The Most Beautiful Wine Regions You Can Visit With Culture Trip

The people of Portugal know how to enjoy the finer things in life. That includes sweet pastries, fresh seafood dishes and wine, which is grown all over the country, and features prominently in the first few days of our eight-day Portuguese Rail Trip. We start in gorgeous Porto, a city quite literally built by the wine industry, with direct river access to the Douro Valley. As far back as the 13th century barrels have been transported down the Douro via rabelo boats that you can still see in the city today. As exports to Northern Europe began, a happy accident came about when, in an attempt to better preserve the wine, the people of Porto stumbled upon the recipe for Port, a sweet fortified wine now synonymous with the city. You’ll get to learn all about this digestive treat as we go for a Port tasting in one of old cellars found along the riverfront. After that, we’ll head to the point of origin with a day trip to the splendid Douro Valley, perhaps Europe’s most spectacularly scenic wine region. We’ll stop at multiple viewpoints to enjoy vistas of rolling hills lined with vineyards, before hopping on a boat tour down the Douro and stopping for lunch at a local winery, where you can also sample the local tipples.

You might not guess it, but Georgia is actually the oldest wine producing region on the planet. People have been growing grapes high above sea level here, in the shadow of the Caucasus Mountains, for around 8,000 years. Much of the process historically relied on underground fermentation, storage and ageing in traditional clay vessels called Kvevri. You’ll learn all about this ancient technique on day four of our Georgia trip, when you’ll head to Kakheti, where you’ll watch a master craftsmen who still used the old ways today. You’ll follow that with lunch and wine accompanied by a traditional toastmaster, while on day five you’ll visit another local winery, where you’ll sample some of the country’s finest wines which, in some cases, are made in limited quantities by very small-scale producers. Expect Rkatsiteli and Saperavi grape varieties to feature heavily.