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Alsace Wine Tours › The One Alsace Wine Day That Feeds YouUpdated 2026-09-20

The One Alsace Wine Day That Feeds You

Hours, prices and access verified by the Alsace Wine Tours team — last checked 2026-09-20.

A tarte flambée on its board: cream, onion and bacon on thin dough

The short answer. Almost every fare on the Alsace Wine Route leaves lunch to you. One does not: a family estate at Gertwiller sits you down for an hour with a wine beside each course, for $74, which is less than most half days cost without a meal. The catch is that no vehicle collects you. Everywhere else, plan to buy your own in a village.

The one fare with a meal in it

The estate at Gertwiller has been making wine since 1778, in a cellar that has been in use since 1850, and it converted the whole property to organic production in 2020. The visit runs two and a half hours and is split three ways: an hour being shown the winery and the cellar, an hour at the table, and half an hour in the shop if you want it.

What arrives at the table is properly Alsatian: a soup, then a meat pie, then a slice of kougelhopf with Bibeleskaes, the region's fresh white cheese, and coffee or tea to finish. A wine comes with each dish, chosen by the people who grew it. Nothing is added at the end except what you carry out of the shop.

Comparing it against the days that drive you around? Every fare sits on Alsace Wine guided tours with what it covers marked against it.

What everything else does about lunch

The kind of dayLunchWhat to do about it
The estate visit at GertwillerIn the fareNothing: turn up hungry
A long day through the villagesNot includedBuy in a village during free time
The big day out of ColmarNot includedBring something; there is no stop for a meal
A four-hour wine runNot includedEat before you go, not during
A guided walk in a townNot includedTwo hours: eat afterwards
The open-top busNot includedHop off where the restaurants are

The pattern is simple enough. A day long enough to need lunch usually gives you free time in a village to find it, and a short day assumes you ate first.

Why the cellars do not feed you

There is a reason, and it is not meanness. Tasting rooms in France do not put food beside the wine, because it changes what you taste. Both of the Ophorus days out of Strasbourg say so on the page and recommend a good breakfast or lunch beforehand.

So on a four-hour morning trip, eat at eight. On an afternoon one, eat at noon. It is the single most common mistake on a first wine day here, and it is entirely avoidable.

Useful tip. A late Colmar departure at 1:45pm is the easiest way to have a proper lunch and still get onto the wine route the same day. Plan the meal first and the tour around it.

Where to eat when the day leaves it to you

The village stops are your lunch. Riquewihr and Eguisheim both have restaurants along the main street and are busy at midday in season, so eat early rather than at one o'clock. Ribeauville is the bigger working town of the group, which is why you can still get a table there in the evening when the showpiece villages have emptied.

A winstub is the thing to look for: the Alsatian version of a wine bar that serves food, and the reason one of Colmar's kerbs is described by the winstub it stands in front of. Tarte flambée, thin dough with cream, onion and bacon, is the local order and the cheapest one. Where each village sits, and what else is in it, is on the things to do page.

Where lunch falls on the long days

The long days do not feed you, but they do stop long enough for you to feed yourself, and the stop times are published. Knowing them lets you plan the meal rather than grab it.

  • The full day from the cathedral kerb breaks for ninety minutes in a village between its tastings. That is a proper sit-down lunch, not a sandwich.
  • The minibus day from the Place de l'Étoile spends about four and a half hours in its villages, ninety minutes of it in Riquewihr. Eat there.
  • The castle and villages day from Colmar gives you an hour and three quarters in Riquewihr, the longest stop of its day.
  • The four-village day from Colmar has no set meal stop. Carry something, and buy more in whichever village you like best.

In each case, lunch is the longest pause of the day. Use it to sit down, because the afternoon usually holds the tastings.

What to say when you book the table

  • Vegetarian? Say so at the time of booking. The menu is made to order and cannot be arranged on the day.
  • Children? There is a menu for them, or you can leave them off the booking and let them choose at the table.
  • Language? The visit runs in English or in French, and you pick when you book.
  • Shop? The last half hour is optional, and anything you take home is priced separately.

If you have no car

Then the meal is harder to reach, because transport to and from the winery is the one thing that fare excludes. Gertwiller sits on the northern stretch of the route, near Obernai, so a taxi from there is short and a drive from Strasbourg is straightforward.

If you cannot get yourself there at all, take a day that collects you instead and accept that lunch is your own affair. The four-hour run out of Strasbourg meets at a station kerb for $114, and what a half day fits in explains how the time breaks up once you are moving.

Important. Nothing picks you up for the estate visit, in either direction, and it is the commonest reason people arrive late for it. Work out the journey before you book, using the map to see where Gertwiller falls against everything else.

So is a meal worth booking a day around?

If you like eating, yes, and the arithmetic helps: it is the cheapest fare here that pours at all, and it is the best rated. What you give up is the road. You see one estate rather than four villages, and you arrange your own way there and back.

A good compromise is to do both on different days: the villages on the day you have a vehicle around you, and the table on the day you do not want one. The visitor guide lists what every fare covers, and the frequently asked questions answer the rest.

Days that deal with lunch differently

Next: Check which fares actually pour in the days that include the tasting. Every fare sits side by side on Alsace Wine Tours.