Our wine touring group, Le Grand Cru, had the pleasure of touring England (September 25 to October 4, 2023) and Scotland (October 4 - October 7, 2023). The itinerary in England focused on wine with some cultural activities mixed in. The Scotland portion of our tour, of course, focused on Scotch whisky with again some cultural visits mixed in.

England has produced some form of wine for centuries, but because of the cool, damp climate, the wines were traditionally of little merit. By the early 1900's the wine industry in England had all but disappeared. But as climate change has begun to influence English growing conditions, more and more vintners found that the warming climate allowed grapes with improving quality to be cultivated. By the 1960's, new wineries were being started all over southern England. By the 2000's the quality of the grapes allowed the production of sparkling wines of excellent quality and, in many cases, were very competitive with French Champagnes. So sparkling wines were our main focus, but the tour director included many English still wines during the week to let us build awareness that they too were beginning to make their mark in the global wine industry.

Our time in Scotland was spent focusing on the various styles of Scotch whisky produced in that country. We all learned so much during our visit

And the cuisine in both countries, despite common belief, was excellent.

Group members flew into London prior to the beginning of the tour. We were picked up on Monday Sept 25 at a London hotel and bussed to Winchester with some tour stops along the way. We headquartered in Winchester for three days before traveling to Brighton on the southern coast. We headquartered in Brighton for three days before traveling further east to Hever Castle near Edenbridge, England. We headquartered three days at Hever Castle until the England part of the tour concluded. At that point, about half the group stayed on for another four days touring Scotland.

That group flew to Inverness, Scotland in the north part of the country. There we were picked up at the airport and transported to Craigelllachie southeast of Inverness. For three days we headquartered out of Craigellachie learning more and more about the Scotch whisky industry. Finally, we were bussed to Edinburgh for two last scotch-related visits before flying to London to head back to our home cities.

A wonderful trip full of enlightenment, surprises and wonderful cultural enrichmant.