Adopt some organic vines

Adopt some vines and follow their progress as they produce the grapes that will make the wine for your personalised vintage, a Christmas gift that is sure to please all wine lovers. Via the customer portal, you can accompany the vines up to the harvest, and then you’ll learn about how the wine ferments and ages in the cellar. Each stage of the wine making process is explained in the newsletter, and you can also include wine experience days at the winery to spend the day with the winemaker and participate in helping to make your wine.
We have chosen to only work with winemakers who produce organically or biodynamically certified wines, who have been recognised for the quality of their wines in the most prestigious wine competitions, guides and reviews, and that have been selected for their enthusiasm and desire to share their passion for their profession. This all makes for an exceptional experience!

How to choose the right Christmas Wine Experience gift?

There are many different options for this unique wine-making present. First select if you want to give a red or white wine experience for your Christmas gift, then pick the wine-making region and winery. You can then choose the number of adopted vines and personalised bottles of wine that you wish to include. One vine gives one bottle of personalised wine.
You can also include up to three wine experience days at the winery with the winemaker and our oenologist. Each wine course lasts from 09:30 to 16:00, includes lunch and wine tasting, and is valid for two people. There are three types of day to choose from. The Discovery Experience Day focuses on the work in the vineyard to prepare the vines for harvest and includes hands-on participation in work such as pruning, de-budding, or training the vines. The Harvest Experience Day gets you involved in picking the grapes and learning about the work in the chai at harvest time to receive the grapes and start the fermentation process. The third option is the Vinification Experience Day which sees you participate in different workshops to discover the art of tasting, ageing, blending and bottling wine.

An unforgettable Christmas gift

It’s not just us who think so :-)! Take a look at the customer feedback we have received from our clients, press articles, or the wine reviews of our partner winemakers. We have been developing and delivering our Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience since 2009, forging strong links with our partner winemakers and our team of passionate oenologists to create the best possible experience for our customers.

Together we organise unforgettable, fun, and interactive days at the winery to learn all of the hard work and skill that goes into making a quality wine.

Order with confidence

Ordering is easy in just a few clicks, and then we do the rest:

- The welcome packs are sent out with 24 hours on working days
- There is a gift wrapping option with a personalised message possible
- For last minute gifts, we can send you the vine adoption certificate by email
- You can pay for your order in three instalments
The personalised welcome pack that we will send to your preferred address, contains some gifts to be enjoyed straight away: a DropStop, re-usable glass wine stopper, wine cooling bag, adoption certificate and personalised guide to explain the wine adventure that awaits!

Learn more about the Adopt-a-Vine Christmas gift

Visit our web site to learn more about the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience, to place an order, or to consult our Christmas delivery deadlines .

Further questions? We are available from 09:00 to 18:00 Paris time, Monday to Friday on +33 (0)1 46 27 05 92 or contact us on our web site.

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By adopting some vines, your Dad will follow the progress of his vines and the making of his own French organic wine for a wine-making year at one of our acclaimed organic wineries in France. Through our newsletters and photos, your Dad will learn about all of the key stages in making a great organic wine, from the work in the vineyard to the choices the winemaker takes in the cellar to ferment, age and prepare the wine before it is ready to be bottled.

At the end of the wine-making year, your Dad can choose the name of his wine, and will receive one personalised bottle of wine for each adopted vine.

To make the experience even more interactive, you can add one or more Wine Experience Days at the winery so your father can visit his adopted vines, meet the winemaker and get involved in working alongside him in the vineyard to nurture the vines or pick the grapes, or to learn about the work in the cellar.

Each Wine Experience Day lasts a full day from 9:30 to 16:00 and includes a wine tasting and full lunch at the winery. These fun days are valid for two people, and are an eye-opening immersion into the real life of a wine-maker!

All of our partner wineries are organically or biodynamically certified and produce wines that are often awarded medals or selected by the main wine guides. They take pride and pleasure in sharing the ins and outs of their profession with you.

