The excitment of Sept is the wine harvest which is basically a lot of hard work, so not much time for a festival about then. Whatt do you know about European wine, French, German, Italian, Spanish? What do you like?

10 days is not long i'd limit myself to say 2 areas, so assuming Paris is one that only leaves one more to find

Should I shoot for longer? I doubt with life and kids that I can make much more then probably 2ish weeks but I could probably make it for 14-15 days or so.

Yes Paris is one, so forgive me if this is a "dumb" question, but is france's wine country a "2nd area" not sure how spread out and much to see there will be, I know the other city my wife has talked about is Venice, but different country, is that packing to much in to two weeks?

Actually, of course I should shoot for longer, ha. Odd question, okay, I'll look at leaving around the 1st and leaving about the same time (15th)

Ah, I wish I could edit my prior replies, sorry for the short responses. I wouldn't call either of us an expert in European wines, but definitely looking forward to experiencing it. Are you asking what kind of wines we like?

2 weeks is a long time in Paris. (Others will chime in to disagree.) You could fly into Paris, fly to Venice and fly home from there. Or you could spend some time in another part of France, like (one of) the French Riviera, inland Provence, the Dordogne, Normandy, the Loire Valley. France doesn't lend itself quite so much to wine-touring as the Napa Valley. The wine-growing areas are spread around. If you had a favorite wine and just wanted that area....

Another thought is to do a day trip (or 2-day trip) from Paris to Reims. That's champagne country (an appropriate wine for a special birthday) and there are tasting rooms.

Will you be willing to rent a car? It's best for certain destinations like the Dordogne and Provence.

Must Paris be first? Maybe go to your furthest destination first and end up in Paris? For example, you could take a fast train from the airport to Avignon (for Provence) or to Nice (for the Riviera).

I love Venice, which I find the most beautiful and romantic of cities. And with the sea level rising, who knows how much longer before it's under water? But Venice can still be very crowded in September. But if you stay in city, you will have the mornings and evenings free of cruise-ship trippers.

But obviously you need to do some more research. And maybe spoil the surprise and let your wife know about the trip. She may have some strong preferences you don't know about.

Consider flying into Paris and say out of either Nice or Barcelona, if you want to add another country - Barcelona is a short distance from the French border now by high-speed train (if renting a car return it in France to avoid potentially steep drop-off charges.

Spend say 4 full days in Paris then take the TGV to say Dijon and rent a car to putz along the Burgundy Wine Road, meandering thru numerous small wine villages to Beaune - the commercial capital of Burgundy wines, along with Macon I believe.

Then drive thru Provence and to the Riviera and fly back or just stay in the fabulous Avignon area and take the bullet train back to Paris for your return flight.

You could do that all by train as well but I think driving thru Burgundy and Provence is better - but if only going to large cities take the train the whole way.

For lots of good stuff on French trains check out these superb IMO sites - www.voyages-sncf.com and www.idTGV.com - can score deep discounted tickets if you book really early but those are sold in limited numbers and do sell out - those tickets are train-specific and cannot be changed nor refunded; http://www.budgeteuropetravel.com/id8.html; www.seat61.com (good info on online discount tickets) and www.ricksteves.com.

France has innumerable wine regions, all of them very different. The ones most people know about and visit are the Loire, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Côtes-du-Rhone, and Alsace (and of course Champagne). Then you get the second-tier ones, then the third-tier, and so on, right down to some of the anomalous ones like Banyuls and sand wine. But really, you will find wine anywhere you go in France. Perhaps you should experiment at home and figure out which wines most appeal to you. At any rate, it's easy enough to build a lovely trip around wine areas.

If you have two weeks and your wife wants to see Venice, I'd do it. You can easily hop a flight to Venice from Paris. But if you're going to include Venice, I'd plan the trip like this to avoid backtracking:

Fly to Paris and immediately get on a train (right from the airport) to Lyon or Strasbourg or Bordeaux or whatever wine region you have decided best suits your fancy); rent a car (you're not going to be able to visit vineyards easily on a train trip) and drive around the countryside for 5 days. Then drive or take the train back to Paris for 5 days. Then hop on a plane to Venice for the final 5 days, and fly home from Venice.

Strasbourg is a good place to start, like St Cirq suggests - it is one of Europe's most underrated/overlooked cities IMO - the great cathedral is reason enough for coming - but to see the ballyhooed vineyards that produce Alsace wines, which are very different from most French wines IME - being more like German wines it seems - take the marked Alsace Wine Road that, like the Burgundy Wine Road, meanders thru numerous wine villages and past wine houses where you can see the caves and taste and buy from the producer.

Colmar is a nice base for that area and is a commercial wine center much like Beaune is for Burgundy. In early September the weather may be better the farther you go south however.

I think you should do 3 nights in Paris, a night in Versailles, and then the rest of the time in Burgundy or in the Loire Valley, or in Antibes if you wanted to go to the south. If you choose the Loire you could go see castles, and maybe stay in a castle or grand manor! You could also rent bikes and ride around through gardens and to castles, which is so much fun!! For Burgundy, someone recently posted this vineyard that has hotel rooms on a thread here, and i thought it looked amazing!! http://www.chandondebriailles.com/en/#/Contact

For the Loire Valley, my husband and I are considering staying at this hotel/ manor / villa that in my opinion looks gorgeous and amazing too. http://www.lefleurayhotel.com/

The Loire Valley is really beautiful and special, I've been once and really loved it. Never been to Burgundy.

In the south, from Antibes you could take the train to the other towns and cities along the coast like Villefrance-sur-Mer, Cannes, Nice, etc.

Another option is to do Paris 3 days and then Aix-en-Provence and Cassis. This is my other dream vacation that I've planned for myself but haven't had the time to go on yet.

