In this issue:

• The Hudson Valley: New York's Quiet Food Country

• Maryland & Virginia: Award-Winning Wine Country

• Charleston & the Lowcountry: Where Farm Meets Sea

• Planning Your Trip: A Practical Guide

• Bringing the Grandchildren: A Multigenerational Guide

Exploring vineyards, history, and gastronomic delights

Some of the best travel memories aren't built around landmarks. They're made sitting around a table. I made many deep memories in Sonoma, where innovative cuisine flows as freely as the wine.

Wherever your heart leads you, following a culinary trail is a relaxing journey that invites you to drive a little slower, stop a little more often, and let the season's harvest guide you to each destination. This issue maps out a handful of regions stretching from the Hudson Valley, New York, down the East Coast through Maryland and Virginia to the Carolinas, then following the road to Alabama and Louisiana.

We've also built in something new for this edition: a guide to bringing grandchildren along. Several of the destinations below, especially in wine country, have slowly become some of the most welcoming places in the world for multigenerational travel, with vineyards that double as petting farms and chefs who think nothing of sending out a plate of fries alongside the tasting menu.

— Pam Miller, Editor-in-Chief

NEW YORK · THE HUDSON VALLEY

New York's quiet food country

Rolling farmland an hour and a half from Manhattan

Over the last two decades, the Hudson Valley has emerged as one of the most dedicated and most casual farm-to-table cultures in the country. Here, the greatest concentration of wineries in Dutchess and Ulster Counties is connected by two actual, mapped wine trails, making it easy to plan a few days with minimal time in the car.

West of the river, in Ulster and Orange Counties, the Shawangunk Wine Trail is the larger and older of the two: an 80-mile route established in 1984 that links about a dozen wineries nestled between the Shawangunk Mountains and the river, on land where French Huguenots were planting vines as early as the 1600s. Robibero Family Vineyards in New Paltz is a satisfying first stop, offering wood-fired pizza and live music most weekends. The historic Stoutridge Winery & Distillery in Marlboro occupies an 1800s farmhouse, where a variety of wines are produced using eco-friendly processes. It's also one of a handful of U.S. distilleries with its own malt house and Scottish-style kilning floor.

East of the river in Dutchess County, the smaller Dutchess Wine Trail connects just two wineries, Millbrook Vineyards & Winery and Clinton Vineyards, fifteen minutes apart. The brevity is part of the appeal: it's an easy half-day loop past orchards and farms, anchored by Millbrook's thirty-five acres of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Franc vineyards.

For a signature meal that anchors the entire trip, Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills remains the region's signature experience: an 80-acre working farm with a restaurant by chef Dan Barber, whose daily menu is inspired by that morning's harvest. Plan in advance — reservations go quickly months in advance. In Hudson itself, smaller, easier-to-book spots like Tousey Winery pair well with an afternoon stroll through Warren Street's shops and bakeries.

Price Range: $40–$350 per person, depending on the experience · Best Season: September and October for harvest color · Getting There: 90 minutes by car or Amtrak from New York City

Where to stay

The Buttermilk Falls Inn and Spa sits on a 75-acre Hudson River estate. It's one of the few hotels in the region that's a culinary destination in its own right, featuring an organic kitchen garden, orchard, and farm-to-table restaurant. For something smaller and more historic, the Borland House in Montgomery is a beautifully restored 1700s inn known for its farm-to-table breakfast and chicken and waffles. A luxurious stay is on the menu at Wildflower Farms, part of the Auberge Collection, with exquisite dining that showcases the best of the season, cooking classes, a spa, and more.

MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA · WINE COUNTRY

Award-winning wine, vintage experiences

Maryland and Virginia produce award-winning wines that are worth the trip

These two states have distinct, decades-old wine trails, and Virginia's flagship region has already beaten France and Italy for a major wine award. The terrain does the heavy lifting: the Blue Ridge Mountains shelter the vines from harsh winds on one side, the Chesapeake moderates the climate on the other, and the rolling Piedmont in between turns out to be excellent at growing grapes that nobody expects from the Mid-Atlantic.

Virginia: the Monticello Wine Trail

Start with the credentials: Established in 1984, the Monticello AVA, centered on Charlottesville, was Virginia's first officially designated wine region. In 2023, Wine Enthusiast named it Wine Region of the Year, beating out Provence, Tuscany, and South Africa's Swartland. More than 40 wineries now line the Monticello Wine Trail within a 25-mile radius of the city, on the same eastern Blue Ridge slopes where Thomas Jefferson spent decades trying and failing to grow European wine grapes at Monticello.