Our Wine Experience Father’s Day gift begins with the reception of a welcome gift box containing a wine cooler bag, a re-usable glass wine-stopper, a Drop Stop and a personalised adoption certificate. Your Dad then starts his Wine Experience as soon as he activates his customer portal using the code contained in his welcome pack!

Delivery of the welcome pack takes two working days in France, and between 3 and 6 days for the rest of Europe. For any last minute Father’s Day gifts, we can send you the certificate by email.

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Your valentine will love following the progress of his or her adopted vines from the work in the vineyard at one of our organically certified vineyards to the bottling of the personalised wine bottles. The apprentice winemakers will receive newsletters, articles and photos to keep them updated and to learn about all of the hard work and skill that goes into make a quality wine. When you get to taste this unique St Valentine’s wine at the end of the experience, it sure to have a very special taste!

And if you’re looking for an original weekend break idea, visit the winery, meet the winemaker and see your adopted vines! You can add one or more wine experience days at the winery. Each day is valid for two, and you have the choice of three themes. The Discovery Experience Day teaches you about all of the work and care that goes into nurturing the vines, and gets you involved in working in the vineyard alongside the winemaker. The Harvest Experience Day enables you to participate in picking the grapes, and to learn about the work in the chai at harvest time. The Vinification Experience Day explores the choices the winemaker takes in the cellar to ferment, age, blend and bottle the wine through a series of interactive workshops.

Each of the wine experience days enable you to learn directly from the winemakers and their teams, and last the whole day from 09:30 to 16:00, the time necessary to get to the know the winemakers more and learn about the complexities of wine-making. You will also taste the wines from the winery and share lunch to sample other local delicacies.

We are very particular when it comes to choosing our partner winemakers. They are selected not only for the high quality of their wine, but also for their warmth and hospitality in welcoming you to their winery and in explaining their profession. We have also chosen to work exclusively with organically certified wineries, and it’s fascinating to learn about all they do to enhance the quality of the environment around them, and protect the health of their family, employees, neighbours and customers.

We promise you a fun, enlightening, and thought provoking experience to learn more about the world of wine.

More information about the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience.

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Adopting a vine for Christmas is an original personalised gift idea. And with our award-winning organic winemaker partners, you’re sure to find the perfect gift. Your recipient will follow the making of their own organic French wine and will end up with their own personalised bottles of wine when their Wine Experience finishes.

Your Christmas gift becomes even more special if you include a Wine Experience day at the winery to meet the winemakers. The Discovery Experience Day will teach you all about the work to prepare the vines and nurture the grapes. The Harvest Experience Day will get you involved in picking the grapes, following their journey into the vats, and learning about the first stages of fermentation. The Vinification Experience Day will reveal the choices that the winemaker takes in the cellar to make and age the wines.  These three wine courses last a full day from 09:30 to 16:00, and are designed to be hands-on so that you can learn by participating alongside and interacting with the winemaker. Wine tasting and lunch are included in the package.

To have a present to put underneath the Christmas tree, our personalised gift boxes contain a wine cooler bag, drop stop, re-usable glass wine stopper, and a personalised vine adoption certificate. Pull out all the corks this Christmas!

More information about the Christmas delivery schedule for 2017

More information about the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience

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Who is this Christmas wine gift good for?

For all wine lovers, enthusiasts and people who enjoy wine, whether a novice or an experienced wine connoisseur, this is a great Christmas gift idea. Through the articles and photos posted in the personalised customer portal and sent by newsletter, your recipient will follow the evolution of their vines and the harvest, and then the work in the cellar. At the end of the Wine Experience, they will end up with one personalised bottle of wine for each adopted vine. The recipient can choose the name that will be used to personalise the wine label for the bottles.

Which Wine Experience gift pack to choose?

