
Guided wine tastings, escorted winery tours, and vineyard visits near Chianti
Whether its a guided tasting in a cellar or a visit to the vineyards of TK, you can learn so much more about Italian wines with an escorted wine tour.
Chianti
More tours- Realadventures.com - This is not a tour operator or travel agency, but rather a clearing for independent tour operators, local adventure outfitters, and vacation agencies to offer their trips and tours direct to consumers. As such, it offers a potpourri of trips around the world, including cooking schools, and much, much more.Partner
- Viator.com - Best place to search for one-day culinary adventures (along with a few mutli-day ones)—from cooking classes to vineyard visits, market tours to memorable meals.Partner
- Contexttravel.com - This bespoke walking tour company doesn't even call its 200 tour leaders "guides." It calls them "docents"—perhaps because most guides are academics and specialists in their fields—whcih means your curated meal or market tour will be led by a chef or food historian, your wine-tasting tour led by a trained sommelier, Partner
- Veltra.com - Chief rival to Viator, representing fewer tours but also offering some you won't find on Viator.Partner
- Activegourmetholidays.com - Mixing active pursuits—walking and biking, mostly, with some golf and yoga—with one-day cooking classes, longer cooking courses, wine tasting, and other culinary adventures. Nifty idea—Though far from the cheapest out there.
- intrepidtravel.com - Intrepid makes a concerted effort to travel like real independent travelers—small groups (usually a max of 8 or 12 people), staying in mom-and-pop accommodations and getting around by public transport rather than a big tour bus. Among their trips are a series of 'Real Food Adventures."Partner
- Infohub.com - Not a tour company, rather a kind of aggregator of trips offered by tour companies. it casts one of the largest nets over the industry, listing some 14,000 tours offered by 4,000 operators in more than 100 categories—including plenty of cooking courses, wine tours, and other foodie adventures.Partner
- Viator.com - Best one-stop shopping site for all sorts of activities, walking tours, bus tours, escorted day trips, and other excursions. It is actually a clearinghouse for many local tour companies and outfitters, and since it gets a bulk-rate deal on pricing (and takes only a token fee for itself), you can actually sometimes book an activity through Viator for less than it would cost to buy the same exact tour from the tour company itself. (I once booked a Dublin pub crawl via Viator and later discovered that I saved about $1.50; also, the tour turned out to be sold-out, and they were turning away the folks in front of me in line, but since I had a pre-booked voucher I got in.)Partner
- Contexttravel.com - This bespoke walking tour company doesn't even call its 200 tour leaders "guides." It calls them "docents"—perhaps because most guides are academics and specialists in their fields: history professors, archeologists, PhDs, art historians, artists, etc. Groups are miniscule (often six people maximum), and most docents can be booked for private guiding sessions as well. They aren't always the cheapest tours, but they are invariably the best. People rave about Context.Partner
- Veltra.com - Chief rival to Viator, representing fewer tours but also offering some you won't find on Viator.Partner
- Freewalkingtouritalia.com - Basic walking tours that cost... "name your own price." The guides work for "tips," much of which is turned over to their boss, so you end up "tipping" them €15 to €20 per person anyway, meaning the tours aren't actually free (though, given their incentive, most guides put on a good show and give a good tour) .
- Freetoursbyfoot.com - Basic walking tours of popular Roman neighborhoods that costs... "name your own price." The guides work for "tips," much of which is turned over to their boss, so you end up "tipping" them €15 to €20 per person anyway, meaning the tours aren't actually free (though, given their incentive, most guides put on a good show and give a good tour) .
- Venicefreewalkingtour.com - Basic walking tours of Venice that costs... "name your own price." The guides work for "tips," much of which is turned over to their boss, so you end up "tipping" them €15 to €20 per person anyway, meaning the tours aren't actually free (though, given their incentive, most guides put on a good show and give a good tour) .
More on Wine
A Chianti castle whose family produced one of the great early explorers of the American coastline
This market town with a lovely piazza is the unofficial capital of the Chianti
Historic villa where the Mona Lisa was born, "Much Ado about Nothing" was filmed, and great wines are made
Velvety, oaky wines at a French-style winery inside a medieval Tuscan village
A postcard-perfect Renaissance monastery surrounded by a high-end wine estate
This ancient Etruscan town has a wonderful medieval feel, Etruscan artifacts, and some great wine shops
An historic Chianti wine estate in the same family for more than 600 years
This ancient Chianti castle is a British-own wine estate, hotel, and restaurant
One of the three medieval towns in the original Lega del Chianti and still an important wine center
A vineyard spilling steeply downhill from a gorgeous 18C villa that also rents rooms
A market town and ancient member of the Lega del Chianti with some nice wine shops
Just south of Rome, in the Alban Hills, lies a string of hilltowns, villages, and vineyards called the Castelli Romani
Rooms and apartments (sleeping 3–7) in a gorgeous 12C monastery now home to a famed cooking school, restaurant, and winery
A winery agriturismo with 6 rooms and 7 apartments in a fortified medieval village near Gaiole in Chianti
A beautifully isolated monastery turned wine estate and renowned cooking school
More on Culinary
One of the world's most famous butcher shops
A beautifully isolated monastery turned wine estate and renowned cooking school