Wanna Get Away?

I’m kicking back in a lounge chair, sipping on some Intuition as I watch vineyards climbing up rolling hills, passing by. I can barely make out a medieval, almost storybook castle up ahead, perched on top one of those hills, and I think, “Life doesn’t get much better than this.”

That’s, unfortunately, only in my imagination, triggered by this entrancing video from AmaWaterways cruise line that will be hosting Borra’s winemaker, Markus Niggli – and possibly you, too – next March, 2014:

So, yes, this is an unashamed plug for a pretty amazing cruise down the Rhine that won’t be cheap – starting at $2,469 per person – but it will be full of great food and wine times.

The journey starts in Markus’s homeland of Switzerland – not far from his birthplace of Weesen – where we’ll board the brand new, vintage 2013, AmaPrima for a course all the way down the Rhine river, through France and Germany to Amsterdam:

The AmaPrima isn’t one of those huge cruise high-rises that looks like something about to tip over and crammed full of a population equal to twice that of Woodbridge. It’s more like a double-decker private hotel, carrying all your personal possessions, that moves smoothly along the vineyards with no chance of wavy sea-sickness.

And with only room for about 160 people, crowded claustrophobia is pretty much out of the question. In fact, you’ll bump into a limited number of other Borra fans that get to monopolize time with Markus. So you’ll learn more than you may care to know about winemaking with perhaps a bit of German thrown in.

Here’s another teaser:

Markus will bring along plenty of Borra wines, especially whites, so you won’t go thirsty. Plus, since he’s sort of a games player, during the scheduled “wine lectures” he’s going to be conducting blind tastings so you can see how Borra’s Kerner and Riesling compare with local Kerners and world-famous Rieslings.

Early in the journey, as the Rhine courses along the border between France and Germany, you’ll come to Strasbourg, in the heart of the Alsace. It’s here where you’ll find some of the wines that have inspired our latest whites, along with the sparkling Crémant d’Alsace, about which Markus observes, “They’re absolutely gorgeous.”

Markus had me try this sparkling Crémant Rosé, which was full of nice strawberry with tart fruit and good acid balance which made for a very refreshing experience at about $20 per bottle. I’d gladly smuggle a couple of those onto the ship.

You can grab a bike off the deck and tool around the many little towns, villages and castles with or without a tour guide, be fed like a king, and – best of all – make a bunch of new wine-loving friends.

So hopefully we’ve tempted you enough to check out the full details at AmaWaterways.com.

And if we’ve won you over, join us by contacting our personal travel agent:

Terry Normington
Segale Travel Service
2321 W March Lane, Ste A
Stockton, CA 95207
209-952-6606 x525
TerryN@SegaleTravel.com

But hurry, because Terry is holding only a few more cabins.

Plus, click here for a PDF of our travel plans.