There are numerous options for this unique Christmas wine experience gift. First choose between red or white wine, then the wine-growing region and winery. Then select the number of vines to adopt, and so the number of personalised bottles of wine produced.

You can also add to the gift pack by including one to three wine experience days at the winery, each lasting from 09:30 – 16:00 with wine tasting and lunch included, to get away for a weekend break for two, meet the winemaker and get involved in the work at the winery. We offer three different wine courses. The Discovery Experience Day teaches you about the work in the vineyard and your adoptive parent will get the chance to have a go at tasks such as pruning, de-budding or raising the training wires. Or have a go at picking the grapes by getting involved in a Harvest Experience Day and learning about the first stages of fermentation. And finally there is the option of a Vinification Experience Day to discover the work in the cellar to age and blend the wines by participating in wine tasting sessions and practical workshops.

All of our partner wineries are organically certified and some are also biodynamic. The winemakers are chosen for the quality of their wine and the passion they have for their profession. They are delighted to share their knowledge of wine-making, guaranteeing an unforgettable time and enlightening wine tasting sessions!

So what’s included in the Christmas Wine Experience gift box?

You’ll receive a personalised welcome gift pack at your chosen address that you can slip under the Christmas tree. It contains a few goodies such as a Drop Stop wine pourer, a re-usable glass wine stopper, a wine cooler bag, a personalised vine adoption certificate and guide to explain the gift.

The activation code contained in the gift box will enable the recipient to connect to the customer portal and begin their wine adventure online. There they will find all the information needed about the wine, winemakers and the winery, and they will also receive newsletters to follow the evolution of their vines and wine throughout their vintage.

To learn more about adopting vines for a Christmas gift

Take a look at some of the customer comments that our adoptive vine owners have sent us, and you can also read some of the press articles that have been written about us.

If you would like to order a Wine Experience or to consult our Christmas delivery schedule, please visit our website.

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For a wine-making year, by adopting some vines for your Dad, he’ll follow the making of his own organic wine from the vine to the bottle at one of our partner wineries in France.

Through our Wine Experience gift box, he’ll keep up to date with the progress of his wine via the newsletters and photos. At the end of the wine-making year, he’ll receive a bottle of wine for each adopted vine. He can even choose the name of his wine and we’ll personalise his wine labels!

And to make the experience even more memorable, include one or more wine experience days at the winery to meet his adopted vines, and to work alongside the wine-maker in the vineyard, harvest the grapes or discover what goes on in the cellar.

Each day with the wine-maker lasts from 09:30 to 16:00 and includes lunch and wine tasting. The day is valid for two people, so is also a gift that can be shared with another wine lover!

All of our partner wineries have been chosen for the enthusiasm and passion of the wine-makers. They are all organically or biodynamically certified and produce excellent wines that are often acclaimed in the major wine competitions and in the wine press.

And to have a gift box to give on Father’s Day, the Wine Experience welcome gift pack includes a wine cooler bag, a re-usable glass wine stopper, a DropStop and a vine adoption certificate. Standard delivery is two working days for mainland France, and between 3 and 6 days for the rest of Europe. And for last minute Father’s Day gifts, we can send the certificate by email, and send the welcome pack by express delivery.

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This unique Mother’s Day present is much more than a wine course or wine tasting gift.  With the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience, your mum will follow all of the key stages in making wine through newsletters and photos from the winemaker.

You can also add one or more wine experience days at the winery for your mum to visit her vines, meet the winemaker and get involved in working in the vineyard or cellar.  It’s a good excuse to get away for a weekend break in France, and a fun way to learn about the secrets behind organic winemaking whilst exploring some of France’s great wine growing regions.

Each day is a full programme from 9:30 to 16:00 spent learning from the winemaker and their teams, tasting wines from the winery and enjoying a lunch of regional delicacies.  The day is valid for two people, so you might to get to go along too!

At the end of the Wine Experience, your Mum will choose the name of her wine and will end up with one personalised bottle of her own organic wine for each adopted vine.  As she opens them over the coming years, she’ll be sure to remember this unusual Mother’s Day gift!

