Alsace Wine Route

The Route des Vins d'Alsace runs 170 km from Marlenheim north of Strasbourg to Thann south of Colmar, through a ribbon of vineyards pressed between the Vosges mountains and the Rhine plain. The villages along it look like they were built to sell postcards, which they were not, they were built to make wine, and they have been doing it since the Romans planted the first vines. Eguisheim is a circular medieval village coiled around a central square that was voted France's favourite village and earns it. Riquewihr is the one every tour bus stops at because the main street is a perfect corridor of half-timbered houses, wine shops, and wisteria. Kaysersberg has the best bakeries and the Albert Schweitzer museum. Obernai has the largest town square on the route.

The wine is the point. Alsace makes white wine almost exclusively, and the quality is higher and the prices lower than most visitors expect. A bottle of Riesling from a good producer costs EUR 8-15 at the cellar door, which is half what you pay in a restaurant in Paris. Gewurztraminer (spicy, aromatic, goes with Munster cheese and foie gras), Pinot Gris (rich, honeyed), Pinot Blanc (crisp, everyday), and Cremant d'Alsace (the sparkling wine that outperforms most Champagne at a third of the price, EUR 7-10 a bottle) round out the list. Most producers offer free tastings at their shops, the larger domaines charge EUR 5-10 for a structured tasting of 5-6 wines.

You need a car. The villages are 5-15 minutes apart along the D35 road that threads through the vines, and the landscape between them, rows of vines climbing the hillside with a ruined castle on every other peak, is half the experience. Stop at 2-3 villages per day, taste at 1-2 producers per village, eat lunch at a winstub in whichever village you find yourself in at noon, and do not try to see everything in one day because the route is 170 km long and the point is not efficiency.