Day Trips from Paris: One Day in the Chablis French Wine Region
When we travel, we look for opportunities to try the local wine. On our recent trip to France, we were setting up day trips from Paris and we couldn’t pass up the chance to take a day trip to a French vineyard. One day in French wine country, specifically the Chablis region, was a dream come true, and an amazing addition to our Paris trip itinerary.
We used an online excursion site to book our France wine tour, and there are too many wine our companies to list. While I can’t recommend our tour company, I can recommend that you do your research. Paris wine tours can be costly, and many are a full-day excursion, so you don’t want to waste your money or time.
Why can’t I recommend who we used? Our driver fell asleep on the freeway — multiple times! He was a wonderful young man, but he was a new parent and he was exhausted. He tried so hard to stay awake, but we did have to pull over once for him to splash water on his face. For a day that cost us over $500, or any amount of money, safety should not have been our main concern. The order of the vineyards also had to be changed; the one we were supposed to eat at got moved to the end of the day, so we were having a lot of wine with no snacks. (This could have been an issue with the vineyard changing their schedule, or our tour company; we weren’t told and in the end, it didn’t matter as we tapped out a couple of hours early because we were very worried about our driver falling asleep again in rush hour traffic!)
But onto the good stuff, because it was still a good day and we survived with a lot of good memories and a crazy story to tell!
French wine region tour destinations are based on your preference of wine. We love red wine, white wine, and sparkling, but didn’t want to spend too long on the road or stay away from Paris overnight, and some regions are too far from Paris for a day trip; we’d spent the day prior at Disneyland Paris and we were flying home the following day, and this was our last big excursion of the trip. Paris is about 90 minutes or so from Chablis, a beautiful old town of rolling hills and huge fields filled with vines, so we chose it as our wine tour destination for the day.
Our trip began with pickup at our hotel at 8:30am. Then our driver went to pick up another couple, who ended up being a lot of fun to spend our day with. It was just the four of us in a well-appointed Mercedes van, air-conditioned, accessible windows, comfortable seating, plenty of space for each passenger, and a cooler full of bottled water. These are small things you may not consider when you choose your tour, but spending a lot of time in a vehicle, from Paris to the city, back and forth from various places when in the city, and back to Paris — you’ll appreciate the ability to open the window for fresh air and to stay hydrated.
The drive from Paris to Chablis is all on a highway after you leave Paris proper. We stopped halfway to Chablis to use the restroom and to buy coffee or anything else we might want. Tip: take umbrellas and wear layers! France’s weather changes quickly and even a mild rain can be chilly. I took a puffy but light jacket with a hood, which I ended up using several times throughout our day. Our trip took place in March, which isn’t the rainiest month but it’s not unusual to have rainy weather. The umbrella was very handy when we were touring the vineyards outside. (We also needed it when touring Versailles, a sprawling estate with gorgeous gardens and on a cold day, you’ll be too miserable to enjoy them without an umbrella. Put one in your carry-on.)
Big Tip: pack anti-nausea pills if you have any slight indication you’ll get carsick. You’re in a new place, traffic is different (it can give tailgating a new name) and you’re drinking while already being tired or overstimulated. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
Our schedule consisted of four or five wineries, depending on time, and lunch in a historic restaurant in downtown Chablis. That restaurant, Bistrot des Grands Cru, was such an experience! The staff spoke only French, and none of the four of us were anywhere near fluent, so we did a lot of pointing and guessing. Most of Paris accommodates tourists by speaking multiple languages, but Chablis is a much older town and more representative of France in regards to speaking French. (And that is on us as the visitors to their beautiful country; we can’t expect them all to speak the language of tourists.)
With our basic French, we were able to place an order for escargot, a gorgeous salad from greens grown on the property, and a passion fruit dessert I will never forget. Each course was paired with wine, which we laughed about given the amount of wine we were enjoying at each winery. It was absolutely incredible, made even better by the stoic servers with not a lot of patience for our stumbling (because it felt so French in a way we’d been told to expect) and the old stone building with massive windows opening out to courtyards with gardens beyond. Cobblestone streets and pedestrians going from shop to shop, it was a scene from a movie. It was also a very grey, overcast day so we did not tour out back as we’d hoped, it was chilly and we focused on enjoying our meal instead.