Read some of the feedback from our clients

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The days were split into different workshops.  After the introductions, one group followed Jean-François Chapelle into the fermentation hall.  Here he explained how the grapes are received during the harvest and then put into the vats.  We learnt about the fermentation process and how the winemakers closely monitor and control it to ensure that it takes place in the optimal conditions.  Jean-François explained the difference between the “vin de goutte” and the “vin de presse”, and the differences in making white and red wine.

After the first fermentation has finished and the wine has been racked, the majority of the red wines at Domaine Chapelle, including the Clos des Cornières red wine chosen for the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience, are moved to the underground cellar to continue their ageing in the oak barrels.

Amongst the barrels, Jean-François explained how the wine loses some of its acidity during the malo-lactic fermentation and let us in on the choices that he makes regarding the different types of barrel used.  To better understand the role that the barrels play in making wine, we tasted some wines directly from the barrel to compare the difference between new and old barrels. The same wine had been put into the barrels, so the only difference was the barrel.  It’s amazing to see how the aromas and taste vary.  The questions abounded, and we covered many topics from chaptalisation, the levels of sulphites added, and the different methods used to close the bottles.

Upstairs, another workshop run by Yvette Chapelle prepared us to better taste wine by putting or senses to the test.  Using small bottles containing different aromas found in red wine, we had a go at trying to identify the individual smells.  Not as easy as you would at first think!

We then tasted four different cups containing a saline, sweet, acidic and bitter solution to appreciate how they feel differently in the mouth.

After the morning’s full programme, we made the most of the glorious sunshine and enjoyed a glass of Santenay St Jean 2015 white wine in the courtyard whilst Jean-François answered more of our questions.

Over lunch, we continued the wine tasting with some of the red Burgundy wines, starting with the Santenay Clos des Cornières 2012, followed by the Santenay La Comme premier cru 2014, and finishing with the Chassagne Montrachet Morgeot premier cru red wine.
We started the afternoon in the Clos des Cornières vineyard to visit our adopted vines.  They were revelling in the sunshine and were only too happy to have their photo taken with their adoptive owners!

Jean-François then explained the different geology of the surrounding vineyards and how that determines the AOC classification system of Burgundy and Santenay wines.  He pointed out the three distinct areas of our Clos des Cornières vineyard, knowledge we needed for the final wine tasting of the day.

Back in the courtyard, we tasted the three different wines from the Clos de Cornières vineyard that are vinified separately and are only blended together shortly before bottling.  This enabled us to see the difference that the age of a vine plays, and to get a sneak preview of the potential of the 2016 vintage.  The wines were at different stages of the malo-lactic fermentation process, so also enabled us to see how they change.

And so the day drew to a close.  Many thanks to Jean-François and Yvette for sharing their passion for winemaking with us, and to all of the participants for making it such a great weekend!

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Adopt-a-vine in one of our 8 organic partner wineries and give the perfect Saint Valentine’s present for a wine lover.  You’ll get to follow the evolution of your adopted vines by newsletters and photos, or by visiting the winery to get involved in the different stages of wine making.  At the end of the experience, you’ll end up with your own personalised bottles of organic wine to enjoy together!

You can also spend one or more days at the winery together to share a special day with the winemaker.  There are three different types of wine experience day. The Discovery Experience Day teaches you about and gets you involved in the work in the vineyard to learn about nurturing the vines to produce the best grapes come harvest time. The Harvest Experience Day sees you roll up your sleeves and participate in the harvest and follow your grapes to the fermentation tanks. And the Vinification Experience Day lets you in on all that happens in the cellar from fermentation, through the ageing and blending process, right up until the time when your wine is bottled.

