Alsace

Alsace runs along France's eastern border with Germany, sheltered from Atlantic weather by the Vosges Mountains — one of the driest, sunniest wine regions in the country. Unusually for France, its wines are labeled by grape variety, and they are overwhelmingly white and aromatic: Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris and Muscat are the four grapes designated 'noble' here.

The style runs from bone-dry, mineral Riesling to richer, off-dry Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris, plus late-harvest sweet wines (Vendanges Tardives) in strong years. Fifty-one Grand Cru sites mark the best slopes. The region also makes a good deal of Crémant d'Alsace, a traditional-method sparkling wine, and a little Pinot Noir.

The Route des Vins d'Alsace threads through a string of half-timbered villages — Riquewihr, Ribeauvillé, Eguisheim — between the wine town of Colmar and the city of Strasbourg. The region's German-French history shows up in its architecture, its food and its wines alike.

Most trips base in Colmar, the pastel-fronted capital of Alsace wine, or in Strasbourg for a bigger city with a Gothic cathedral and canals — both reachable from Paris by direct TGV. The Route des Vins is France's oldest wine road, running roughly 170 kilometres down the Vosges foothills and stringing together storybook villages, Kaysersberg and Turckheim among them, with tasting cellars a short walk apart. Late spring through the September–October harvest is the classic window; December brings some of France's most famous Christmas markets. And the cooking is built for the wines — choucroute, tarte flambée and pungent Munster all find their match in Alsace's aromatic whites.