Wine Walking Holidays

The Burgundy Vineyard Walk

Picnic on Rhone and Northern Beaujolais Walk

A&C’s Vineyard Walks walking wine tours

Arblaster and Clarke, the leading wine tour specialists, offer the ultimate walking wine holidays with our ‘Vineyard Walks’ to Burgundy, Alsace, the Rhone, Beaujolais, Rioja, the Douro and Piemonte. Our vineyard trails are planned to take in the great vineyards, to give the best views of the châteaux and to take you to wine tastings at great cellars.

Our Vineyard Walks are genuinely wine tours on foot! The trails have been walked out extensively by our team (It takes us about one man/month to set up a vineyard walk, we are not just following arduous French hiking trails, or putative paths shown on maps – all too often these go somewhere neither beautiful nor useful and sometimes nowhere at all!) The vineyard walks are designed to be interesting and educational and on one of our vineyard walks you will begin to see all those differences in soil and aspect which the French call “terroir”.

On a typical day on a Vineyard Walk you will stroll for an hour through the vineyards to our first tasting, then onto a picnic lunch, then more walking and tastings! You will cover an easy five to eight miles a day although this varies with each tour so please read the descriptions carefully. If at any stage you want to “opt out” the coach can be called easily.

On many of our walking a small local mini-bus is on hand throughout the tour. It will transfer your bags and wine after tastings and to take you into the local towns or we have taxis on standby. We use characterful accommodation, comfortable family-run 2* and 3* hotels, and in the Douro stay on a famous wine estate. (All hotel rooms are of course are en-suite, and many have a swimming pool). Arblaster and Clarke have experienced leaders who are enthusiastic walkers with a good knowledge of wine, the trails, the vineyards, food and the region.

The ground covered on our Vineyard Walks varies according to the tour, Burgundy is the lightest of the walks, Loire, Champagne and Bordeaux are also easy walking, but the trails in Rioja, Piemonte, Alsace and certainly in Douro are more strenuous, but would still not really be considered hiking. The party size for all these tours is limited to just 16 people (or just 12 on our Douro walk).

For private groups of 10 – 16 participants we can also arrange wine walks to all the above areas, plus to the Central and Eastern Loire, Champagne, the Rhone and Bordeaux – all of which are areas to which we have personally arranged scheduled wine walks to in the past.

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Other Ideas and Past Tours

Northern Rhone & Beaujolais Crus Vineyard Walk

4 - 10 September 2011

There is something iconic about a walking tour through the whole of the Beaujolais Cru; Brouilly, Côte de Brouilly, Régnié, Morgon, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent, Chénas, Juliénas and St Amour, and tasting each of th…

Mosel Vineyard Walk

10 - 16 September 2007

The first part of the walk explores the Saar, which is just to the south of the city of Trier. The River Saar is a navigable waterway, the vineyards above it are some of the steepest in the world and are famous for their sweet …

Walking in the Vineyards of Central Loire

Walk through the vineyards of the Central Loire with wonderful tastings and picnic lunches along the way. The walk starts in Saumur, staying for two nights, then following the Loire River upstream through the Saumur-Champigny …

Bordeaux Vineyard Walk

Discover some of the enchanting out of way parts of Bordeaux on this lovely seven day walk through the Aquitaine vineyards. We have a fascinating insight into the broad spectrum of Bordeaux life from small family owned chateau…

Champagne Harvest Vineyard Walk

“Champagne” of course means countryside and this short walking holiday takes us deep into the Champagne region. From our base in the Grand Cru village of Aÿ we have walks out of the village to the surrounding hills and Cha…

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Client Comments

"Excellent tour. Food, wine, hotel spot on. Silvia was a star and a very amusing bunch of guests. Only regret not taking a car to bring back some vino. Many thanks."

— NA, Gourmet Piemonte 2008

"I enjoyed the great wines and the landscape"

— PD-R, Great Wines of Piemonte 2009

"We thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and will definitely use A&C again...The whole group were fantastic and excellent fun. Silvia is a first class, superb host and knows her stuff, accommodates individual's needs without affecting those of the group. Ascheri hotel is first class and the wines also as good. Being able to arrange your own transport is a positive as it allowed us to bring plenty back and extend our European tour."

— PM, Gourmet Piemonte 2008

Why did you choose Arblaster & Clarke? “If you want the best you choose the best.”

— PS Douro Vineyard Walk, 2008

"Our hosts at each vineyard went out of their way to welcome us and take time to talk about their experiences. Even more so given they were in the middle of the harvest in Beaujolais. Paul, our guide, was excellent, approachable and knowledgeable. Enjoyed his company!"

— RB & JB, Northern Rhone & Beaujolais Crus Vineyard Walk

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