The Wine Lands of Chile & Argentina

Wow! I must admit I am a bit biased in favor of South America. I love the culture, the language, the people, the scenery, and the diversity of experiences a traveler can enjoy. I have spent fantastic vacations in Peru, Argentina, and Ecuador in the past.

But when I visited the Chilean and Argentinian wine areas, I was impressed despite my high expectations.

You already know the wines of Chile and Argentina have become very popular in recent years. What is not yet quite so popular, but getting there, is wine tourism to these areas - especially our "active" brand of wine tourism. While Tuscany, Burgundy, and other European areas are famous as places one can bike on rolling roads or walk along hillside paths, this type of tourism is not yet so established in South America's wine lands.

In Chile, I found only two vineyards that had established hikes. I went on one with four locals at Viña Montes in the Apalta Valley and found it interesting. It was quite organized, starting with a shuttle in a converted tractor to the edge of the vineyards. We had a vineyard employee as a guide and he led us on a steep trail straight up the hillside in back of the vineyards.

Now the view from the top was exceptional but this was a good example of why Zephyr Adventures, with our adventure travel experience, will be able to bring good things to the world of wine travel. First, the trail was much too difficult for most people - straight up with few switchbacks and poor traction. Second, the trail wasn't even in the vineyards!

After we were done, I pointed out a road that led around the vineyard, halfway up the hill, with beautiful views of the valley all the way around. It was the perfect path for a vineyard hike and the one we will do in 2008.

In Argentina I had a similar experience. There, in the wine area centered on the city of Mendoza, I found three new companies running bike tours in the wine areas. We joined one of the groups and the young, exuberant owner gave us a talk and sent us on our way. Honestly, it was a path we would never choose for our biking adventures - roads with no shoulders, plenty of trucks, and quite a few potholes. While they have the right idea, they don't yet have the advantage of having been to the world's best biking areas.

Working with our local guide, Lorena, we came up with two vineyard hikes and a nice biking route for the Argentina portion of our tours.

What I haven't mentioned are all the other things that will make this tour fantastic. The wines are superb. The owners and vintners are accessible and interesting. The food is excellent, the hotels of high quality, and the scenery is spectacular. With a few tweaks of the activities, this will be a remarkable tour.

Walking the Vineyards of Burgundy

Burgundy is one of the most popular regions of France for tourism. For good reason. The area is only a short train ride from Paris, facilities such as hotels and restaurants are plentiful, and the well-known vineyards not only produce excellent wine but also give the area a fantastic visual appeal.

Burgundy is a fairly large province but the wine area is centered around the Côte d'Or, a narrow swath of land that includes both the Côtes de Nuits and Côtes de Beaune appellations. This area is centered on the lovely city of Beaune, capital of the Burgundy wine ara.

From what I can tell, most visitors to the area don’t get outside Beaune. For those who do, most of them don’t get out of their car except to walk to the entrance of a winery. This is the reality of wine tourism today, where “Wine Routes” for autos are what most local tourism bodies create to attract visitors.

Of course, we at Zephyr Adventures are trying to change that.

Although we have run multisport tours in Burgundy for years, we are changing the itinerary and hotels for 2008 to create a new Wine Adventure. I was in Europe last week and so stopped by Burgundy for a few days to do a little research.

One of the great things about Burgundy's wine area is the tourism authorities have mapped out Wine Routes not for cars but for walkers. You can start from the city of Beaune and make loop walks into the vineyards of varying lengths. There are also walks that run from and through other small towns, up into the the Haute Côte area, and even along the entire length of the Côte d'Or. The trails are composed of dirt roads, small paths, and lightly-trafficked paved roads connecting various villages. They are signed and color-coded to coincide with printed maps. They are fantastic.

This trip, I spent time on trails up in the Haute Côte region. This winery sub-appellation is in the hills above the Côte d'Or area and, because of different altitude and conditions, is on the fringe of the main wine area. The Haute Côte gets few tourists and is clearly on the cutting edge of change in Burgundy. I saw some vineyards (like the one pictured here) where the vintner had simply given up - the attempt at putting vines in a new area had failed. In other areas, new and thriving vineyards were replacing agricultural land. It was interesting to see an area pushing the limits of wine production and yet located in such as established location as Burgundy.

Our Burgundy Walking Wine Adventure in 2008 will take us past small villages, into Beaune, and through many appellations and sub-appellations. Walking, we get the feel for the land much better than from behind a windshield. While I certainly understand creating Wine Roads for those who prefer driving, I hope many other locations will follow the lead of the Burgundians and join the push for active wine tourism.

Combining Activity and Wine in Tuscany & Umbria

I have been to the Tuscany and Umbria regions of Italy five or six times. It is a great wine area, with major appellations such as Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile of Montepulciano, and Sagrantino in the Montefalco area of Umbria.

It is also a fantastic area to be active. In fact, Zephyr has run a guided bicycle tour in Tuscany and Umbria for years and we now have four self-guided bicycle and hiking trips in the area.

