Autumn is the time for festivals. Not the mud-and-blocked-lavatories chaos of summer, but an older, more sophisticated tradition that mixes the fruits of the harvest with full-on festivities. There are festivals for chestnuts, truffles, chocolate and cheese, but these are mere sideshows. Save your precious time and money for the main events: Europe’s fabulous autumn wine festivals. You drink, you eat, you dance, you drink a bit more, you fall asleep. And repeat. It’s what weekends were made for.
Vino al Vino
Panzano, Italy, September 18-21
There are two main Chianti festivals in Italy, and Vino al Vino is the smaller and more perfectly formed of the two. Warm and intimate, the event is run by about 20 local vineyards touting not only their wine from the Conca d’Oro terroir, but some fantastic cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oils. This is a small, local festival, attended by few outsiders, and it offers a side of Chiantishire few tourists ever see. Head for Piazza Bucciarelli, buy your tasting glass for £9.50, then fill your boots. Or, indeed, your boot, if you’ve been wise enough to drive down (vinoalvinopanzano.com).
Get there Either drive (14 hours via Calais; return ferry crossings start at £70 with Myferrylink.com), or fly to Florence, with Vueling, or Pisa, with Ryanair.
Stay A one-bedroom self-catering apartment in the ancient Castello di Montegonzicosts £75a night through Hotels.com.
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San Mateo
Logroño, Spain, September 19-26
They light the fuse on Spain’s biggest wine festival on September 19, and it explodes on September 21, when a rocket called the chupinazo kicks off a city-wide food fight that develops into an orgy of Bacchanalian decadence. It’s all wonderfully good-natured and underpinned by a programme of reasonably solemn events formally celebrating the end of the Rioja harvest — the offering of the season’s first juice to San Mateo, have-a-go grape-crushing, a wine fountain, bullfights, parades and nonstop eating, drinking and dancing for eight long days and nights (larioja.com; in Spanish only).
Get there Fly to Zaragoza with Ryanair, then drive (two hours)or take the bus (£22 return; autobusesjimenez.com).
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Stay Hotels have long sold out, but Airbnb.co.uk has plenty of availability in Logroño; from £40 a night.
Deutsche Weinlesefest
Neustadt, Germany, October 2-13
Germany enjoys a drink or two, and with the words “Die Haiselscher sinn uff” (the boozers are open), the wine capital of Neustadt — a fairy-tale town of cobbled streets and half-timbered taverns — begins a two-week session that undermines the hard-working, humourless Teuton stereotype. Most of the drinking takes place in the specially constructed wine village in front of the station, where producers from the Palatinate and Germany’s 12 other wine-growing regions will try to tempt you. The beverage of choice is Federweisser — white wine so young, you can taste the yeast — and it’s best accompanied by Zwiebelkuchen, a delicious savoury-yet-sweet onion tart. Aim to get there in time for the final weekend, when about 100,000 visitors arrive for a party that winds up with a parade, fireworks and the crowning of Germany’s wine queen (neustadt.eu).
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Get there Fly to Baden-Baden with Ryanair; from there, it’s a 90-minute train ride to Neustadt via Mannheim (£29 return; bahn.com).
Stay Gästehaus Villa Nova, on the Hohenzollernstrasse, is a short stagger from the wine village. Doubles cost £88 through Booking.com.
Festa d’Autunno
Lugano, Switzerland, October 3-5
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On the face of it, a wine festival in Switzerland sounds about as appealing as a beach party in Hartlepool, but the Festa d’Autunno takes place in Ticino, the pretty, carefree and fun-loving bit of the country on the Italian border. For three days in early October, this attractive lakeside town becomes a vast labyrinth of nooks and crannies offering opportunities to taste the merlot del Ticino and its appropriate accompaniments: superb salamis, Gotthard and Tremola cheeses, and creamy risottos. Live music, parades and a cracking market make this a terrific weekend break, although more for those in search of a party than for the deadly-serious oenophile (lugano-tourism.ch).
Get there Fly to Lugano via Zurich with Swiss.
Stay Doubles at the fin de siècle Hotel International au Lacstart at £136, B&B, through Travelrepublic. co.uk — be sure to ask for a lake-view room.
