Gaze At This Gorgeous New Luxury Inspiration: ‘Wine & Travel France’

For lovers of joie de vivre, the impressive new Wine & Travel France is a treasure of pleasures, brimming with French beauty and bounty. To be released October 24 by luxury publisher Assouline, this hefty (10-by-13-inch, five-pound, 312-page) coffee-table tome showcases premiere vineyards, top wines, rousing adventures and sublime bliss. Lavishly designed, it’s a full-on French kiss. Within its firm cloth-bound covers are alluring and welcoming directives: fascinating people to meet, places to stay, hideaways to explore, delectable morsels to savor. “If there is one truth universally acknowledged in viticulture, it is this: When you think about France,” says author Enrico Bernardo, “you think of wine, and when you think about wine, you think of France. This country, the most illustrious in the wine-producing world, owes its unequaled reputation to many factors, as much geographical as historical and human.”

Bernardo—whose meteoric rise to being named the Best Sommelier in the World when he worked at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris—has steered a heady course around the globe for more than 30 years, while en route creating and owning Michelin-star restaurants, consulting for food and wine companies, as well as writing books, among them The Impossible Collection of Wine (2016), The Wisdom of Wine: A Gourmet Book, An Ode to Life (2021) and The Impossible Collection of Champagne (2022).

Wine & Travel France is an armchair traveler’s delight, inspiring daydreams as well as vacation plans. (And would be a desirable holiday gift for a Francophile in your life.) Relish slowly turning the book’s thick pages, dressed in more than 400 striking photographs and illustrations, and feast your eyes especially on off-the-beaten-path charms: markets, boutiques, cafés, farms, villages, back roads, horses, boats, beaches, historic gems, community celebrations and elegant surprises. Like crème de la crème on the soufflé of Bernardo’s inviting voice, the words of dozens of quotable French notables are also shared, dotted amid images; their insights, secrets and joys about the good life in this inimitable country ring clear. For instance, “I spend my life making people happy with wine, and that’s a kind of medicine,” says Pierre Lurton of Château d’Yquem, a distinguished 400-year-old estate in Sauternes, Gironde region.

France: World’s Number One Tourist Destination

With more than 100 million international visitors in 2023, France is the world’s most popular travel destination with a vast array of sightseeing options. “Anyone who travels across France cannot fail to be struck by the sheer variety of its landscapes, its soils, its local climates,” enthuses Bernardo. “From open pastures and meadows to gently sloping hillsides, from wide valleys to narrow gorges, high mountains, deep forests, endless moorlands, long roads lined with trees hundreds of years old, and garigue (the dry scrubland of southern France perfumed with wild herbs); from cliffs plunging into the sea to sandy beaches where dunes stretch to infinity, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean: France is a land of diverse terrain.”

Bernardo’s descriptive narrative is horizon-broadening throughout this work-of-art book. Following his guidance is like walking side by side with a knowledgeable friend down scores of picturesque paths, such as to Château de La Messardière, a 19th-century castle in the heart of Saint-Tropez, a favorite of the Airelles Collection. Another journey points readers to 14th-century Château Bas d’Aumelas in the South of France, 20 minutes from Montpellier. Take in all of Bernardo’s wandering wonder, then listen to what makes your traveling heart beat stronger.

In addition to its legendary wine and cuisine, France has played a key role in developing artisanal crafts and trades. It is a shopping haven extraordinaire. “Nowhere else are these professionals so highly respected for their skills, appreciated for their personalities, valued for their knowledge,” opines Bernardo. To deftly unfurl details about France’s wine heritage, Bernardo leads readers into 12 regions: Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Corsica, Jura, Languedoc-Roussillon, Pays de la Loire, Provence, Savoy, Southwest and Rhône Valley. His curated list of coveted vineyards is winning. À votre santé!

For additional brainstorms about travel in France, go to Atout France, the French Government Tourism Office in NYC.

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