The drive is the trip.

Not the same as needing a car. These are the regions where the road between two villages is one of the reasons to come — the landscape happens at windscreen speed, and the vineyards punctuate it.

How a region qualifies

Our judgement: a car is required, and the driving is a pleasure rather than a tax. Regions that merely need a driver are on the without-a-car page instead.

What it changes

Plan shorter days than the map suggests and settle the designated driver before the first tasting. In Priorat and Madeira in particular the roads are slow by design.

The 6 regions

AR Argentina

Mendoza

High-altitude vineyards, Andean horizons and destination-worthy lunches.

Best Mar — Apr · 5–7 days · MDZ 16 min

PT Portugal

Madeira

Terraced smallholdings above the Atlantic, and a fortified wine deliberately aged by heat.

Best Apr — Oct · 4–7 days · FNC 21 min

ZA South Africa

Stellenbosch

Cape Dutch farms under granite mountains, an hour from a city, with harvest in the European winter.

Best Feb — Apr · 4–7 days · CPT 35 min

IT Italy

Chianti Classico

The original zone between Florence and Siena — oak woods, stone villages and Sangiovese on every good slope.

Best May — Jun · Sep — Oct · 3–5 days · FLR 65 min

ES Spain

Priorat

Black slate, severe gradients and a small, hard-won region that repays the effort of getting there.

Best Apr — May · Sep — Oct · 3–4 days · REU 48 min

NZ New Zealand

Central Otago

The world's southernmost commercial wine region: continental, high, and about as far as this gets.

Best Feb — Apr · 5–7 days · ZQN 46 min

Other kinds of trip

one base, no moving, walking between the wine, fortified and sweet, volcanoes and altitude, and sparkling. Or start from the places themselves.