Cavatast
Sant Sadurni d’Anoia, Spain, October 3-5
Lying 30 miles west of Barcelona in the dry hills of Penedes, Sant Sadurni is to cava what Rheims is to champagne. This pretty town of 13,000 people is home not only to the supermarket brands Cordorniu and Freixenet, but to top-end producers such as Bodegas Gramona and Juve y Camps. All the above, as well as dozens more producers, take to Sant Sadurni’s streets for the first weekend in October, along with artisan food vendors and, this being Catalonia, purveyors of futuristic gastronomy. It’s hard to be po-faced about cava, so expect a party atmosphere. Tasting glasses cost £4 — your first four drinks are included, then it’s pay as you go, at £1 a glass — and gastronomy tickets cost a fiver for four snacks (cavatast.cat).
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Get there Fly to Barcelona with Ryanair, then jump on the R4 train at Placa de Catalunya for the 45-minute ride to Sant Sadurni (direction Sant Vicenc de Calders; £6.50 return).
Stay Your best bet is Barcelona — doubles at the stylish Petit Palace Museumhotel start at £133 (00 34 9330 40087, en.petitpalacemuseum barcelona.com).
Merano Wine Festival
Merano, Italy, November 7-10
High in the Alto Aldige, in the smart little town of Merano, Helmuth Köcher, a local, had the inspired idea of inviting oenophiles to “go on a voyage round the world, sampling products from Bordeaux to South Africa and Georgia to Argentina, and perhaps finishing the journey with a flute of champagne”. The festivalis serious spit-not-swallow stuff, with 300 producers arriving by invitation only to show off the best they have to offer over four days (meranowinefestival.com). Tickets start at £70a day, and this is to raucous affairs such as March’s Vinitaly what Glyndebourne is to Glastonbury, but if you do manage to overdo it, Terme Meranooffers nearly two acres of thermal pools in which to soak it all away (termemerano.it).
Get there Fly to Verona with easyJet, then take the train to Merano via Bolzano, a 2hr 40min journey (from £32 return; trenitalia.com).
Stay Doubles at the Terme Merano, in the heart of town, start at £202, B&B through Hotels.com.
Fête des Grands Vins de Bourgogne
Beaune, France, November 14-16
Held at the Palais des Congrès in Beaune, this is the heavyweight of wine festivals. There are 100 appellations in Burgundy, and the Fête des Grands Vins is the only festival where you’ll find them all within walking distance of each other. Entry costs £20, and you could simply stroll from stall to stall, trying more than 3,000 wines from 700 domaines, but the highlight is the Winemakers’ Dinner (tickets £40), a four-course, candlelit gourmet supper accompanied by vintages from 18 of the region’s most exciting young winemakers (fetedesgrandsvins.fr).
Get there This isn’t a weekend break but a shopping trip, so forget flying and take the car. Beaune is a 5½-hour drive from Calais, but you go via Rheims, so you can stock up on champagne as well. Return crossings from Dover cost £70 with Myferrylink.com.
Stay The boutique Le 5 has five suites from £123, B&B (00 33 6 87 20 85 35, le5maisondhotes.com).
Sarmentelles de Beaujeu
Beaujeu, France, November 19-23
At most wine festivals, the first couple of days offer a lead-up to the main event, but not so Les Sarmentelles, home of beaujolais nouveau. To take part in the Grande Bouffe — a cabaret dinner (tickets £68) — the tasting circuit, on which a tourist train takes you from one of the 12 AOC pavilions to the next, and the torchlight procession to Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, where the mise en perce — or broaching — of the barrels releases the new wine to the world, you need to be there on November 19. Once the ceremony is out of the way, the next five days involve a convivial mix of drinking — tasting glasses cost £4 — eating and entertainment of variable quality under the town’s big top (sarmentelles.com).
Get there Fly to Lyons with British Airways — Beaujeu is an hour’s drive north.
Stay Marie and Philippe Laprun run the charming Chantemerle en Morne guesthouse from their vineyard on the edge of the village. Doubles start at £86with Gîtes de France (gites-de-france.com).