Barboursville Vineyards is the trail's anchor and keeper of its best story: in 1976, the Italian winemaking Zonin family bought the 1814 estate of a Virginia governor. There, they built a winery beside the ruins of a mansion Thomas Jefferson designed. The flagship Octagon, a Bordeaux-style blend named for the estate's octagonal dining room, has become Virginia's most decorated red. The on-site restaurant, Palladio, serves a seasonal Italian-Virginian menu, and guests can stay at the 1804 Inn, which is housed in part in a building from that year.

Further south, Veritas Vineyards & Winery in Afton takes the trail's English countryside, with sheep grazing among the vines and a winemaking team led by the family's daughter. The Farmhouse at Veritas, the family's former home, is now a six-room bed-and-breakfast on the property, about as close as the trail gets to staying inside the vineyard itself.

An hour northwest, the Shenandoah Valley AVA offers a different register entirely: cooler, drier, and the state's oldest and largest viticultural area, spanning 190 miles between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies. Cave Ridge Vineyard in Mount Jackson sits on a hilltop with a view of the next ridge, the kind of vantage that makes a tasting flight feel incidental. Muse Vineyards, a Virginia Governor's Cup winner, hugs the Shenandoah River and keeps a small farmhouse for overnight guests, making it a natural base for working through the rest of the valley's three dozen wineries.

On a personal note: A short drive from Middleburg, Bluemont Vineyard sits 951 feet up the first ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, offering a panoramic view of the Loudoun Valley that's earned it a spot on Virginia's list of the ten most beautiful wineries. The Zurschmeide family, who still farm the land today, bought the property in 1993 and planted their first vines in 2007 — but the mountain has a longer, more complicated history than that. My family owned this land in the 1920s and '30s until the federal government acquired it in the 1940s, in the same stretch of the Blue Ridge that would later become home to Mount Weather, the government's continuity-of-government facility a few miles to the south. Whatever a tasting room view usually means to a visitor, this one means something entirely different to me.

Price Range: $10–$30 for a standard tasting flight, more for reserve or private experiences · Best Season: October for harvest color in the Blue Ridge; spring for milder tasting-room crowds · Getting There: Charlottesville is about 2.5 hours from Washington, D.C.; the Shenandoah Valley is roughly 90 minutes

Maryland: the Frederick and Piedmont Wine Trails

Maryland's wine country may be younger, but it has already produced seven official wine trails; the two worth a dedicated trip both converge near Frederick, just an hour from Washington, DC.

The Frederick Wine Trail, Maryland's first, links eight wineries that together account for more than half the state's wine production. Black Ankle Vineyards in Mount Airy is the trail's serious-wine destination — sustainably farmed, expensive by Maryland standards, and unapologetic about it. Its charcuterie program and lounge seating make a half-day visit easy to justify. Old Westminster Winery, run by three siblings since 2010, leans into natural winemaking and a wood-fired kitchen, and has drawn national attention for proving that Maryland wine doesn't have to apologize for itself.

The Piedmont Wine Trail, just north of Baltimore in horse country, is the more old-school counterpart: Boordy Vineyards, the state's oldest winery, opened in 1945 and still anchors the trail alongside Basignani and Fiore, two family-run operations that have quietly made traditional-style wine for decades while Frederick's newer wineries get the press.

For the night, The Visitation Hotel in downtown Frederick is the obvious choice: an 1846 convent and former girls' school converted into an upscale hotel, with the city's restaurant scene and both wine trails within a short drive in either direction.

Price Range: $12–$25 for a tasting flight · Best Season: Year-round, though spring and fall festivals add music and food trucks to most stops · Getting There: Frederick is about an hour from both Washington, D.C., and Baltimore

Where to stay

Boar's Head Resort in Charlottesville is the area's only AAA Four Diamond property. Situated along the Monticello Wine Trail, it offers excellent dining, golf, and a spa. On the outskirts of Washington, DC, and suburban Maryland, the ultra-luxurious Salamander Resort & Spa in Middleburg is Virginia's only Forbes Five-Star resort. It is well within reach of Virginia’s Monticello and the Frederick/Piedmont trails in Maryland.

SOUTH CAROLINA · CHARLESTON & THE LOWCOUNTRY

Where farm meets sea

Discover a culinary scene steeped in history and cultural flavor

Charleston's farm-to-table movement is more of a tradition than a trend. Its popularity has been growing for more than twenty years, with restaurants like SNOB (Slightly North of Broad St in Charleston) helping pioneer the pairing of locally grown produce with Southern and French techniques long before it became fashionable elsewhere. What makes the Lowcountry distinct is the sea: the city's chefs draw as heavily on Atlantic shrimp, oysters, and blue crab as on produce from nearby farms.

