunk of well-aged Comté is pretty hard to beat. So hard to beat that only a large schnitzel in Vienna or a plate of momos in Nepal rival it. Equally, do walk the short Arbois town circuit, half of which takes you down some very attractive back routes as it snakes over and by the river.

Some of these hikes are through the forest, and the scents of the different trees makes you understand the meaning of forest bathing, but the walk, mentioned in that article, which will take you through the vines to Montigny-les-Arsures, passes perhaps the finest vineyard of the northern part of the region, the terraces below the Tour de Curon. There are a number of producers in Montigny, but none perhaps more famous than Domaine A&M Tissot. Stéphane and Bénédicte’s winery is just down the lane on the left hand side of the church.

The extension to this walk takes you back along the road to Arbois (not busy) and detours left just after the hamlet of Vauxelles, and is well worth the effort. You begin through fields to a farm and then detour right. The path comes down at Mesnay, from where you can walk back to Arbois (find the left turn that will return you alongside the Cuissance). My article (see above) tells you which map to find. For me, Arbois and its environs is hard to beat, especially with that accompanying smell of wood smoke.

There is something about the Jura that I find hard to describe. It’s a combination of the scenery, the food culture and the sensory (I happen to adore the smell of wood smoke and the sound of running water). I’ve spent so much time there that it has seeped into my soul, something I feel inside as much as a beautiful and calming landscape that I can see.

I do know one thing, however. My enthusiasm has encouraged other friends to visit, and I find it hard to think of any who have not, like me, become life-long enthusiasts. Barring some Parisian friends who, being Parisians, wonder what we see in such a “rural backwater”. If it has anything to be said against it, it is merely that the politics here do not always match what we imagine might be the ethos of this natural wine paradise.

Arbois, first from the Hermitage, then from the cirque above Les Planches

ALSACE (Andlau and Mittelbergheim)

I’ve been lucky enough to visit Alsace quite a number of times and I have stayed in several different places, from the medieval town of Eguisheim up to the forests of the far north. Some afford good locations for visiting Colmar or Strasbourg, and even Baden in Germany, and most afford great walking, but the place I love more than any other lies in the vicinity of the neighbouring villages of Andlau and Mittelbergheim.

I have said it many times that Alsace is, for me, the most dynamic and exciting French region for natural wines at the moment. If that is true, then the area around these two villages could be termed natural wine central. I could list all the great winemakers working here, but that would go on for a long while, too long for an article which professes to be about place, not wine. However, unlike many natural wine domaines in much of France, many here have tasting rooms, and will welcome visitors with an appropriate appointment. As your typical Alsace vigneron makes a host of different cuvées, you may also find they have wine to sell, if like me you want to bring wine home. With a generally poor selection of Alsace wines available in the UK (exceptions noted), this is even more of a bonus.

That said, the added attraction to wine and the visual beauty of the landscape here, and what is your average geranium-bedecked Alsace village, is some more exciting walking. The Vosges are beautiful mountains to walk in, but if you are staying in one of these villages the added attraction lies in some places to walk to, and between. These are the ruined castles which hide in the forest.

There are many possibilities, but walking up the Kastelberg Grand Cru from Andlau to the ruins of the Château de Spesbourg, snaking along forested tracks to the Château d’Andlau, and then back via Mittelbergheim (taking a picnic to eat along the way) is as good a recommendation as any I could give you. Eguisheim has some nice hilly walks to the west of the town, and if you want to walk in the vines, then perhaps the walks around Riquewihr, maybe from there to the fortified church at Hunawihr, will appeal. But the walks around Andlau and Mittelbergheim strike a chord with me.

The Vosges are unquestionably one of the most “walkable” of Europe’s mountain ranges. They may not have the height and grandeur of some, but with well-marked forest trails and a castle ruin seemingly on almost every hill, they are more than worth exploring. This is even before we discuss the great food available, just the kind of food you need after a day up in the hills.

