France's leading publishers of guides for the greedy traveller Michelin have at last woken up to the market for wine tourism with the publication of a brand new green guide to The Wine Regions of France.
The guide, published tomorrow at £11.99 'includes numerous wine orientated activities and places of interest, including walks through the vineyards, regional markets, wine festivals and wine museums', according to Michelin.
There are the usual introductory sections on the practical aspects of wine but most wine lovers will head straight to the tours of 14 wine regions (including the obvious but also Corsica, Jura and Savoie) with their directories of where to stay and eat and local wine merchants.
There's no doubt that wine tourism is a particularly healthy branch of the wine market and wine culture. (If I had a penny for every CEO who told me about his biking tour through Burgundy...) I will try to report in more detail about just how useful this new guide is.