Wine Holidays 2009

Stephen Barrett & Wessex Continental Travel

Introduction
by Stephen Barrett

Welcome to Wine Holidays 2009. There are a few important changes for this year that will hopefully make booking and traveling easier than ever.

To make an enquiry, please visit the Contact section. For more wine and travel orientated information, please visit stephenbarrett.com.

Look forward to seeing you in 2009.

Stephen Barrett

Our 2009 Programme

We have been arranging wine tours for over 20 years and always travel by coach which travels with us all the way.  This gives us a great deal of flexability and total control over the tour and most importantly, it enables you the customer to bring back quite a large amount of quality local product at very keen prices. Indeed some of that product is not available in the UK.

Most of our tours are for private groups such as Wine Societies, Corporate bodies, Travel Clubs, Newspapers and so on. We do have a small public programme and this is detailed herein.

Our policy is to have, usually, two tastings each day with provision for local sightseeing included. Staying at comfortable hotels, usually of at least 3* standard,which means all rooms have private facilities, a buffet breakfast and one meal per day is included, which can either be lunch or dinner, dependent upon the circumstances.

All travel is by executive coach which will have air-conditioning, reclining seats and washroom/WC. Rooms at all the hotels and cabins on board ship have private facilities.

Our aim is to enlighten the wine holidaymaker offering advice and knowledge throughout the tour. These individual Wine Holidays are designed for both amateur and the experienced imbiber alike, who wish to learn more and accept excellent advice when purchasing low-cost tax-paid wines to bring home.

Our Tour Guide is respected Wine and Food Writer and Broadcaster, Stephen Barrett, see his website stephenbarrett.com, whose experience spans over 25 years and who has been fully employed on the Wine Lecturing circuit for the past dozen years.

Pick up Points

There is a limited number of pick up points and these are shown under each tour (and we'll be happy to pick up at any point en route). Most people will meet us at the port of departure. At Dover we can arrange parking for you; at Portsmouth, it is a turn up and park system just inside the Ferry terminal; at Plymouth car parking is turn up and pay at the Terminal.

Private Groups

We'll discuss a wine tour to any region of Europe and in these circumstances we bring the coach to your selected pick up point. You need to inform us the date of departure, where you'd like to go and how many participants you anticipate. If however you expect less than 20 persons we'd suggest you choose one of the public dates and we may even be able to bring the coach to you to start the tour.

You choose your favourite French, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish destination and we do the rest