Looking down on Andlau from the Kastelberg

VIENNA (the Nussberg)

I like Vienna a lot. Superficially, it reeks of its conservative Hapsburg past, but beneath the surface it is something else. It is a city of great food, and I mean “great”, whether traditional or modern (accompanied with natural wine, of course). It is a city of challenging art, and also, not that this is really significant, a city whose politics, despite the Imperial grandeur, is quite different to the rest of the country.

Most readers will be aware that Vienna has its own wine region. In fact, it is more than one area of vines, but that which I want to tell you about is the hill of vines above the suburban village of Grinzing, called the Nussberg. Every time I have visited Vienna, I have walked this hill, and I can’t envisage going to Vienna and not doing so.

Your day out will involve a short journey on the U-Bahn (U4) to Heiligenstadt Station, followed by a bus (the 38A, but do check, it leaves from outside the station) in the direction of Kahlenberg and Leopoldsberg. The stop you want is for the Gnadeskapelle, where you can cross the road to a nice café within the chapel grounds. But right by where you got off the bus is a path through the woods. After a while you will exit the woodland path onto a hill of vines.

In summer the vineyards are dotted with pop-up Heuriger, bars serving light meals with local wines, including the speciality here being the co-fermented field blends called Wiener Gemischter Satz. It’s a wine that is as much a part of Viennese culture as it is an alcoholic beverage.

If you have a good map (such as the Freytag & Berndt Vienna City Map at 1:25,000) you can pick your way down, via the vineyard paths, making sure to take in the views of Vienna afforded from up here, to the wonderful inn, Mayer am Pfarplatz (marked on the map just north of the main road into Heiligenstadt). Beethoven wrote his Eroica Symphony in a room whilst lodging here, but the inn’s main attraction is its attractive old, vine-strewn, outdoor courtyard.

In summer do not miss trying some Himbeersturm. Like Sturm, the fermenting wine served as a refreshment at harvest time, this is a fermenting raspberry drink, few of which can be more refreshing. At harvest time true Sturm is served. It may rot your guts if you drink too much, but this low alcohol, spritzy, still fermenting wine, served in pot glasses like a British half-pint, is equally part of life. The city’s suburbs that adjoin vineyards are full of Heuriger and Buschenschanks that serve it around harvest. Heiligenstadt station is just a few bus stops away.

You can read a bit more about this walk in my article Heuriger, Heurigen, Buschenschanks and popups: A Walk in the Woods and Vines (28/08/2018). You may find it useful for detail. We have done this walk even in winter, and though it is undoubtedly cold, the Nussberg in the snow does have a certain magic too.

Winter on the Nussberg, above the city

MOSEL (Around Bernkastel)

Germany is blessed with a good number of idyllic vineyard locations, and most of her traditional wine regions are located on attractive, often precipitous, slopes with picture postcard villages, bedecked in flowers, by the side of a majestic river. Surely the epitome of all of these must be the Middle Mosel. That stretch between Piesport and Enkirch downstream is the bit that appeals to me, largely because this is a spectacular part of the Mosel Cycle Trail.

If I’m not walking in the vines, then I’m happiest cycling through them. Generally, this cycle path sticks to the flat of the valley floor, though mostly avoiding the road, but there are opportunities to go uphill if you are either fit or have hired an electric bicycle. There’s a good bike shop just a little further on from the bridge over the river from Bernkastel into Kues, the suburb on the left bank of the Mosel opposite Bernkastel. A very leisurely morning cycle will take you to Traben, via Graach, Zeltingen, Kindel, Wolf and Trarbach, with a return on the opposite bank via Kröv, Kinheim, Urzig and Wehlen (don’t forget to look out for the famous sundial).

