Exclusive Food & Wine Tours
Wine & Gastronomy Tours Indulge in some of life's greatest pleasures. Experience the great wine and gastronomy of Spain, Portugal and France with one of our exclusive 2 to 7-day private guided tours for small groups (min. 4 - max. 16) available from late March through early November. Visit the Rioja, the Basque country and Navarra, the Ribera del Duero, Catalonia, old Castile, Andalucia and Galicia. Explore Portugal's Alentejo region, or the Douro and Minho River Valleys. The Irouléguy and Jurançon wine regions of the Pays Basque in southwest France await you. Experience the culinary creations of these regions most celebrated and innovative chefs. Stay in elegant boutique hotels. Enjoy VIP wine tasting at top wineries.
Spain's most popular wine touring destinations are available year around for self-guided tours.
The Wine & Gastronomy of Spain
Spain has evolved into one of the premier wine and gastronomic destinations in the world over the last 25 years and continues its remarkable explosion in quality and diversity, unprecedented in the history of wine. It's nearly endless number of world renowned chefs, Michelin-starred restaurants, exceptional vintages, spectacular scenery and welcoming nature make it the perfect destination for gourmands and lovers of great wine.
No adventure in Spain would be complete without a visit to Spain's oldest and best known wine region, considered the "benchmark" of Spanish winemaking. Stunningly beautiful year around, the Rioja is an ancient region dating from the Neolithic era, where you'll find atmospheric fortress towns on a hill, some with their medieval wall still intact and filled with Noble homes displaying their heraldic shields. There are enormous Gothic churches, each with its own amazing, ornately gilded Baroque altarpiece, but seldom seen by the visitor as these churches are kept tightly shut other that for mass. Ancient burial markers (dólmenes) lie scattered about in the fields, intermixed with the wineries; boutique, large and industrial. You'll also find a number of charming family run country inns and luxury hotels, and superb Riojan and Basque cuisine.
The Wine & Gastronomy of Portugal
Wine making in Portugal dates back more than 4000 years, to the time of the Phoenicians who were thought to have introduced winemaking in the South. The wine growing regions include the Vinho Verde, Trás-os-Montes, Porto, Douro and Dão in the North, Lisbon in the West, the Alentejo to the East and Algarve in the South, as well as the Azores and Madeira Islands.
With its gently undulating plains and endless horizons, the Alentejo covers about a third of the country and is divided into eight DOC sub-zones. Once regarded simply as a poor agricultural backwater, the 'bread basket' of Portugal, it is a land of large estates or "Latifundios" and has recently come into its own as an internationally acclaimed wine producing region. Suffering from none of the Alentejo’s extremes in temperature because of the chain of mountains that run from the Atlantic coast to the Spanish border, the area receives more than 3000 hours of sunshine each year, and the grapes love it. It’s never too hot or too cold in the Algarve.
The Wine & Gastronomy of France
Take a drive through the lush, hilly wine regions of southwest France; Irouléguy, Jurançon, Béarn-Bellocq and Madiran, and discover the delightful villages, belle epoch architecture and spectacular scenery of the Pays Basque-Béarn, where some of the world’s great grape varieties originated. The world famous Languedoc-Roussillon is the most productive wine regions in the world and can be combined with a trip to Provence.
Bordeaux marks the northern limits of France's "Hidden Corner," its 5th largest wine growing region, and the least populated. The region is divided into four sub-regions, each distinctive in character, climate and grape varieties. The four sub-regions are the Bergerac and Dordogne River, Garonne and Tarn, Lot River, and the Pyrénées, inside of which there are an array of communal and village appellations (AOP) Appellation d'origins Protégée.
