If you are a lover of fine wines, like to go to interesting and different locations when on vacation, then combining travel and wine for your vacation makes a lot of sense, as well as opening up a whole new approach to travel.
No matter where you go, staying in wine country is a wonderful way to see a new place from a different perspective than the usual round of ancient ruins, monuments, museums, galleries and capital cities.
Furthermore, as you will be in rural areas, you could combine the two with another favorite travel option – the golf tour.
Whether it be the Sonoma Valley in California, the Margaret River wineries of Western Australia, the Rhone region in France or any of the many wine regions in Italy, the wine country lifestyle will not only prove to be of great interest, but can be fitted to any budget.
You, of course, can take a packaged tour, but it is advisable to also include time to do your 
own thing when visiting any wine producing region. A leisurely pace is best – so that you can both wine and dine to more fully experience the richness of the local wines, with local food – rather than just rush around tasting it all.
One idea is that when you go to a town or region associated with wine production, take the time to meet the locals – perhaps in a bar, at a café, in a restaurant. From them you can learn many of the ‘hidden’ or not well known secrets about the best wines that are made there.
Listen to what the locals say are good wines and find out what they drink themselves. They won’t always be the famous labels – but they will be quality and probably much more affordable.
So where to go on a travel and wine vacation?
If it your first time and it’s Europe where you are traveling to – then you can’t go past the Bordeaux region of France. Rightly renowned for its wines, you can get a wide range of options to fit both your pocket and tastes.
Bordeaux is France’s largest wine region, yet surprisingly its most prestigious part, the Médoc, is also the youngest. It wasn’t until the Dutch drained this flat, gravelly, marsh in the mid-17th century that the merchants of Bordeaux, keen to compete with the wine trade between Portugal and Britain (this was the time that port was ‘discovered’), planted vines. 
History, politics, commerce and engineering have all played their part in shaping the wine that has become synonymous with Bordeaux.
If you go to Italy, then almost any rural area will have good wines – simply base your selection on the type of wine you prefer.
There is no question that wine is synonymous with Italy. Making wine in Italy is like breathing – it is sewn into the fabric of Italian life. There are 900,000 registered vineyards scattered throughout Italy.
Italy is the number one wine-producing country in the world and Italians consume an average of 14.5 gallons of wine per person, per year, making them third in the world for consumption. For years, Italian wines were considered not much more than table wines but they have come into their own in recent years. No visit to Italy is complete without experiencing Italian wine at the source – the vineyard.
If you want something completely different as a tourist experience, yet still include wine and travel, then the Margaret River region of Western Australia is a must. It is vast country, but this region is easily accessible from the State capital of Perth – and offers many other tourist sights and experiences to vary your wine touring holiday.
And, last but not least, is the rich experience of the Napa Valley in California – where a combination holiday of dining with local wines is a must.
