Tourists can spend weeks or months poring over literature and maps deciding where to go on a wine tour, or they simply can leave the work to the professionals. Professionally packaged wine tours range from the very simple to the most elaborate. Tours can be booked that last an afternoon and bring the tourists back to the hotel at night or last for a week and begin and end with an international flight.

The tours can be traditional with sightseeing augmented with dinner and fine wine, or they can be specifically designed around the theme of wine. There even are tours where wine is the only attraction, such as attending a wine tasting school in Italy or visiting a working winery in North Carolina.

Inclusive

Going on a package wine tour can be as inclusive as one commercially offered package called "Wines of Germany." This 10-day excursion begins with a transatlantic flight to Stuttgart from the United States for a visit to the wine country of Germany. After arriving, the tourists meet their personal tour director at the airport and hit their first famed wine destination. Wine is not the only attraction as the tourists also get to visit historic places and spend time in world-class spas. After days of wine, culture, and history, the tourists get flown back to the United States.

Another tour of the Australian wine country ferries tourists from one region to another on a cruise ship. These packages include most expenses, with the wine and dinners thrown into the price.

Day Trips

More common and easier to include on a vacation is a one- or two-day side trip to the wine region during a longer excursion. In both France and Italy, in particular, there are tours that visitors can schedule just for the day where the bus picks them up in the morning and drops them off at night. That leaves the rest of the trip open for visiting the Louvre Museum or the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

In more rugged locations, these trips can include more exotic transportation, such as a helicopter ride to the Winelands of South Africa or a train trip through the vine covered hills of Spain. About the only limiting factors are the scope of one's imagination and the depth of one's pocket.

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