If you do 2 weeks I'd do France the first week and Italy the second week. You do first week Paris and the Loire, then fly to Venice and do the second week Venice, and do 4 days in Venice with a day trip to Trieste or Verona, and a 3 days in Florence. Or 3 days Venice, 4 days Florence and one day rent car from Florence and drive to some villages in the Tuscan countryside.

Good stuff above, the two easy to get to regions from Paris by train for a day or two days are Champagne or Alsace.

So a train to Reims or Epernay and grab a tour from tourist information is easy.

Alsace is a little harder but you can get a train into Strasbourg or better Colmar and then grab a tour or rent a car and drive down the "route de vin".

Both these regions are mainly white and while Champagne is well a fizzy wine, Alsace is something more interesting as the grapes are a little less international.

If you want to go for longer then the likes of Loire, Bordeaux or Burgundy would be good and well described above.

As your structure/schedule comes together come back and ask where we would taste and maybe we can help.

<<The Loire Valley is really beautiful and special,>>

IMO, of all the wine regions I've been to in France, and I think I've hit all of them, including a dozen or so trips to/through the Loire, I think it's the least attractive as far as scenery, architecture, etc (though there's little in France that is downright ugly - it's just relative). With the time allotted, of course, you could visit more than one region, if you plan a good itinerary - the Loire and Burgundy, e.g., or Burgundy and the Côtes du Rhone, or Burgundy and Alsace...lots of possibilities.

Here's another vote for Alsace. We were there in September and it was a wonderful time to be there. You can get from Paris Est to Strasbourg on the TGV in under 2.5 hours, and Colmar is about another half hour.

You can also get to Strasbourg in 2.5 hours directly from CDG airport, for as little as 25 euros. If the OP likes my suggested itinerary above for leaving Paris immediately, then coming back, then moving on to Venice and flying home from there, that would be the thing to do.

Get a car and spend some time in the Loire Valley and the Brittany regions. Lots of chateaus that are both breathtaking and interesting. We visited Chambord, Chenonceau, and Cheverny. Great sights and great food and wine. In addition to Paris, which is amazing, our favorite cities were Honfleur (coastal town) and Mont St. Michel - which is like nothing you've ever seen, and Amboise.

Brittany is the least wine-oriented province of France. Beautiful, but not the place to go for wine.

Wow, this site is incredible! How did I not know about you wonderfully smart people before?

I'm liking a lot of what @StCirq recommended. That would give us 5 days of a more leisurely pace and we would be in Paris for the wife's birthday.

As I try to get the lay of the land for the country side exploration the two cities that are "popping out" are Strasbourg and Rheims which would be better to "start at" after flying in which should we take the train to? Can you rent a car at one and return it in the other (ie could we start in say Rheims and meander are way over to Strasbourg then return the car in Strasbourg and take the train back to Paris)?

So as it starts to take shape.

Fly into Paris around the 1st of September
Take the train to either Rheims or Strasbourg, rent a car and spend 5 days in north-east france
Take the train back to Paris around the 5th/6th spend 3-5 days in Paris
Catch a hopper flight to Venice spend the rest of the time there (maybe a day trip or two down to Florence, is Rome to far to at least take in the "famous sites" for a day? I'm used to much longer driving growing up in the midwestern United States)
Fly home around the 15th or so of September (most likely from Venice, depending on cost).

Here's what I would do:

Land at CDG and take the train right from there to Reims (sorry, I've been spelling it wrong, which won't help when you make your train reservations). Trains run often, take 30 minutes, and cost as little as 15 euros.

Spend two nights there (the first one will be hazy with jetlag). Visit the cathedral and check out a champagnerie or two; walk around. I don't think you'll need or want a car while you're there. The tourist office online can show you the many options for tours if you don't want to make all the arrangements yourself. On the afternoon of Day 3, take a train to Strasbourg. Spend a day or two there without a car, then rent one and visit the Route du Vin. If you have time, drive the Route des Crêtes and maybe even go over the border into Freiburg, Germany. Then drop off the car and take the train back to Paris.

But you could skin this cat in other ways. And yes, you can pick up a car in one French location and drop it off, usually for no or minimal fees. There's some pretty countryside between Reims and Strasbourg.

What part of September? You might go to a wine region and find that the harvest(vendange) is already in progress, and visitors will not be welcomed at that time.

My pick for a wine region would be Burgundy, which produces very good wines and has much to see besides.

The OP will likely be OK.He's thinking of leaving Sept. 1 and returning the 15th or so.

Have you seen "Band of Brothers"? Maybe you and your wife should watch it before your vacation for some good historical context on some of those towns. You might see a lot of WWII history sites in France. Anyway I loved it, it's up to you.

This may help for Champagne
http://www.mybikeguide.co.uk/Champagne_Cellars.php
Alsace route de vin, Tourist info has good info on this, I'd tend to focus on the southern part (where generally the better wine is grown) I suggest you start tasting in one of the cooperatives which tend to be bigger than some producers Turkheim is a good example and their tasting are generally free and don't expect people to buy. If you go to a smaller producer it is good manners to buy something (tea towel etc) Fodors did a terrible guide to "how to taste wine" last year but search it out and take it with a pinch of salt.

http://www.mybikeguide.co.uk/Alsace_Drink.php

Land at CDG and take the train right from there to Reims (sorry, I've been spelling it wrong, which won't help when you make your train reservations). Trains run often, take 30 minutes, and cost as little as 15 euros.>

Trains from CDG to Reims now take only 30 mins? Did not know there was direct service from airport to Reims - thanks for the update!

Well it is 30 mins to the TGV station well out of town - then you transfer to a regional train - taking one hour all told from the airport to Reims. Sure beats going into Paris like before and changing and makes Reims a very practical first stop now.