Wine Routes from Quebec
Four regions are worth the flight from Montreal, and they ask for very different budgets, preparation and wine knowledge. Burgundy has to be booked months ahead. Tuscany forgives improvisation. The Douro can be travelled by boat. Georgia resembles nothing you already know.
Which wine route suits a first trip?
Tuscany, without hesitation. Estates there welcome visitors without an appointment made six months in advance, villages sit an hour apart, and Sangiovese makes sense by the second glass. Burgundy is deeper and more beautiful, but it punishes anyone who arrives without a plan: the great domaines do not receive visitors, and those that do fill up far ahead.
Burgundy, for understanding rather than tasting
Thirty kilometres of road between Dijon and Beaune hold the highest concentration of grand cru vineyards on earth. The pyramid of appellations — regional, village, premier cru, grand cru — is written into the landscape, plot by plot. Only two grape varieties, pinot noir and chardonnay, yet hundreds of different wines separated by a few metres of slope. The village-by-village detail is in the Burgundy wine route.
Tuscany, for the first time
Between Florence, Siena and Montalcino the cellars open, the villages are walkable and the table follows the glass. Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino and the Super Tuscans of Bolgheri tell three different ideas of wine within one region. The appellations and villages are covered in wine travel in Tuscany.
Porto and the Douro, the only one done on water
The lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia are a walk from central Porto. The quintas up the valley are reached by train, by car or by boat — and this is the only European wine region a river cruise crosses from end to end. Port styles and the quintas are explained in Porto and the Douro Valley.
Georgia, for those who have tasted everything
Eight thousand years of unbroken winemaking, wines fermented in buried clay jars, and grape varieties absent from every Western textbook. It is the one route where a Quebec traveller arrives without bearings, and that is exactly the point. Qvevri and amber wines are covered in the Georgia wine route.
When to go? Harvest is not the right moment
It is everyone's instinct, and it is the most common mistake. During harvest, growers work sixteen-hour days and have nobody to spare for the tasting room. Spring and early autumn, before or after the picking, give longer visits, quieter cellars and easier lodging.
How much wine can you bring back to Quebec?
After an absence of 48 hours or more, the Canadian personal exemption covers 1.5 litres of wine — about two 750 ml bottles — per adult traveller. Beyond that you must declare the bottles and pay the applicable duty and taxes, including the provincial portion collected at the border. The minimum age to import alcohol in Quebec is 18.
Rental car or driver?
The question is not practical, it is legal. A serious tasting day means eight to twelve wines. Spitting helps, but does not settle it. All four regions have drivers and guided visits for exactly this reason, and an adviser can book them alongside the rest of the trip.
Organising the trip from Quebec
None of these four routes can be booked entirely online. The estates that matter answer by email, often in their own language, and sometimes ask for a deposit. A travel adviser who knows the region writes on your behalf, sequences the appointments geographically and arranges transport between two cellars forty minutes apart.
Voyages AquaTerra holds a Quebec travel agency licence. Our clients are covered by the Compensation Fund for Customers of Travel Agents, under the conditions set out in the regulation. To build a wine itinerary, call an adviser at 1-866-628-6241.
