AR Argentina
Mendoza
High-altitude vineyards, Andean horizons and destination-worthy lunches.
A booked driver is the practical default beyond Mendoza city.
Plan around: Uco Valley transport and a winery lunch.
Best Mar — Apr · 5–7 days · MDZ 16 minTravel thoughtfully · drink responsibly · 18+
7 of 20 regions
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 7 regions
PT Portugal
Madeira
Terraced smallholdings above the Atlantic, and a fortified wine deliberately aged by heat.
Funchal is walkable and the lodges are in town; the terraces themselves need a bus, taxi or a levada walk.
Plan around: Lodge tastings of the older vintages, which are poured by appointment.
Best Apr — Oct · 4–7 days · FNC 21 minZA South Africa
Stellenbosch
Cape Dutch farms under granite mountains, an hour from a city, with harvest in the European winter.
Around 45 minutes from Cape Town by road. Distances between farms are short but a booked driver is the sane choice.
Plan around: Harvest-season tastings and the restaurants on the estates, which fill early.
Best Feb — Apr · 4–7 days · CPT 35 minIT Italy
Chianti Classico
The original zone between Florence and Siena — oak woods, stone villages and Sangiovese on every good slope.
A car is the honest answer between the villages; Florence and Siena bracket the zone by rail and bus.
Plan around: Estate visits and any restaurant you have actually chosen.
Best May — Jun · Sep — Oct · 3–5 days · FLR 65 minIT Italy
Tuscany
A visit hub for the wider region: Chianti Classico between Florence and Siena, then Brunello and the coast if you have the days.
A car is the honest answer once you leave the Florence–Siena rail line. Use the train for the two cities; drive the hills.
Plan around: One estate in Chianti Classico and, if you are going south, a Montalcino visit — both fill in September.
Best May — Jun · Sep — Oct · 5–7 days · FLR 20 minES Spain
Priorat
Black slate, severe gradients and a small, hard-won region that repays the effort of getting there.
Rail to Falset-Marçà from Barcelona, then a car — the villages are close by map and slow by road.
Plan around: Everything. The cellars are small and most visit by appointment only.
Best Apr — May · Sep — Oct · 3–4 days · REU 48 minNZ New Zealand
Central Otago
The world's southernmost commercial wine region: continental, high, and about as far as this gets.
Fly to Queenstown, then a car. The sub-regions are spread out and the landscape between them is the reason to go.
Plan around: Cellar door appointments at the smaller producers, and accommodation in Queenstown at any time of year.
Best Feb — Apr · 5–7 days · ZQN 46 minOther 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.