The vineyard changes more than the weather does. Harvest, the open-top bus season, the Christmas weeks and two days when nothing runs at all — settle the month before you make an Alsace Wine booking.
Between April and October you get the vineyard in leaf, the longest days and everything running, including the seasonal bus. September and October add the harvest and the colour, and they are the months most visitors want. May and June give you the green slope and thinner crowds.
Winter is not a dead season, only a different one. The cellars are unchanged — a tasting in February is the same tasting as in August — and the villages are at their best under lights in December. What you lose is the bus, the leaves and the long evenings.
| Month | What is on | What is open | In the vineyard |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | Nothing on the route; the markets are over | The castle closes at 5:00pm with a midday break; Unterlinden shut on Tuesdays | Bare rows, and the pruners out in them |
| February | The quietest month of the year here | Same winter hours at the castle; free entry there on the first Sunday | Pruning continues down the slope |
| March | The vineyard starts to move | Free castle entry on the first Sunday, the last of the winter Sundays | Buds swell on the wires |
| April | The open-top bus starts on Friday 3 April | Longer castle hours return as the season opens | Budburst, and the first green on the rows |
| May | Bus runs Friday to Sunday and on public holidays | Unterlinden closed 1 May; the castle open | Leaves out; the slope turns green |
| June | Bus at weekends; the villages fill at the solstice | Castle open 9:30am to 6:00pm, Mondays from 10:30am | Flowering, the quietest weeks for the growers |
| July | Bus runs from market day to Sunday | Everything open; the hottest, sunniest stretch | The grapes set and swell |
| August | Bus runs from market day to Sunday | Everything open; French holiday traffic on the route | Ripening, and the first pickers in some years |
| September | Harvest month; no official 2026 date is published | Castle 9:30am to 6:00pm daily, Mondays from 10:30am | Pickers, tractors and full trailers in the lanes |
| October | The bus runs its last day on Sunday 11 October | Castle hours unchanged to the end of the month; Unterlinden shut on Tuesdays | Gold and rust on the slope, the best colour of the year |
| November | The Christmas markets open from 20 November | Castle drops to winter hours; free entry on the first Sunday; Unterlinden closed 1 Nov | Leaves down, the vineyard empty |
| December | Markets everywhere; nothing runs on 25 December | Castle closed 25 and 26 December; Unterlinden closed 25 December | Bare wood, frost most nights |
The castle's hours and closures are its own, and so is the free first Sunday from November to March. The museum's Tuesday closure is the museum's. The vineyard column is the grower's year, not a calendar you can book against: nobody publishes an official 2026 date for the Alsace harvest, so we do not print one.
Most days here run all year, and the tasting is already in the fare on the majority of them.
Harvest is the month most people ask about, and it is the one date nobody will give you. The appellations publish no official 2026 start, the growers go when the sugar says so, and the difference between one year and the next can be a fortnight. September and October are the window; that is as precise as an honest answer gets.
What you will actually notice is traffic. Tractors and full trailers use the same narrow lanes your minibus does, the cellars are working rather than showing, and a grower may hand the tasting to somebody else for a week. None of that stops your day — the pouring goes on all year — but it does make the village lanes slower and the weekends fuller.
If you want to see picking rather than hear about it, book the guided walk that goes into the rows near Colmar, and take a morning slot. Ask your guide on the day where the pickers are: they move by parcel, and nobody can promise you a row in advance.
The hop-on convertible bus between the villages runs a season rather than a calendar, and nothing else here does. It runs from Friday 3 April to Sunday 11 October 2026. In April, May, June and October that means Friday to Sunday and public holidays; in July, August and September it runs from market day to Sunday and public holidays.
A day ticket is valid from 8:30am to 7:00pm and covers six stops: Colmar station, the Colmar tourist office beside Unterlinden, Ribeauvillé bus station, Riquewihr post office, Kaysersberg Porte Basse, Turckheim Porte de France and the Eguisheim town hall car park. Outside the season the vehicle can only be hired privately, so if you are here in winter, plan a different day.
Alsace runs the best-known Christmas markets in France, and the wine villages run their own. The Colmar tourist office publishes the dates for its part of the route, and they are below. They are worth reading closely: several villages open for two or four weekends only, not for the whole of Advent.
| Village | What it is | 2026 dates |
|---|---|---|
| Colmar | six markets across the town | 23 November to 29 December 2026 |
| Eguisheim | the authentic market inside the rings | 27 November to 30 December 2026 |
| Turckheim | the elves' market | 27 November to 30 December 2026 |
| Riquewihr | the traditional market inside the walls | 27 November to 20 December 2026 |
| Kaysersberg | four weekends only | 27–29 November, 4–6, 11–13 and 18–20 December 2026 |
| Bergheim | two weekends only | 27–29 November and 4–6 December 2026 |
| Ribeauvillé | the medieval market, two weekends only | 5–6 and 12–13 December 2026 |
| Munster | in the valley behind Colmar | Fridays to Sundays, 20 November to 20 December, then daily to 31 December 2026 |
December changes the shape of a day out of Strasbourg. Both Ophorus days out of Strasbourg return "just outside the Grande-Île district", with the exact address agreed with your guide, because the market closes the centre to coaches. The Colmar-and-castle day does not run at weekends between 16 November and 25 December.
Two days stop everything. Neither Wine Route day runs on 25 December or 1 January, and the castle is closed on 1 January and on 25 and 26 December. If those dates are your only ones, book a private day and ask first.
Haut-Kœnigsbourg opens at 10:30am on Mondays rather than 9:30, which matters if your day puts the castle first. Last entry is always an hour before closing, and from November the castle shuts for an hour at midday. The Musée Unterlinden closes all day on Tuesday.
None of that stops a tour, because the wine route is a public road with no gate and the cellars keep their own hours. It does decide the order of your day, and a good guide will already have worked round it. The full detail is on things to do on the wine route.
Three peaks, all of them published rather than guessed. The Christmas weekends are the biggest: the Colmar office puts out an attendance forecast for its own markets, graded from low to very high, and the middle weekends of December are the dark end of that scale. Harvest weekends in September and October are the second.
The third is any sunny Sunday in July and August, when the villages fill by eleven. The castle helps here — it publishes its own expected attendance for the morning and the afternoon of each coming day, so you can see before you set off whether you are arriving with everybody else. A morning departure beats an afternoon one in every busy week.
The 2026 Christmas dates are the Colmar tourist office's own Christmas programme, market by market. Strasbourg's own Christmas site is the reason no 2026 date appears for the city. The bus season and its stops come from the operator's listing; the castle's hours, closures, free Sundays and attendance forecast from haut-koenigsbourg.fr; the museum's from musee-unterlinden.com.
Colmar, Riquewihr and the castle from Strasbourg, with the castle ticket in the fare. It pours nothing: this day is about the villages and the ramparts.
From $199 per person
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Two hours on foot through Colmar's old town, ending at a wine cellar with the tasting already in the price. Six walkers at most, so it books out early.
From $51 per person
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A private day for up to four, castle entry in the fare, then Riquewihr, Eguisheim and Colmar's Little Venice. The car is a Tesla and the driver plans the day with you.
From $878 per group, up to 4
Check AvailabilityNext: check the figures on the weather page, see what is open on things to do, or compare every tour on Alsace Wine Tours.