The World's Top 100 Activities
The things you book a ticket for: experiences the professional guides and expert lists have put on the record, ranked.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The tasting room's camera-aperture architecture, all dramatic angles and floor-to-ceiling glass, was designed to pull your eye toward the vineyards outside, which is a neat trick given what's in the glass. Aperture Cellars pours Bordeaux-inspired Sonoma wines across a few tasting tiers, from introductory blends up to a private gallery session with limited releases. A rotating photography exhibition runs throughout. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.
-
-
-
-
-
Ribera del Duero sits at around 850 meters, which explains why the Tinto Fino ripens the way it does across Carraovejas's 180 steeply terraced hectares. This is a working winery visit, ranked 18th on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, where tours wind through the gravity-flow cellars and the vineyards before landing at a tasting. The on-site Ambivium restaurant pairs dishes to each wine, for those who consider a three-hour tour with seven pairings a reasonable Tuesday afternoon.
-
-
-
-
The glass tasting pod suspended above the working winery is a good sign that Cloudy Bay takes its visitors as seriously as its wine. This Marlborough estate, ranked 26th on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, is where New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc effectively got its reputation, and the cellar experience leans into that history without getting musty about it. Private yacht tastings on the Marlborough Sounds are also on offer, which seems excessive and yet somehow right.
-
-
-
-
Half of this 532-acre Oregon estate is left deliberately wild, which tells you most of what you need to know about how the Momtazi family thinks about farming. Maysara is a biodynamic winery in the Van Duzer Corridor where Persian philosophy, specifically a 7,000-year-old Zoroastrian framework about nature's elements, shapes every decision in the vineyard. Visits center on five-wine tasting flights from Momtazi Vineyard, and it holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.
-
A 15th-century tithe barn sits at the center of this West Sussex estate, which ranks 32nd on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list and makes a strong case that the South Downs are serious sparkling wine country. Tasting tours run on select summer days, covering the full range of estate-grown wines over two and a half hours, with the ticket price redeemable against a six-bottle case, which is either generous or a trap, depending on your self-control.
-
Sandwiched between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean, this sprawling estate in Empordà is one of Spain's oldest wine regions, and it takes that heritage seriously enough to have built an entire world around it. Tasting tours wind through a modern winery with raised walkways, then pause at a candlelit space called The Temple for guided pours. The castle, Gothic cloisters, wine spa, golf course, and summer opera festival suggest the family never quite learned to underdo anything. Ranked 22nd on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.
-
A 400-year-old oak grove shades the estate, and somewhere nearby, the former landowner is buried after losing a duel over livestock. This Hill Country winery outside Hye takes its Texas setting seriously, growing estate Tannat vines and running tastings from barrel room visits to guided food and wine pairings. Ranked 31st on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, it draws everyone from serious collectors to families with dogs in tow.
-
The wines age in an underground cellar called the Cava del Ángel, where Gregorian chants pipe through the walls on the theory that music helps them along. Whether or not that works, it sets the mood. Bodega Kaiken is a Mendoza winery and tasting experience, ranked on the World's 50 Best Vineyards, with vineyard walks, cellar tours, and Malbec pours framed by an unignorable view of the Andes. Francis Mallmann's open-fire restaurant is on site.
-
The Ygay Estate is one of the largest single vineyards in La Rioja, a few kilometers outside Logroño, and this is where modern Rioja wine effectively began. Visits take in both the working winery and the original cellars, now a museum. A wine bar handles the casual end; a seven-course tasting menu with the estate's limited releases handles the less casual end. It landed on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, if you need a reason to book ahead.
-
The oldest vines here went into the ground in 1973, and the estate has been Demeter Biodynamic Certified ever since the current team took the reins. This Willamette Valley winery in the Eola-Amity Hills pours flights and hosts guided vineyard tours, monthly tasting menus, and cooking and gardening classes. Dogs are welcome, which says something about the general vibe. It landed at number 35 on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.
