Wine Tours & Holidays
Travelling with Arblaster and Clarke, the leading escorted Wine Tours specialist, you’ll discover beautiful parts of the world and wonderful wines. You’ll enjoy visits to famous châteaux in France and wineries in the New World, you’ll meet great wine makers in Italy and owners of bodegas in Spain, you’ll discover unknown rising stars and be invited into vignerons’ homes.
At the visits, you’ll enjoy generous tastings, lunches, informal picnics and formal dinners as guests of the estates. These special visits and invitations to dine at the cellars are the kind of thing that only happen on top-flight escorted wine tours. If you travel alone you may visit some of the same cellars but rarely in the same way. The wine makers themselves obviously can’t be waiting at the cellar door every day on the off chance that you call by (they have wine to make!), but they do try to take the time to meet you if you visit them as part of an organised A&C wine tour.
Arblaster & Clarke are privileged to have access to many of the greatest small wine firms in the world as we have long standing relationships with the wineries and quite often our wine guides are personal friends of the owners.
Whilst it would be wonderful to embellish our website with all their names, in many cases this is unfortunately not possible. Some of the top Burgundy domaines, Champagne houses and Spanish Bodegas in particular, plus a handful of New World wineries, have asked us not to publicise the fact that we visit them, as this attracts a stream of requests for visits that they actually don’t want.
Great Wine Guides & Tour Managers
One of the great advantages of coming on an escorted tour is that you are escorted! The team knows where to take you and how to help you get the most out of where you visit. The Wine Guides introduce the wine regions, bringing the wines and destinations alive with the background, the history, humour and anecdotes. They know the people and the inside story, they understand the science and have their own ideas and interpretations. A good Wine Guide can really make a tour. Arblaster & Clarke’s expert Wine Guides are the best in the business. Like our Wine Guides, our Tour Managers are exceptional; translating, dealing with problems, taking the stress of travel away from you and keeping the party going! – this is what a good Tour Manager does. Wine Guides
Escorted Wine Tours
You’ll find A&C’s Escorted Tours under the following headings:
Reserve Collection Tours are focused on great wine of a specific place. A perfect example would be Bordeaux Great Chateaux.
Classic Wine Tours explore regions to discover interesting wine and food, plus history & sites too. Example: Sherry & Andalucia
Wine Tours by Coach have the ‘balanced tour’ ethos of Classic Tours, except there is more interest in buying wine.
New World Wine Tours have the Classic Tours ethos with visits to interesting places and free time and *do* taste the greatest wines made in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, California, Oregon, Australia, South Africa & New Zealand.
Find more Escorted Tours: Gourmet Tours – Escorted Opera & Wine Tours – Escorted Vineyard Walking Tours – Wine Cruises
… and Wine & Champagne Weekend Breaks: Champagne Weekends – Champagne Extra Tours – Short Wine Breaks
Private Wine Tours
If you are looking for an tailor-made wine trip around South America, a private Wine Cruise in Greece or to take over a cru classé Bordeaux Château: Bespoke Private Wine Holidays
Or for individual wine breaks at a reasonable prices, try Wine Breaks for Individuals
For Group Tours go to Private Groups International – Private Groups UK – Wine Trade Groups – Incentives & Corporate Hospitality
Explore the world of wine
Arblaster & Clarke have arranged winetours to around 38 countries world-wide! Some are obvious like France and Italy, and in the New World, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile and Argentina. But winetouring is not just about visiting famous regions; let us take you on a journey of discovery, through obscure parts of Italy; to regions completely off the beaten track in Spain and Portugal; to once great and now resurgent wine countries like Germany and Hungary. A&C’s winetours even get as far as Uruguay, Tasmania, the Dalmatian Islands, Malta and Tunisia!
At first any of our most interesting wine tasting tours looked offbeat or even a bit wacky! In 1987 we first introduced tours featuring Grower Champagnes from individual villages and this was controversial. Just after 1990 we introduced to some surprise the then almost unknown, but now stellar Spanish regions Ribera del Duero and Rueda, and when we launched Sicily and Argentina (both now colossal), people were surprised that either made good wine. For some Greece is a final frontier, but we are confident that the best wines from Greece will soon be highly sought after. We are planning another Wine Cruise there for 2011.
If you are looking for an unusual tour for 2010, why not explore the under-rated table wines from the Port vineyards on our Douro Vineyard Walk, compare and contrast the fabulous Pinot Noir of Switzerland and Burgundy on our Switzerland & Burgundy by Train Wine Tour or come and see what you will find on our Slovenia, Croatia & Friuli tour?
Find a Holiday
Bordeaux ‘en Primeur’
21 - 25 June 2010
Bordeaux First Growths
15 - 19 November 2010
Burgundy & Beaujolais By Coach or Train
24 - 28 October 2010
California
13 - 19 March 2011
Chile, Argentina & Uruguay
7 - 19 February 2011
Lyons Wine & City
17 - 20 June 2010
New Zealand Wine Tour
14 - 27 February 2011
Opera in Milan at La Scala
Contact us for dates.
Pre-Christmas Champagne
27 - 29 November 2010
Pre-Christmas Champagne Extra
14 - 16 November 2009