Each of these hands-on wine courses are an immersion with the winemaker and their teams from 9:30 to 16:00, giving you the time to learn about and help them with their work, to share a winemakers lunch, and of course taste their wines!
All of our partner winemakers are carefully selected for the quality of their wine and their desire to share the passion they have for their job.  They are all organically certified and will welcome you with open arms for a very enjoyable day spent learning about wine.  This Valentine’s present gives you the perfect excuse to get away for a romantic weekend wine break!

If your other half enjoys wine, then this personalised wine gift experience is a great St Valentine’s gift idea.  The welcome gift pack includes a wine cooler bag, a re-usable glass wine stopper, DropStop, personalised vine adoption certificate, and all of the details needed regarding the Wine Experience.

More information about the Wine Experience.

 

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To surprise a wine lover this Christmas, adopt some vines for their Christmas present.  You can choose from our 8 partner wineries, all of which are organically certified.   For a wine-making year, they will follow the making of their organic wine, right up until the bottling of their personalised wine bottles at the end of the experience.

And to make the wine gift more hands on, you can add a Discovery Experience Day in the vineyard with the winemaker to learn all about the work on the vines to prepare them for harvest.  Or you can include a Harvest Experience Day to pick the grapes and follow their journey into the fermentation tanks or a Vinification Experience Day to learn about what happens to the wine once it is in the cellar.  All of the days take place from 09:30 to 16:00, and allow a total immersion into the life of a winemaker by getting involved in the work and by sharing a meal and tasting the wines.

All of our partner vineyards are organically or biodynamically certified, and all of our winemakers are selected for being passionate about their profession.  They will welcome you with open arms to share their knowledge and passion!

Our personalised Christmas wine gift boxes are sure to delight, and the welcome gift pack includes some presents to use straight away, a wine cooler bag, a re-usable glass wine stopper, a DropStop to make sure you don’t spill any of your precious wine, and a personalised vine adoption certificate.

 

More information on 2016 Christmas deliveries
More information on the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience

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Le Noël de la French Tech chose the Wine Experience for the second year running for its originality.  This wine-making experience gift enables you to adopt some vines in an organic French vineyard and follow the making of your own personalised bottles of wine.

More than just a simple winery tour or wine-tasting class, adopting some vines is a unique way to discover the passionate world of wine by getting involved in the key stages of making organic wine.  It also gives you a privileged contact with the winemakers to learn more about their fascinating profession.

 

 

Once the recipient has received their personalised adopt-a-vine certificate, they will continue to enjoy their gift through newsletters and photos from the winemaker.  And you can also choose to include one or more wine experience days at the winery.

The Gourmet Odyssey packages are available from €159.  To learn more about adopting vines, please visit www.GourmetOdyssey.com.

And to browse the list of 2016 Christmas gift ideas, visit the Noël de la French Tech Christmas gift list.

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What does the adopt-a-vine experience consist of?

Giving some vines in an organic vineyard in France for a Christmas present is sure to please any wine lover. For a wine-making year (2-3 years depending on the winery selected), the lucky recipient of your gift will follow the evolution of the vines, the harvest of the grapes, and then the making of the wine via newsletters and photos. At the end of the Wine Experience, your recipient will have as many personalised bottles of wine as the number of adopted vines, and your recipient will get to choose the name of the wine that will appear on the personalised labels.

 

It is also possible to include 1 to 3 days at the winery with the Wine Experience gift. The recipient will get to spend the day with the winemaker for a total immersion into the world of wine-making. Each of these oenology courses, valid for two people, includes lunch and wine tasting.

All of the experience days are designed to be participative. The Discovery Experience Days are more oriented towards the work in the vineyard, so your recipient can have a go at pruning, de-budding or training the vines. The Harvest Experience Days will be busy with picking the grapes and learning about the first stages of fermentation, and the Vinification Experience Days will cover how to taste wines and the work in the cellar to age and blend the wine.

 

How do you get started with the Wine Experience Christmas gift?

The gift you select is completely flexible in terms of the number of vines you adopt, the winery chosen, and whether one or more days at the winery are included.