What is difficult, however, is combining the two: wine and active travel. Sure, it is easy to jump on a bicycle and stop into a winery from time to time. The problem, however, is this. The major appellations listed above are pretty distinct and to get from one to another (except Montalcino's Brunello and Montepulciano's Vino Nobile, which are close) is not easy, unless you spend hours in a car or bus. Not the best for an active wine tour.

As a secondary challenge, the biking in Tuscany is not easy. The entire area if composed of rolling hills, and while avid bicyclists will love this, casual cyclists will be pushing their bikes more often than they like. Umbria, on the other hand, is a cyclist's dream with a big flat valley floor with more challenging riding up to the occasional hilltop town.

I was in Italy in February (a great time to be there) and finally came up with a strategy for what I think will be a spectacular active wine tour in Tuscany & Umbria.

The solution? We have set up an eight-day Bike & Hike Adventure in Tuscany & Umbria for September, 2008. All the hiking will take place in Tuscany and all the hiking in Umbria. Plus, we'll visit three of the major wine areas and rarely have to shuttle by van.

We'll start in Montepulciano, the heart of central Tuscany and the home of Vino Nobile wine, with a walk from the small town of Montefollonico six kilometers to our hotel in Montepulciano. On this and every day we'll have the opportunity to stop at two wineries for a tour, tasting, and often a chat with the winery owner or manager.

The next three days we'll walk from town to town as our luggage is shuttled forward for us. We'll hit the major wine region of Montalcino and its Brunello wine but also visit wineries in the sub-appellation of Sant' Antimo. The great thing about walking through this area of Tuscany is that, for the most part, you simply walk from one town to the next along paths and gravel roads, often built on ridge tops. The views to either side are amazing.

After our four days in Tuscany, we'll shuttle the hour and a half to Umbria and the Torgiano area, another major sub-appellation. We'll then bike on consecutive days to Spello, Assisi, Bevagna, Montefalco, Trevi, and Spoleto, never once getting in our car and always having our luggage shuttled for us. We'll taste great reds and whites from umbria, including the famous Sagrantino from Montefalco. We'll also tour a local olive oil factory and sit down to meal after meal of incredible Italian food.

If you have been to Tuscany and Umbria, all this will ring a bell and you understand why I am slathering on the praise. It is simply a fantastic area for an active wine tour. If you haven't been there before, I'll admit I find it hard to convey how much I love this area of the world. Each time I travel to Italy, I think about whether I should just pick up and move there, working from home via the internet. Perhaps after September 08 and our wine tour there, I will.

Oregon's Willamette Valley

I just returned from setting up the seventh of seven locations for our new Wine Adventures: Oregon's Willamette Valley. If you are reading this blog, you are probably at least somewhat aware of Oregon's growing prominence in the wine world. Oregon is the fourth largest wine-producing state in the US and has the third most wineries behind California and Washington.

However, those statistics don't mean much to an adventure wine traveler. I was blown away by Oregon's potential for adventure wine travel and would place it right up there with the world's best wine destinations.

At first, I was somewhat dismayed by Oregon's wine country. There are a few areas with clusters of vineyards and wineries but, for the most part, the Willamette Valley clings to its farming roots and vineyards are separated by large tracks of vegetables, berries, and other crops. This makes sense agriculturally, since wine is just coming into its own as a major cash crop, but I must admit it looked more like "Zephyr Farm Adventures" than Zephyr Wine Adventures for awhile there.

In addition, while the locals are starting to focus on wine tourism, it is just beginning. Plus, they have not gone past the traditional bus and van tours - get picked up at your hotel, drive to a few wineries for tours and tastings, and return home. This just doesn't cut if for travelers who want to be active on vacation in addition to drinking great wine and eating good food.

My employee Reno and I spent a week in the wine country, checking out many wineries and talking to dozens of locals in the wine and tourism industries. In the end, the lack of a sophisticated wine tourism industry in Oregon is what makes it such a great place to travel.

For example, we set up a canoe trip on the Willamette River where our tour participants will be able to stop at the Willamette Farms Winery, take a walk around the vineyard grounds, have a picnic with the vineyard's wines, and get back in the canoe to finish the day. We had to call three canoe outfitters before we found one who saw the potential in this idea.

As another example, we found three wineries in the southern Willamette Valley that are situated contiguously on three faces of a beautiful hillside. After explaining who we were, I would ask a series of questions. "What's over there on the other side of the hill?" "Would it be possible to walk from here to your neighbor winery?" "Has anyone done that?" "Well, would you mind if we did it right now?"

We spent a fantastic day walking through vineyards on foot paths and farming roads, looking out over the valley and knowing no one ever did this. Yet, it was such a better way to see Oregon's wine country than from the inside of a van!

In the end, we loved Oregon's Willamette Valley so much we decided to feature it as our very first tour, a Press Tour this September to kick off the marketing of our new Wine Adventures. You'll be able to experience it as well, during the summer of 2008 at our inaugural Oregon Wine Adventure.