Another detour to Europe before I return to my recent Mexico trip. My latest article out on MSNBC.com (via Tripso) is on Europe’s Unheralded Wine Regions .
Being the contrarian traveler that I am, I have never managed to set foot in the land of Bordeaux. I’m sure it’ll still be there when I’m richer and grayer. I tend to gravitate toward areas where you can get a lot of vino for your euro, and cheaper meals to go with it. So this article focuses on wine regions of Portugal, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
I spent some time in the last two at the end of last year while working on some articles; here’s one of the blog posts on Villany and Lake Balaton . I hope to make it to Portugal in the not-too-distant future. (Hint hint to you Portugal Tourism people who keep sending me your e-mail newsletters.) I spent a few hours in Austria while on a train from Budapest to Znojmo, but the highlight of that day was having the world’s rudest train conductor slam a door in my face while signaling for the engineer to take off. I could have used a bottle of wine then, but for throwing instead of drinking.
Not covered in this article because the continent’s all wrong are the three wine regions of Argentina . And there are lots of great wine regions in North America outside of California. As one person noted on a comment under the Tripso version of this article, even Italy has plenty of quieter and cheaper alternatives if you think outside the crate.
