Best Ski Resorts for Wine Lovers: France, Italy, Austria & Switzerland
Last winter, I sat in a mountain restaurant at 2,100 meters in the Italian Dolomites, watching snow fall on the Sella Massif, drinking a glass of Lagrein that had been grown fifty minutes away, in the valley below. The wine was lovely. The moment was better. And I realized, not for the first time, that the best ski resorts for wine lovers are not the ones with the most famous names. They are the ones where the wine belongs to the place. It’s about the right context.
The Alps sit at the crossroads of Europe’s greatest wine-producing countries. France, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland each have ski domains where serious wine culture meets serious skiing, and where what you drink between runs or after a long day on the mountain is part of the experience, not an afterthought. But the wine story is different at each one. The local grapes, the dining culture, the cellar traditions, the events: they vary enormously, and understanding what each destination offers is the difference between ordering a generic Bordeaux at altitude and discovering a bottle you could not have found at home.
Here are the four ski resort domains I recommend for wine lovers, what producers to drink at each, and where to sip in style.
