Private Group Wine Tours
Burgundy Tasting with Steven Spurrier
Champagne Dinner
International Groups (ie. Non UK based)
See Also Private Groups & Wine Clubs UK
Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours was founded in 1986 by the current Directors and every year since then we have been arranging Wine Tours for private parties. Many of the groups have been from overseas, from the USA, Australia, South Africa, France, the Netherlands and Hong Kong and China and even French wine makers! We have multi-lingual tour managers, trained to the strict A&C standards who can escort your party in your chosen language or arrange for translators to accompany our tour manager or wine guides where necessary.
In fact many of these parties return again and again, so, for example, we have a party from a Texan wine club who have travelled with us to Bordeaux, Tuscany, Piedmont, Australia, Chile and Argentina. A small exclusive group of wine connoisseurs from Hong Kong have so far travelled with us to Burgundy, Rhone and Bordeaux. We have also taken several large groups of Champagne Vignerons to the New World.
If you are organising a group wine tour and you would like one of the other organisers to give you a reference, we are happy to put you in touch with them.
We can arrange private wine tours to any of the 21 wine countries and countless superb wine and gourmet destinations in our programme and for any of our themes. So, for example, we can arrange a Vineyard Walk in all the major wine regions of France, Spain or Portugal, a Wine & Opera tour to Venice, Milan or Vienna; gourmet tours to Italy for truffle hunting or cookery demonstrations or even an exclusive luxury Wine Cruise. We have even organised a wedding in Portugal for an Irish wine merchant. (The wedding party had great fun treading grapes at a Port Quinta up in the Douro).
We do not, however, arrange stag or hen parties.
The Wine Tours itinerary
We really love designing wine touring itineraries and are always keen to ensure that these are designed to suit you using the best of our extensive knowledge and ability. This passion for designing great wine tours has continued over our 22 years of wine touring and many more years in the hospitality industry prior to this (Lynette Arblaster was born in a small hotel in a town dedicated to tourism). In addition to the Directors personal experience, two of the senior managers now celebrate more than 13 years with A&C and the rest of the team are catching up fast. There is simply no more experienced, knowledgeable or passionate wine tours team anywhere in the world.
Tell us what your level of wine interest is and if you have other interests that you would like to work in. For example, a round of golf, a visit to an olive oil producer, a cookery demonstration, visits to markets, the opera, (remember we are also highly experience in opera tours) theatres, museums, historic sites or important towns, or just building in time for relaxing around the pool!
We want to ensure that the wine programme is as intensive or as relaxed as you want. You may want a full-on tour with an itinerary packed with in depth visits, or you may also want optional non-wine activities such as golf, shopping or visiting attractions for part of the group.
It’s your wine tour and our passion is simply to make it perfect for you.
Research, Innovation and our Knowledge of the Wine regions of the world
Group leaders often come to us after they have started to do quite a lot of work trying to arrange the tour - even after having specially visited the region they may still find that it is all too difficult. However, we have already done the research! We have a huge thirst (sic!) for continual knowledge about our regions - constantly searching out the best hotels, most interesting restaurants and of course the latest news on the wine front!
We know and have personally inspected the best value and the most luxurious hotels to use and will have many interesting suggestions according to your budget and group size. Unlike the authors of guide books and travel articles, or even general tour operators who have never been to the wine regions, we have actually used the hotels for discerning, paying clients and we know how people react to them in practice. So we even know which rooms to avoid, or to ask for. You have no come back on a writer of a travel book or a web-guide if you are not happy!
This year, so far, our team has re-researched most of the wine regions of France, several regions of Italy, Southern Spain, Switzerland, South Africa, South America, Australia and Greece checking up on many of the hotels that we use and finding new ones. We were appalled at the ranking given to some of them by several of the guide books, in which they certainly should not have been featured. Relying on ratings on the web is no guarantee either, as you have no idea who posted these comments and they have no liability to you if you don’t agree with their opinions!
Access to Wine Estates and Wine Chateaux
Our long-standing and high reputation means that we can arrange visits to many of the top wine producers throughout the wine-world including top Bordeaux chateaux and Burgundy domaines. We know which visits are good, genuinely interesting and generous with tastings, and, which are not - even though they sound good. We can often arrange for the Wine-maker, Owner or a senior Manager to host your visit if the group are particularly interested in wine.
If there is a particular vineyard, winery, Burgundy domaine, Bordeaux château or Champagne house that you wish to visit please discuss this with us and we will do our best to accommodate your request. We can sometimes arrange visits to wine producers who are normally closed.
