Sorry, Dorothy, but you’re not in your supermarket’s wine aisle anymore. You’re halfway around the world, and you didn’t travel this far to drink the same wines you keep in your fridge back home. Instead of flipping through the wine list for something familiar when traveling internationally, throw caution to the wind and ask for a local wine.
These local wines are often small-production gems that people in the States haven’t even heard of . And beyond exposing you to exciting unknown bottles, native wines also give you insight into the land, the culture, and the cuisine with every sip. “Terroir” may feel like an abstract thing from your couch, but it’s tangible when you can taste the landscape you drove through that day.
I used to think I was too good a traveler for tour groups. But after weaving around Hoi An, Vietnam, on Vespas with, I realized that people who do this for a living know better than I do and can offer access to places I would never stumble across on my own. Through its Countryside and Islands Explorers tour, I met local mat weavers, shipbuilders, and rice-cracker makers, then ate lunch at an unnamed beach restaurant that served sweet, briny clams with scallions and chiles.