Once you have chosen your gift, the welcome pack is delivered to the address of your choice, so that your recipient has a gift box to open on Christmas day.

 

The welcome gift includes a DropStop, a re-usable glass wine stopper, a wine cooler bag, personalised adoption certificate and all the information needed to learn about the winery, winemakers and wine that the recipient will follow for the duration of the Wine Experience.

 

Will my gift please?

We’ll let our customers speak for us. You can read some of the feedback that they have sent us. And they’re not the only ones to give their opinion; the media are also talking about us.

 

Adopting some vines is a very enlightening Christmas present. As well as producing your own personalised vintage, it also allows your recipient to discover the world of wine-making from a different angle, and to learn about all the hard work that goes into making a good bottle of wine.

All of our partner wineries are selected for the quality of their wines and they are organically or biodynamically certified. Passionate about winemaking, they love to share their knowledge and experience with the adoptive vine owners. Your recipient is sure to enjoy an unforgettable Christmas gift this year!

 

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Richard and I are both wine lovers. Ever since we got together, we've covered quite a few of the wine routes, seeking out good wines directly from the producers. But until we received the Gourmet Odyssey wine gift box, we'd never had the opportunity to dig deeper and discover the vast and varied work of a winemaker. It really is a fascinating profession.

When we got married, a group of friends clubbed together to buy us a Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience for our wedding present. For the year of our wedding, we were to become the adoptive parents of 6 vines in France's Rhone Valley at Domaine la Cabotte.

We found it to be a great idea for a wedding gift. We registered our gift pack on Gourmet Odyssey's web site, and we started to follow the making of our wine. The winemakers sent us news about the vines progress, as the grapes for our future wine grew and matured.

When the winemakers starting talking about the harvest, we thought that it would be fun to get involved, so we signed up for a Harvest Experience Day at the winery. What a great day we had! We spent the morning harvesting the grapes, and in the afternoon we helped sort the grapes and put them into the vats. We spent the whole day with the winemakers, Eric & Marie -Pierre, and had the chance to ask them lots of questions, particularly during lunch and the wine-tasting session.

We continue to receive updates about how the wine is evolving in the cellar. We decided to add a few extra bottles of personalised wine to surprise our friends and open them with them for our wedding anniversary. We can't wait to taste the wine from the year of our wedding!

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Over a coffee and some croissants, Marc gave us a quick overview of the Loire Valley and Chinon winemaking regions, and he introduced us to his family history and their involvement with the winery up to when he took over the running of it in 1999. It was then time to head out into the vineyard.

Before getting to meet the adopted vines, we discussed the frost that hit the Loire valley hard at the end of April. The Clos de la Bonnelière vineyard got off lightly, thanks to the protection that Marc and his team had put in place using anti-frost candles.

The anti-frost candles are 5 litre cans of paraffin that are placed 400 per hectare throughout the vineyard, and then lit when needed. They help raise the temperature of the air by a few crucial degrees and by doing so, help reduce the risk of the frost developing. The lighting of these candles enabled Marc to save the harvest of the vines in the Clos de la Bonnelière vineyard.

After the traditional photo shoot of the adopted vines for the "My Vine" photo competition, the main programme for the morning was de-budding.

The vines are flourishing at the moment, and the shoots and leaves are rapidly growing. Some of these shoots will not produce any grapes, and will just serve to take energy away from the vines if they are not removed. So our mission was to help Marc get rid of the excess growth.

Despite some hesitation and at first being worried about removing the wrong shoots, we got stuck in and followed Marc's guidelines. We had a very motivated group, and we de-budded a couple of rows which will help the team at the winery finish the task more quickly!

Having finished the work, it was time to sit down, and continue the discussion over lunch whilst tasting various wines from Château de la Bonnelière. We were lucky enough to taste the latest of Marc's creations, the Vindoux wine which is a Chinon red from the 2014 vintage. It's the first integral vinification wine from the winery that had been fermented and aged completely in new oak barrels. The wine was much appreciated!