If you have time, assuming you have not taken too great an advantage of the numerous riverside opportunities to drink beer, do explore Lieser (just next to Bernkastel), which houses the forbidding Schloss (Thomas Haag’s wines are not the least bit forbidding, on the contrary, they are some of the Mosel’s greatest bottles) and Sybille Kuntz, who is no less worth a visit. I happen to love the wines of the Mosel, with a special affection for the filigree acidity and fruit of the Kabinetts. The fact that this region is spectacularly beautiful, and that it is completely geared up for cyclists, is more than an added bonus.

Bernkastel itself is almost the perfect chocolate box representation of a German wine town. Maybe it might be too kitsch for some, but there are plenty of places to eat and drink here, including (if it is still there) a very good Indian restaurant, called the Taj Mahal (Hebegasse 1). Opposite this you will find what is probably my favourite wine shop in Germany, now called the Rieslinghaus (Hebegasse 11). They changed the name a few years ago, from Weinhaus Porn, for some reason. If you like the wines of the Mittelmosel you will almost certainly need help carrying your purchases back to the car park. The owners also run a hotel.

This stretch of the Mosel is just outside Bernkastel looking towards Wehlen

WACHAU (more time on a bike)

I said at the top of this article that these are wine regions I love to visit, and I implied that it is the region rather than its wines that I am praising. The Wachau, specifically the valley of the River Danube as it stretches west from the town of Krems, was certainly where I cut my teeth on Austrian wine. Today I will still heartily recommend producers such as Weingut Knoll, Hirtzberger and the long-time biodynamic estate of Nikolaihof, but it is true that these wines probably don’t form a large part of the Austrian wines I drink today.

However, the river through this wine region is both beautiful and also steeped in history (with the perched castle of Dürnstein acting as the prison for Richard the Lionheart after he was captured on the way back from the Third Crusade being a major tourist attraction for the rivercraft tours here). However, as with the Mosel above, this stretch of the river is yet another opportunity to get on a bike.

The Wachau is an easy train ride from Vienna. If you alight at Krems there’s a cycle hire shop around a five-minute walk from the railway station. I tend to book bikes in advance, but I doubt you’d have any problems just rocking up. If you cycle west, through the old suburb of Stein, you are soon into the vineyards. The Wachau Cycle Path follows the left (north) bank of the Danube past Unterloiben and Oberloiben before the first hill of vines ends at the perched fortress of Dürnstein. Some of the route lies on small roads and goes through the villages, such as Weissenkirchen, but there is generally little traffic, except at harvest time.

How far to go is really the question. My own recommendation would be to stop for lunch at Spitz if you can make it that far. If the weather is nice, you can eat outside at the Gasthof Prankl, then leave your bikes and walk up to the castle perched steeply above it for some great views of the river with vines in the foreground. Spitz also has a very good wine shop. Hubert Fohringer is down on the river, near the quay. It sells mostly classic Wachau wines, but has a comprehensive selection.

An alternative would be to try out one of the inns run by the wine estates. Weingut Knoll runs the Restaurant Loibnerhof at Unterloiben, where you can sit outside if the weather permits, and enjoy the wines of this magnificent estate.

Intrepid cyclists could choose to make a two-day trip of it by cycling on to overnight near Melk, the imposing Benedictine abbey that looks over the river about twenty kilometres further than Spitz. That would allow for lunch at both of my recommendations. The abbey was founded in 1089, although the abbey today showcases the splendour of the Baroque era, from the early eighteenth century. Oddly, the abbey became a centre for Freemasonry at this time, and apparently many of the monks were also Freemasons.

The Wachau in many ways represents Austria’s vinous past. Many of the fans of its wines might be too old to cycle to Melk. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful wine region and those who like our wines without synthetic additions will still love the scenery, the food, and I think the best of the wines as well.

The Danube from the castle ruins above Spitz

MORNINGTON PENINSULA (vineyard gastronomy)

Unlike South Africa’s vineyards, reputedly spectacular but which I’ve never visited, I have spent time in a good many Australian wine regions, from the more obscure (like Shoalhaven Coast or Mudgee) to the “tourist-friendly” (Hunter and Yarra Valleys, for example). Australian Wine regions are often very different to those we know in Europe.

