We will be touring around Tuscany during the first week in May in a rental car. What is the procedure when visiting vineyards....can you just stop by or must you be part of an organized tour or make arrangements ahead of time? Here in the states our wineries have set hours where you can just drop in and pay a small fee to do a tasting of usually 5 or 6 wines. How does it work with the vineyards in Tuscany? I've heard that you can visit an 'enoteca' and taste wines for several euros, but I'm not quite understanding how the vineyards work. I've tried looking at some websites but haven't found any that have the English translation option. Thank you for any help!
Posted by
Corvallis OR
7180 posts
Here's an article with some general information: http://www.winewordswisdom.com/travel_itineraries/southern-tuscany-wine-tour.html.
This one lists 10 popular vineyards and give days/hours/whether you need advance reservations, etc for each of them along with contact information: http://www.decanter.com/wine-travel/italy/top-10-tuscan-wineries-to-visit-13770/2/
Hope this helps a little.
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16240 posts
Cost of tasting varies depending on the number of tastings included in each menu. Generally for a basic tasting of about 3 wines, the cost goes from zero to 5 euro depending on the winery. For higher levels (more wines and/or reserve) 10 to 15euro (or even higher) might be more likely, especially if it includes a guided visit of the winery.
Below are some famous websites that will give you extensive lists of wineries by region. The number of wineries in Italy is astounding. Although many have merged and consolidated, they peaked at over 1 million wineries in the 1980's. Now we are down to about 380,000. Still an amazing number when compared to places like California, which has well under 5000, or the entire US with just above 10,000.
Posted by
OP
Williamsport, PA, USA
16 posts
Nancy...thank you! Those are great articles and the exact type of info I was looking for. Roberto...I think those are the same 3 websites I saw recommended elsewhere (maybe by you?). Unless I'm doing something wrong I can't find a way to translate the first 2 sites from Italian to English, and the translation link for the 3rd site is not working for me. But I appreciate the help and will learn a lot from the other articles I'm sure. Thank you!