The afternoon continued with a visit to the tool shed to learn about the array of tools that are used to work the vines and soil in the vineyard. We also visited the chai to get a taster for what the Vinification Experience Day holds in store.

It was another rich day, full of interesting discussions between the participants and the winemaker. Many thanks to Marc and to all you came!

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More than just a wine course or wine tasting gift. By adopting some vines, your dad will become an apprentice winemaker and follow the making of his own organic wine at one of our partner wineries in France.

Our Wine Experience gift pack will allow your dad to keep up to date with the news and work at his winery, and keep track of what his happening to his adopted vines via the newsletters and photos. At the end of the wine-making year, your father will receive a bottle of wine for each adopted vine. He can even choose the name of his wine and personalise the wine labels!

And for an even more participative experience, include one or more of the days at the winery to meet the winemakers, see the adopted vines, and get involved in working in the vineyard, the harvest, or one of the wine-making workshops.

Each day is a full day, lasting between 09:30 and 16:00, and includes lunch and a tasting of the wines from the winery. They are each valid for two people, so your dad will get to share a good moment over a glass or two of wine!

All of our partner wineries are chosen for the quality of their wine, the passion of the winemakers in sharing and talking about the art of winemaking, and they are all organically or biodynamically certified.

To have something for your Dad to open on Father's day, each gift pack contains a sommelier's apron, a DropStop, and vine adoption certificate. Standard delivery takes two working days in France, and between 3 and 6 days for the rest of Europe. For last minute Father's Day gifts, we can also send a copy of the adoption certificate by email .

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After the introductions to the Alsace wine growing region and a brief history of the Stentz-Buecher family, we made our way to the Rosenberg vineyard, where our adopted vines are to be found.  We took a few minutes to introduce ourselves to our vines and to encourage them to work hard in producing a good harvest for this year’s vintage!

But then time to get down to the serious business of the day and to learn about the key stages involved in preparing the vines for the harvest.  To do so, we were joined by Jean-Jacques, who passionately explained the different aspects of this complex, demanding, and, often, highly manual profession.

Pruning, de-budding, trellising, planting new vines, fighting against diseases and so on, the questions and topics covered were varied and numerous.  We also talked about the differences between organic and conventional farming methods used to weed the vineyards and treat the vines, and how the life of a winemaker and the local community has changed over time.  Jean-Jacques is extremely passionate about his profession and given the chance would have kept us in the vineyard forever!

We then headed back to the winery, making a quick stop at a plot of vines lower down on the plain that had recently been damaged by frost and which will have a severely reduced yield as a result.  Difficult to believe given the glorious sunshine and blue skies of the day, but a reminder that however good and dedicated the winemaker may be, Mother Nature can have other plans.

We tasted a range of the different wines produced by Domaine Stentz-Buecher, starting with an unusual wine, called Who Am I? that is a blend of Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Riesling.  We then moved onto a more classic Riesling Tradition 2014, followed by the 2014 vintage of the wine chosen for the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience, the Pinot Gris Rosenberg.  We then tasted a more complex Riesling, the Tannenbuehl 2011, and an unfiltered Pinot Noir 2011.

We tasted a Crémant d’Alsace “brut de nature”, made from 100% Chardonnay grapes with no added liqueur before sitting down to lunch which had been prepared by a local caterer.

In the afternoon, we visited the cellar to get a brief overview and appreciation of the wine-making side of things.  Stéphane showed us the wine press, and the vats and barrels that contain the wine during the fermentation and ageing processes.  We finished the day in the “vinothèque”, an impressive room used to showcase some of the older vintages.

We’ll get to see the press in action during the Harvest Experience Day and will spend more time in the cellar during the Vinification Experience Days, but until then, there is still much to do in the vineyard, as the day hopefully taught us!

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