The vineyards whose wines we see the most of here in the UK can be flat, or what one might describe as mildly hilly, and they can be quite spread out, blocks of vines interspersed with blocks of grass or rock. Not all of them look very pretty, especially when they are hard pruned rows of vines regimented and widely spaced to allow for machine harvesting, but even without the odd kangaroo skipping through the vines, they undoubtedly have their charm.

In many ways Mornington Peninsula doesn’t fit that picture (indeed, nor do many of the regions which have emerged since the 1990s). Much of the land on this twenty-mile-long outcrop south of Melbourne is rich stud country, Melbourne of course being Australia’s horseracing mecca, but there are hills, and a lack of the wide horizons some may think monotonous. During the 1970s what had been a few wine producers in the previous century grew to a critical mass, largely based on the peninsula having a maritime climate that gives far greater vintage variation than was common in Australia at the time.

That vintage variation helped make it a perfect climate for growing Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay on the edge. Not quite as on the edge as Tasmania, even further south, but still at times more marginal than many. Those two grape varieties made the region famous, but at the same time Mornington Peninsula was also one of the centres for the “Alternative Varieties” movement.

I’ve just finished (and will review) Max Allen’s latest book, Alternative Reality, which charts the rise of grape varieties other than Shiraz, Cabernet and Chardonnay in Australia’s vineyards through the story of the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show (AAVWS). Although on a number of trips to the region I have visited a good few Pinot specialists, one of the main reasons for my first visit was to have lunch at a producer noted for a very different variety.

Although the Trophy for Best White Wine in the first AAVWS was won by a different Victorian winery, Redbank (at Milawa), it was T’Gallant, on the Peninsula, that was making waves back then. I think this was 2007, but the first ten acres of Pinot Gris was only planted on this former apple orchard (close to the now famous Pinot/Chardonnay estate, Ten Minutes by Tractor) in 2003.

But if I’m getting sidetracked by the wines, what you really want to know is why visit Mornington Peninsula? Well, it’s close to Melbourne, but then so is the Yarra Valley. The Yarra has some great restaurants, but Mornington offers such a wide choice in such a concentrated area that it is impossible to choose, even if you can decide between wood-fired pizza or full-on gourmet. Hardly a wine estate on the peninsula doesn’t offer both a cellar door and a restaurant.

The peninsula itself offers a chance for some beach R&R as well. The coast facing the Bass Strait can be wild, with what look to me like some dangerously rocky surf beaches, but inside Port Phillip Bay it is usually calmer, as the aptly named Sorrento perhaps suggests. Sorrento is also the point from which you can take a ferry across Port Phillip Bay to Queenscliff. A short drive from Geelong, this is an entry point to another wine region which has achieved a degree of fame this century.

If you have a willing designated driver, it’s an alternative (if longer) route back to Melbourne, although first time visitors might prefer to spend the time exploring the wineries of Mornington. There are so many that have now achieved a fine reputation, and the fact that there are so many within quite a small area makes it relatively easy to knock up several in a day.

Overnighting on the peninsula is a good idea if you have time, but as it swarms with Melbournites on most weekends and holidays, accommodation can be hard to find and expensive. We have friends who had a weekender down there, but they sold it and bought upstate. It brought a whole lot more wonderful wine regions for us to explore (Heathcote, Bendigo, Macedon Ranges, the latter home to one of my favourite Aussie producers, woefully neglected in the UK, Bindi), but whenever I’m in Melbourne with access to a car, I shall always grab a day down on the Mornington Peninsula.

Polperro Estate in the centre of the vineyards on Mornington Peninsula

As a bonus in Part One, I haven’t written about this place because it’s not a “wine region”, just a single estate, but if you are driving through the Kathmandu Valley, just outside Kathmandu, you might be able to find Pataleban. The edge of the wide world of wine.