Consider exploring Turkey’s growing wine scene. The country’s viniculture industry is thousands of years old, even if it went into a prolonged slump during Ottoman rule. The country is now the world’s fourth-largest wine producer . Visiting key wine areas is easy to combine with some of Turkey’s big hitters. One of them is the very beautiful wine-producing village of ?irince, near the Aegean coast and the ancient ruins of Ephesus - it has a tradition of making wines from many different kinds of fruits, not just grapes. There are also vineyards in the inland region of Cappadocia, famous for its rock churches and fairy chimneys, where the fertile volcanic soil balances out its relative altitude. One to visit is the Zeynep vineyard, at 1,050 metres in height, part of the Turasan Winery in ?rgüp, which has been making wine since 1943 . Yunak Evleri, a hotel dating partly back to the fifth century, is within walking distance .
Here’s one you might not have considered - Niagara Falls. Away from the tour buses and shops, the Niagara Peninsula is a real surprise. Benefiting from a similar climate to Bordeaux, the rolling farmlands outside the village of Niagara-on-the-Lake are home to dozens of wineries (see winecountryontario.ca for details). Among them is Inniskillin, famed for its ice wine, where some grapes are left on the vine after the harvest, the frost making the vintage sweet and full flavoured . April to October is a great time to come, when the village hosts the Shaw Festival across four theatres. The town is also the starting point of the bike-friendly Niagara River Recreation Trail, which overlooks the river . The Vineland Estates Winery has a few comfortable guestrooms . For other b&b accommodation in the Niagara region, check out the BBCanada website .
