Wineries in Provence, Piedmont and Tuscany. Help!
 

We will be in Italy and France this month and our goal is to visit several wineries and we some help. We are big red fans and would love to see a few wineries that are picturesque (I love taking photos). If anyone has any ideas with links to the winery website or a link to a good site that has a good winery map I would appreciate it. There is a lot of information on the web and I don't know what information to use.

Also, we would love to see almond or olive trees in bloom in Provence, if that is possible. I don't think we'll see lavender at this time of year but we are looking for the "van Gogh" views. We are huge fans of van Gogh.

Most wine guides in Italy focus on the quality of the wine, not how picturesque the vinyard is. However, for Italy, you can do google searches for "strade del vino Piemonte" and "strade del vino Toscana" and find maps of winery routes. if you have a specific kind of red wine you prefer, you can search for "strada del Barolo" -- or Brunello, or Chianti, etc.

Almond blossom season is over along the Mediterranean coast. Olive trees vary in type, but most don't bloom until the middle of may.

Keep in mind that generally in Italy you need to pre-book appointments with the wineries. It usually isn't like California where you can just drive around and drop in at several wineries in one day.

Everyone seems to want to "visit wineries" in Italy and I always ask myself what the is the true motive. In your case you seem to regard it as a visual experience, and it may be.

But, if you want photos of pristine countryside then there are better options. Most want to " sample and buy wines"--which is a quite understandable. However, in Italy that is often better done at an enoteca in the wine towns---they are set up for that. The experience is nothing like Napa or other CA wineries. I have visited at least 30 wineries in Italy during our 17 trips---most in Tuscany and Piemonte. Most of them reuired an appointment or at least specified a time for viits by tourists. I suggest you ask yourself what you hope to accomplish during your visit and then plan well.

Here are good pics in Piemonte including some pretty views from a winery near Alba:
http://www.slowphotos.com/photo/show...y.php?cat=4172

Thanks for the tips. Does anyone else have any tips?

DH and I have visited some wineries in Tuscany and the Piemonte. They were all picturesque, but kind of in the same way - rolling fields of vines, with a building there, somewhere, sometimes the buildings are picturesque, sometimes not. I guess it's the countryside generally that I find beautiful, not specifically wineries. And you could certainly find great photo ops without being AT the vineyard.

In deciding which wineries to get or make appointments at, as I recall, we started with some producers in those area whose wines DH liked (he's the big oenophile). In each case, we then asked the place we were staying at if they could get us appointments. (Though we also visited Castello Banfi; the place most like those in California, and we scheduled that ourselves.) They were mostly small wineries. For the Tuscany vineyard visits (about 8 years ago) we also used a book called "The Food and Wine Lovers Tuscany" to get ideas of places that were reasonably near where we were staying; I don't know if the book's still in print or has a new edition.

I think I'm in the camp, and DH is as well, that visiting wineries isn't that interesting - in many respects, they're a lot alike. We never spent a huge amount of time on a trip visiting them. And only bought a couple of bottles, at most, from each place; all of them, the owners/staff told us how to purchase their wines in the U.S., which we have done since then. And as already suggested, to try different wines, enotecas are a better resource for that.

Thank you, Lexma90. I love this forum because our trip has changed dramatically based off the advice of others. I would have never guessed the wineries were not like California, in the aspect of pulling up without an appt and tasting wine. It's one of our favorite things to do anywhere we go that has vineyards. With that said, we won't be upset if we don't go to more than one or two. You're right, the countryside is what I really like. Do you remember areas or small towns you liked?

Does anyone know if Provence, France wineries require appointments? Are they more interesting to visit?

You might want to concentrate on the Langhe area of Piedmont.


http://www.langheroero.it/Sezione.js...&idSezione=130



For example, Barbaresco is an exceedingly picturesque town, with a regional enoteca where you can taste.


http://www.enotecadelbarbaresco.it/

You might want to concentrate on the Langhe area of Piedmont:


http://www.langheroero.it/Sezione.js...&idSezione=130

The town of Barbaresco, for example, is very picturesque and has an enoteca for tasting local wines:

http://www.enotecadelbarbaresco.it/

No, generally speaking you can't just pull up to a wine château in Provence and expect the owners to come running out to greet you and take you around. They're busy running a business. Some may have a small ancillary shop where you can taste wine and buy their products (often things other than wine), but many will not. You can contact the Tourist Office of the various towns for tours (if there are any) and other information. It's not Napa Valley.

And while I've certainly snapped a few pictures of vineyards in Provence and many other areas of France, I wouldn't call any vineyard there particularly picturesque - it's just rows of vines, like anywhere else. I guess sometimes when the roses that they plant at the ends of the rows are blooming it's a pictoral highpoint, but otherwise not something I'd get particularly excited about.

If all you want to do is taste local wines, look for "dégustation" signs along the roads. But they are few and far between in Provence as compared to other regions in France in my experience.

You will find some vineyards in Tuscany that have tasting rooms similar to the vineyards in California, but even some of those usually want people to schedule visits.

Since you are big red fans, I hope you are planning to visit the Montalcino area (Brunellos). I would do a tasting at the fortezza. While the tasting area (in the courtyard of the fortezza if weather is good) doesn't have views, you can go on top if you want to take pictures of the countryside.
http://www.enotecalafortezza.com/english/index.php

If the weather is a bit cool and you want views, Enoteca Osticcio has great views from inside. Click on visita. You can do Brunello flights and the food is good also. I think their prices are a bit higher than the fortezza, but sometimes you have to pay for the view.
http://www.osticcio.it/

The Montalcino Tourist Board has some wine tour offers and they also have a list of wineries. I think you would need to e-mail them about the wine tours.

http://www.prolocomontalcino.com/en/...t-board/change

http://www.prolocomontalcino.com/en/...-3/wine-makers

Thank you, all! This information really helps.