It is also very important for us to know the standard of wine that the members of the group are interested in:
Is it in great and famous wines and vineyards, the best known producers, impressive chateau and domaines?
Is it even in the very greatest Premier Cru and Grand Cru wines, 95 points - 100 point wines, however expensive they are, cost no object?
Is in out of the way, unusual or particular producers, the rising stars and perhaps people we can suggest as being most interesting to visit?
Lunches and dinners arranged at the wine cellars.
At A&C good food is as important as great wines – and our favorite place to enjoy the wines, is with a meal, preferably at the winery. There are few more pleasurable ways, to our minds, of spending a day than at a leisurely lunch at a beautiful wine domaine hosted by the wine-maker, sitting under the olive trees, looking out over the vineyards, with delicious platefuls of tasty local food specialties to perfectly complement the wine We know which cellars can entertain and where you will find the best hospitality.
Restaurant and menu choices.
We have tried or know of most of the restaurants in most of the wine regions. We know which is good, which is to be avoided, whcih is great value and which has got a great wine list and so can recommend restaurants to suit your requirements – from simple river-side auberges, to the greatest Triple Rosette Michelin rated restaurants.
The Guides
Arblaster & Clarke have superb Wine Guides including some of the most famous names in the wine business. SEE GUIDES
We also have experienced multi-lingual Tour Managers trained to our high standards. According to your budget and the level of interest of the group you would choose the level of guidance you require:
- Both a Wine Guide and a Tour Manager
- A Wine Guide who can act as Tour Manager
- Just a Tour Manager
- We can arrange for a local Wine Guide to join you for just part of the time and for local city guides as required.
- We can also arrange translators into other languages
Plan in advance
We strongly recommend that you plan ahead as much as possible. Getting your party together will take longer than you think and your first choice of accommodation is more likely to be available given a good lead time. This is especially the case if you go for the high-season wine touring months of September through to early November.
That being said, we have often and can put tours together at very short notice if that is what you need but this always limit your choice and increase the price.
Arblaster and Clarke Wine Tours is a fully licensed and bonded Tour Operator.
We carry extensive Public Liability and other necessary insurances. We have an Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL) granted by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). We are members of the Association of Independent Tour operators. (AITO). All the money that you pay to us is protected by our issued by bonds the CAA and AITO trust. The financial protection afforded by these bonds does extend to our private group clients from overseas. (This is often not the case with other British or European companies even when they are bonded). See why this is important.
You should be aware that companies or individuals that offer trust accounts do not offer this level of financial security whatever promises the tour organiser makes. These accounts are unregulated (unless they are overseen by the TTA), cost the operator nothing to set up and since no external entity has checked the accounts, are often found to be empty when needed. Professional tour operators who are genuinely interested in protecting their client’s money or interests do not use trust accounts - which were originally intended for social groups or church outings only.
Pricing
To give you a price indication on a particular wine tour, please refer to the tour description. For parties larger than our maximum number prices will be less, for parties smaller than on our standard tours the per person prices will be higher. The number of meals that you include for your party, the standard of the hotels, and the time of year you choose will also affect the price.
To ask Arblaster & Clarke Wine Tours to arrange your private wine tour
First please call us to discuss your wine touring requirements or send us an email to give us a time to call you or email us telling us the following information:
The likely maximum and minimum size of the party.
Time of year or preferred date and length of trip.
The preferred style and star rating of the accommodation.
The number and standard of the meals that you would like included.
The quality of the wine that you would like to taste
Whether you would like just a Tour Manager or a Tour Manager and a Wine Guide
Your rough, budget expectation. (We need at an early stage so we can design an itinerary to meet your aspirations
We can then design an outline itinerary and quote to you giving information on deposits, booking conditions etc, we are normally able to provide this within 5 working days, or to meet your deadline, especially if you have a meeting with your party coming up.
Discuss your idea with us
Please call or Lynette Arblaster, Cindy-Marie Harvey or Caron Fanshawe on 01730 263111 e-mail us at contact@winetours.co.uk
Tours
Gourmet Piemonte
Departures throughout the year.
Bordeaux Wine Chateau Holiday for Individuals, Early booking offers.
Departures throughout the year.
Champagne by Private Plane
Contact us for dates.
Champagne day trip for Corporate Hospitality
Contact us for dates.
Champagne holiday for Corporate Hospitality
Contact us for dates.
Gourmet Emilia-Romagna
Departures throughout the year.
