Tag Archives: hiking

France, Hiking

Grand Wines, Grand Hike: Sentier Viticole des Grands Crus

Six small villages, nestled unobtrusively amidst the vineyards, hide a secret: some of the best wines in Alsace. The vineyards here aren’t just any sort of vineyards, rather they are Grands Crus; and the wines from these vineyards’ grapes create the highest quality wine in the hierarchy of Alsatian wine. Hiking through this area takes hikers gently past some of these renowned grand cru vineyards, and past the wineries that produce these fantastic wines. The combination of great wines to taste, and a well-laid out hike through the vineyards and associated villages, provides a wine-loving hiker an irresistible opportunity.

Grand Cru Mandelberg
Grand Cru Mandelberg

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France, Hiking, Nutshell

Sentier Viticole des Grands Crus: Trail in a Nutshell

Trail Name: Sentier Viticole des Grands Crus (also known as the Perles du Vignoble)

Trail type: Mid-distance hiking circuit; mostly paved, some hard-packed gravel; very well-maintained and well-marked.

Length: Total – 17 km/10.5 miles

Convenient to: Colmar, Alsace, France

Marking: Mostly gold letters on brown wooden background

Grands Crus Trail Marking
Grands Crus Trail Marking

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Hiking, Luxembourg

A Luxurious Christmas in Luxembourg

Celebrating the holiday season in luxurious style often involves a bit of sparkling wine, and Luxembourg sparkles in that regard. Spending Christmas in Luxembourg gave me the opportunity to sample Luxembourg’s sparkling wines, visit some caves, and hike two overlapping trails through vineyards stretching along the slopes of the Moselle Luxembourgeoise wine region.

Bech-Kleinmacher and the Moselle
Bech-Kleinmacher and the Moselle

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Hiking, Luxembourg, Nutshell

Circuit Cremant and Auto Pedestre 1: A Nutshell on TWO Trails

Trail Names:

Circuit Cremant

Auto-Pedestre 1

Trail Types: 2 short distance circuits;

Cremant: Short hiking circuit; paved, well maintained and marked.

Auto-Pedestre 1: Short hiking circuit, some parts paved, some hard-packed, some soft dirt; some sections marked, but markings missing in a couple of crucial spots.

Lengths:

Cremant: 4.6 km/2.8 miles

Auto-Pedestre 1: 8 km/5 miles

Convenient to:

Luxembourg, Luxembourg, with local public transportation

Trier, Germany, with a car

Markings:

Cremant: Flute on a white pentagon, on red background with green edge

Auto-Pedestre 1: Black “1” on a blue triangle on white rectangular sign

(Note: The photo’s blue hexagon with a yellow rectangle is the sign for the Sentier de la Moselle, described below.)

 

Signage for Auto Pedstre 1 and Cremant Trails
Signage for Auto Pedstre 1 and Cremant Trails

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France, Hiking

Hiking Around Hautvillers

I made a pilgrimage to Hautvillers. Champagne was born there, as anyone who loves sparkling wines as much as I do will know. Sooner or later, serious champagne aficionados will want to visit to pay their respects to the life’s work of Dom Perignon, a monk dedicated to studying and producing good local wines.

Hautvillers and its Abbey
Hautvillers and its Abbey

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Austria, Hiking

The Wachau: Wine Experiences along Austria’s Danube

The Danube River brings to mind not only the Blue Danube Waltz, that compositional blend of romantic, gently swirling, rhythmic phrases – punctuated by the occasional dramatic phrase – it is also evocative of Lower Austria and Vienna, a graceful and refined area that includes great art in all forms, and wine, of course. Since wine country hiking here combines all these elements, it fell on the must-do list.

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France, Hiking

Burgundy’s Cote de Nuits: Big Names, Small Vineyards

Hiking Burgundy’s Cote de Nuits taught me to appreciate the important things in life; and in the Cote de Nuits, life does seem to revolve around wine. Certainly wine is not the most important thing in life here: rather producing the greatest quality wine becomes an all-consuming passion on the part of most families who make a living from these hugely famous but surprisingly small appellations and the wines they produce. And hiking through these vineyards gave me a chance to appreciate that.

The Cote de Nuits vineyards, some of the most famous in the world, begin just yards from trailhead in Chenove, with the Marsannay Village appellation. Shortly after, in the village of Fixey/Fixin, I came to the first Premier Cru vineyard: Les Arvelets. (Fixin is also does homage to another great: Napoleon. Fixin’s Noisot Museum, and associated park, were created by Claude Noisot, a former officer in the Imperial Army who actually accompanied Napoleon into exile at Elba.)

 

Clos Napoleon
Clos Napoleon

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