-
-
Harvesting grapes in the cool of the night gives these Provençal rosés their famously pale hue, and that kind of care runs through everything at Château de Berne. The estate spreads across nearly a thousand hectares of Var forest, with vineyards, olive groves, a vinotherapy spa, and two restaurants, one holding a Michelin star. It lands at number 43 on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which feels about right once you've seen the place.
-
-
The gravity-flow system moves juice through overhead rails while a window below frames the fermentation tanks, which tells you something about how seriously this winery takes its process. Set on the Jinba plateau with 360-degree views of mountains and vineyards, Mariko is a winery visit and tasting experience, landing at number 46 on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list. Tours end at a counter pouring native Japanese varieties alongside local food.
-
The Hill of Grace vineyard was planted by a Silesian settler over 150 years ago, named for the Lutheran church peering down at its twisted old vines. This Eden Valley winery has been in the same family for six generations, and tastings are personally hosted by them, portraits of ancestors watching from the walls. Henschke holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which feels about right for a place still farming the ground its great-great-grandparents cleared.
-
Insignia, the estate's flagship Bordeaux-style blend, is the reason most visitors make the turn onto Taplin Road. Joseph Phelps is a hillside Napa winery with panoramic vineyard views and several tasting formats, from a current-releases pour to a library session that pulls older vintages of Insignia alongside the newest ones. The World's 50 Best Vineyards ranks it at number 37, which tracks with the crowd, who tend to arrive having done their homework.
-
An 85-foot bell tower anchors this monastic winery complex perched above the Okanagan Valley, where the architecture alone draws as many visitors as the wine. Tours run through dramatic underground cellars, and tastings can be as casual or elaborate as you like, from a quick pour in the wine shop to a four-course meal in the Chagall Room. The estate ranks among the World's 50 Best Vineyards, which feels about right once you're standing in the courtyard looking out over Lake Okanagan.
-
Rippon's vines sit right at the edge of Lake Wānaka with the Southern Alps behind them, which makes visiting feel less like a winery tour and more like someone accidentally built a postcard. The Mills family has been farming this land for generations, growing biodynamic, largely ungrafted Pinot Noir in one of New Zealand's most extreme climates. Tastings at the cellar door are free, run by appointment, and capped at six people. It ranks at number 44 on The World's 50 Best Vineyards list.
-
-
The undulating roof of the bodega was designed to echo the silhouette of the Andes, which sets the tone for a place that takes its symbolism seriously. Almaviva is a Franco-Chilean winery in the Maipo Valley offering guided visits by appointment, ending in a tasting at the manor house. A collaboration between the Rothschild and Concha y Toro families, it holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, and pours accordingly.
-
Paul Hobbs, one of the original Opus One winemaking team, built this glass and concrete winery in Luján de Cuyo to put Argentine Malbec on the global map, and it landed at #49 on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list. Small-group tours wind through the vineyards and underground cellar before settling into a curated tasting with food pairings. A second, more immersive experience runs up in the high-altitude Uco Valley, where the landscape does a lot of the convincing.
-
Forty hectares of Renaissance-style gardens surround this storied Chilean winery about 45 minutes outside Santiago, and the grounds alone could fill an afternoon. Tours wind past a Neo-Gothic chapel, Roman-style baths, and an Andean museum before ending in the cellars with wine and cheese. You can cover the property by bike, horse-drawn carriage, or a pedal-powered bar on wheels, which is exactly as chaotic as it sounds. It ranks 41st on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.
-
-
-
-
The cellars here run 18 metres underground through fourth-century chalk quarries beneath the ruins of a Benedictine abbey, which sets a certain tone before you've opened anything. Taittinger is one of the few grand Champagne houses still family-run and open to visitors, and the guided tour winds past WWI graffiti and riddlers hand-rotating bottles by the old method. Sommeliers lead the tasting at the end. It ranks on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-