Every winery we visited gave us a brief introduction to their chablis and other wines. Chardonnay is also common in the Chablis region, a fact we were very naive about. We were given an education on terrain, how it affects the vines, where the tasting nuances come from and their wine creation process as well as bottling and storage. Some gave us tours of their wine caves or facilities, and all of them provided healthy tastings. I only wish we’d been able to bring home some of the wine glasses to add to our collection. (One of the wineries did sell them, but didn’t offer shipping, and as it was our first winery of the day, we didn’t dare start loading up too soon. We’ve had a problem getting almost all of the wines we tasted back here in the states. Just like Cacique, not everything is easily imported. We haven’t given up!)
Wineries typically have beautiful landscapes, and French wine regions are no exception. Expect gentle rolling hills with views for days, views you’ll wish you had time to stroll with a wine glass in your hand. We wore basically business casual, but I recommend shoes that are comfortable for walking on uneven terrain, just in case you get some time to stroll. (I wore patent leather Doc Martens most of our trip. They were both durable and dressy while handling the rain and miles of walking that Paris can require.)
The wineries we visited consisted of older buildings but all had modern amenities. One was in a wide open field with nothing but a church nearby, the kind you’d see in an old-school painting. Another was in a rowhouse, small, quaint and a favorite. And oh, the pours there! We ended up not finishing our tasting flight.
Each wine tour will take you to different wineries, and some tour companies will tell you in advance which ones you’ll visit, while others will not. Day trips to the Champagne region will more frequently tell you which Champagne houses you will visit. Read the tour details carefully, so you can avoid surprises. Some include a meal while others will advise you to have cash available for lunch on your own. The number of tastes or glasses should be listed before you book, so you can decide if the tour is plentiful enough for your liking. (We found most trips had long tasting lists but we did find a few that included a surprisingly small number of tastes, requiring extra money, if there was even enough time.)
The best part of it all? They don’t presume you’re knowledgeable about wine, so all of these French wine region day trips from Paris are suitable for both the novice and the seasoned wine lover. You’ll get an education while not being overwhelmed or intimidated.
Tour lengths vary. Some are half-day while some are the entire day. We recommend small group, or semi-private tours. If we’d had a large group, we don’t feel like we’d have gotten the same personal attention at each winery. The stewards are more able to answer questions and not rush you to finish your tasting if there are less people involved, and some wineries will already have other guests in attendance, while some block out the time just for your group. Prices vary as well. We used Get Your Guide for most of our arrangements, but they use individual tour companies to handle the experiences, and you won’t always know who the tour company even is in advance. Get Your Guide has an app that makes it easier to contact everyone should you have questions.
Super huge tip: learn in advance how to make phone calls before you get to France! Learn how to do it via your hotel room and from your cell. If you have to call your tour company because there’s a problem or you need to change your plans, it’s critical you’re able to communicate or you’ll lose money, miss your experience, or at the very least, inconvenience the rest of your group.
And my last tip? Get to know your driver! The husband had to lean to the side, get in his peripheral vision and have an animated discussion with him the entire way there and back. We became very comfortable, very quickly, asking him to wake up, stop and get coffee, do something. We even suggested he nap while we were in one of the wineries, but he was required to stay present so that didn’t work either. Because we’d started our day by asking questions and engaging in pleasant conversation, we feel we were able to get more enjoyment out of what could have been a really bad situation.
There are so many day trips from Paris, there’s just not enough time to do them all, so choose wisely. We’re so glad we took this wine country excursion, and the Chablis wine region is gorgeous. We made amazing memories and we have a much bigger appreciation for French wine. We also have a funny story to tell.
Also, for reference, the links to the three wineries we visited in tasted in: Domaine Regnard, La Chablisienne, and Clotilde Davenne, which is the winery next to the amazing church. We were slated to visit 1-2 more but due to the issues I mentioned above, we did not go.
