After I wrote last summer about my wine-soaked holiday in the southern Rhone, quite a number of readers wrote to say how they used the article as a basis for a similar trip. They visited the same producers, drank the same bottles, fell in love with the same foods. . . Astonishing, I thought - but for no very logical reason. Although the market for organised wine tours is expanding, it still can't match the volume of Irish wine-lovers who prefer to pile into the car and plot their own meanderings.
This sort of wine tourism is more flexible. You can take the kids and surreptitiously slip a few cellar visits into what seems like a normal family holiday - or go the whole serious hog, arranging appointments with many famous names. You can skip swiftly out of any disappointing places and stay hours in the better ones, since the length of your stay hasn't been preordained. So far, so appealing. But the one thing that's needed to make DIY wine travel work is good information.
Before considering wine region guide books, first here is news of an ingenious Irish initiative. Terry Greene, a mustard-keen Dublin wine-lover who holds the diploma of the Wine and Spirit Education Trust, has recently begun to produce "winebriefs" to meet individual needs. You tell him where you are going, what kind of wine you like to drink, what kind of money you're prepared to spend and so on. In a smart black parchment envelope, back comes a document densely packed with information geared entirely to your circumstances.
A couple bound for the Loire with young children gets useful tips on travelling and eating in France with les enfants, for instance, as well as extensive advice on under-appreciated local wines. A stockbroker heading for Burgundy with money to burn, on the other hand, is led down the Route des Grands Crus with tips for investment. Indeed, you don't have to go away at all to benefit from a winebrief. Some customers just love a particular style of wine and want to know where to find the best examples here in Ireland.
A partner in The Design Factory for 15 years, Terry Greene decided this April to immerse himself fully in wine. "Passing the diploma last summer was the catalyst," he says. "I had design experience and the ability to write, I'd travelled to a lot of wine regions, I had a real passion for the subject and academic wine qualifications too. So I sat down and thought: what can I do to bring all these aspects together? I'd written wine notes for friends who were going off on holiday, and suddenly the winebrief idea emerged. There's nothing else like it, taking individual circumstances into account and catering for a wide span of clients - from the person who casually enjoys a bottle of wine with dinner to the serious buyer who will want to seek out a dozen cases of good wine to bring home."
One of Terry's great strengths, in his role as wine communicator, is that he is completely independent, so the wines he recommends aren't linked to any pockets of the wine trade. Another is his infectious enthusiasm which comes across in chatty, appetite-whetting prose. One of his winebriefs will cost you around £40 - but think of the pleasure you'll gain, while saving in wise wine purchases and research time.
As far as more conventional guides are concerned, the first essential bit of advice is to buy a specialist handbook to the area you' re planning to visit rather than a general wine travel guide to France, Italy or wherever. These may seem like a good buy, with the potential to come in useful on more than one trip, but in fact the information they provide on each region is rarely detailed enough. Rather like having an aperitif and nothing more to drink.
This year's most important new series of regional guides is Oz Clarke's Wine Companions - six titles, on Champagne & Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, California, the South of France and Tuscany. A handsomely-illustrated paperback guide and a panoramic foldout map are packaged together in a plastic wallet. These maps are so large and unwieldy, however, that I fancy they could shatter holiday good humour in five seconds. The guides, on the other hand, (not authored by Oz, incidentally, beyond a brief introduction and captions), are quite well organised with an excellent A-Z of recommended producers at the back.
Overall, I think I slightly prefer the Touring In Wine Country series edited by Hugh Johnson - 11 titles on Europe's main wine regions, published in batches over the past few years. For a couple of pounds more, you get a more comprehensive guidebook incorporating admirably detailed maps and a slightly higher quotient of foodie lore - a prime essential in my book.
Last of all, a much more substantial book - one which seduces with personal reminiscences rather than pretty pictures. A Wine & Food Guide To The Loire by Jacqueline Friedrich is the fascinating account (complete with copious tasting notes) of how an American wine and food writer went on a four-day trip to Touraine and ended up living there. "I became convinced that the Loire was France's last great unexplored viticultural region," she says. With droves of Irish wine fans likely to drive down from Roscoff, Le Havre and Cherbourg? Not any more!
Terry Greene's winebriefs: tel 01-4974618 or 086-8149009, email: terrygreenetinet.ie.
Oz Clarke's Wine Companion series: published by De Agostini; six titles at £9.99stg each.
The Touring In Wine Country series, edited by Hugh Johnson: published by Mitchell Beazley; 11 titles at £12.99 each in UK.
A Wine & Food Guide To The Loire by Jacqueline Friedrich: pub- lished by Mitchell Beazley at £17.99 in UK.