Luxury travel: Ultimate Holiday gifts

How to survive the icy grip of winter and the holiday season’s gift planning dilemmas?

We recommend turning to the luxury trinity of great wine, great food and great places. The mere thought of a rolling vineyard awash in Tuscan sunshine can help you survive the recurring snowfall just outside your window. Wine-driven travel is an ideal gift to give to yourself because it is tailored to be shared with close friends and fellow oenophiles.

As a way to debut Inspired Travel, the luxury travel arm of HinsdaleCellars.com, an irresistible nine-day Tuscany experience has been assembled by a team of experts, including a liason with his boots on familiar ground to help us make the right choices. The tour is tentatively scheduled between May 10 and 19 next spring, an ideal time of year to explore the pleasures of central Italy.

This is connoisseur-level travel that covers all of the bases, from private winery visits to live cooking demonstrations to reliable, continuous ground transportation, with each memorable day concluding inside the comforting walls of an acclaimed boutique hotel, Relais La Suvera. The price tag is a nearly all-inclusive $11,700 per couple. A cap of six couples ensures a manageable group. (The per couple price increases for groups of three couples or smaller). Travelers should plan to pay separately for air travel between U.S. hubs and Rome, the largest gateway to Tuscany.

Review the itinerary here. (The New York Times recently rated Tuscany No. 19 on a list of “The 53 Places to Go in 2008″).

Travel to the world’s most alluring wine producing regions is becoming so popular among discerning collectors, both established and new, that a group based in northern Virginia was inspired to create a members-only travel program called Destination Cellars. (They’ve assembled a stunning web site, too). We are so impressed by the Destination Cellars plan that we formed a marketing alliance. Hinsdale Cellars customers are eligible for special pricing at a variety of membership levels.

Before they pulled back the curtain on this timely venture, Destination Cellars principals did some extensive legwork, developing relationships with more than 70 prestigious wineries worldwide. As a member, you choose from various experiential packages each year (e.g., New Zealand or Bordeaux, to name two). On location your group is afforded unprecedented access to the many wineries on the Destination Cellars roster.

A maximum of 475 memberships will be accepted.

– Steve Woodward