This is a guest article by Beth Peluse. Beth works for Taste Vacations, a luxury travel company that specializes in wine, food, spirits and beer tours around the world. The folks that put on our successful Wine Blogger Conferences also run this touring company. They are well organized and fine tuned for travel adventures.

Tuscany

Best Glass of Wine You Ever Tasted? The One On Your Next Vacation

Location, location, location! Everyone has heard this phrase tied to the real estate industry, but have you ever thought about it for tasting wine?

When you taste a wine at home, you may or may not like it. But that’s all there generally is to the experience – the wine. However, imagine yourself sitting on the patio of a winery in Tuscany, Italy, watching the sun set on the vineyard, surrounded by friends, having just learned about the wine from the winemaker. The experience is more than the wine, and your perception of the wine reflects the entire experience.

To be fair, tasting at home isn’t entirely about the wine. Your impression is affected by the food you are eating and the company you keep. But, in general, travel influences your perception of a wine much more than when you taste at home.

Which is why wines simply seem to taste better while vacationing in wine country. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Humans are social animals. We seek out and enjoy opportunities to share experiences with one another. We are also highly impressionable, easily influenced by our environment or mood.

You might even have had the experience of loving a wine you taste at a winery, buying a bottle, and wondering what you were so enamored about when you opened it at home. Sad to say, sometimes that awesome wine you drink watching that sunset in Tuscany won’t be as good when you drink it at home.

But that is entirely okay. In fact, it is even good. An excellent wine is one you enjoy, and so adding in the emotional aspects of drinking wine on vacation is an entirely legitimate way of experiencing good wine. In essence, the wine you taste on vacation actually is better than the same wine you drink at home, simply because you like it better.

We at Taste Vacations take all this to heart by arranging wine tours around the world that provide intimate, unique wine experiences. For example, on our Chile and Argentina tour, our travelers have the opportunity to dine with the winemaker of El Castillo Agua Clara at his private estate, blend their own wine at Viña San Esteban, and participate in a progressive tasting at Veramonte Winery.

On our Tuscany Food & Wine Tour, our travelers not only participate in amazing wine experiences but they can also learn about roasting coffee at a cafe in Arezzo, have a picnic at a local pecorino (a sheep’s milk cheese) farm, learn about making gelato at Gelateria Ghignoni, and go truffle hunting and take a cooking class with famous agriculturist, Augusto Verando Tocci.

Our goal at Taste Vacations is not necessarily to make the local wine taste better, but it is one result of having a great wine vacation!