A morning at the Charleston Farmers Market (Saturdays, mid-April through mid-December) followed by a guided farm-to-table tour is the easiest way to experience the region's pantry firsthand. Charleston Culinary Tours offers a well-regarded version: guests select seasonal produce at a neighborhood market, and a local chef then builds a multi-course meal around the group's choices in real time. For dinner afterward, Husk and FIG are the two standard-bearers, each built entirely around what local farmers and fishermen bring in that day.

None of this would exist without the Gullah Geechee, whose foodways form the foundation of Lowcountry cuisine. Descendants of West Africans brought to the Sea Islands for their expertise in rice cultivation, the Gullah Geechee carried farming and fishing traditions that predate the term "farm-to-table" by centuries — dishes like red rice and okra soup trace a direct line back to West Africa's Rice Coast. On St. Helena Island, Gullah Grub has served chef Bill Green's family recipes, including crab rice and okra gumbo, since long before the broader food world took notice. The Gullah Geechee Seafood Trail maps restaurants, food trucks, and caterers across the Sea Islands corridor for travelers who want to follow the cuisine to its source. A half-day trip to Joseph Fields Farm on Johns Island, still run by the same Gullah family that has worked the land since the 1850s, is as close as a visitor gets to the region's actual pantry.

Head inland, and the tone turns playful. South Carolina has its own only-in-the-South obsession: Duke's Mayonnaise, born in Greenville in 1917 and still the household staple across the Carolinas. Greenville's Mayo Guide is a self-guided trail through twenty local stops, from pimento cheese with pork cracklings at Home Team BBQ to crab cakes finished with Duke's spiked remoulade at Soby's, plus a handful of historical sites that trace Eugenia Duke's path from her own kitchen to a Southern institution.

Louisiana asks for a slower pace and a looser collar. An hour and a half south of New Orleans, the Cajun Bayou Food Trail in Lafourche Parish follows Bayou Lafourche through wetlands and small Cajun communities. A printed passport rewards five stamped stops with a t-shirt and, for considerably more than five stops, boudin, étouffée, and fried seafood along the way. Further west in Lafayette — named the South's top culinary town by The Local Palate in 2024 — Cajun Food Tours offers small-group bus and walking tours through family-run restaurants in the Acadiana region, the kind of place where the guide knows every owner by name and the gumbo recipe by heart.

The trail ends on Alabama's Gulf Coast. Fairhope, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, has quietly built one of the South's best small-town dining scenes around its Gulf catch: The Hope Farm sources much of its menu from its grounds, while Little Bird and Southern Roots at the historic Grand Hotel turn the day's oysters, shrimp, and snapper into a coastal Southern menu with a view of the bay. It is a quieter, less-discovered version of everything the rest of this trail has been building toward: water, land, and whoever happened to be cooking that morning.

Price Range: $25 – $200 per person · Best Season: Spring and fall, to avoid summer humidity · Getting There: Direct flights into Charleston International from most major US cities

Where to stay

Each stop on this trail has a property worth booking around mealtime. In Charleston, Wentworth Mansion transforms a Gilded Age cotton merchant's home into a 21-room inn with a rooftop cupola, working fireplaces, and a carriage-house restaurant in the original kitchen building. The historic district is teeming with boutique inns within walking distance of the market and most of the restaurants on this list, making it worth prioritizing over a car-dependent stay outside downtown. A concierge at any of the historic district's well-known properties can also arrange a private chef visit to a nearby farm for groups seeking a more secluded experience.

Near the Sea Islands, Cuthbert House in Beaufort is a waterfront 1790 mansion turned ten-room inn on the National Register of Historic Places, with river views from nearly every room and a nightly social hour with the owners themselves. In Lafayette, The Carriage House in the River Ranch development is the city's only AAA Four Diamond property, all-suite and private, with access to the neighboring City Club's spa and sporting facilities. And on the Alabama coast, the Grand Hotel in Point Clear — built in 1847, the same resort that houses Southern Roots — closes the trip properly, with 550 oak-shaded acres on Mobile Bay and a 20,000-square-foot spa, should five regions of eating finally catch up with you.

Planning your trip

A few things that make any culinary trail easier to navigate:

• Time your visit with the harvest. Most of these regions have a distinct high season, typically late summer through fall, when menus and tastings reflect what's actually being picked.

• Limit yourself to two or three stops a day. Wineries and farm tours run longer than expected, and a packed itinerary tends to produce fatigue rather than enjoyment, especially if you have grandchildren in tow.

• Arrange transportation in advance. Most wine and farm regions are not walkable between stops; a rental car, private driver, or guided tour removes the single biggest planning headache.

• Book signature meals first. Restaurants like Blue Hill at Stone Barns or any high-demand tasting menu should be reserved before flights are booked, not after.

• Disclose dietary needs early. Farm-to-table menus are often curated the same day, based on what's available locally. If there are any allergies or restrictions,  advance notice makes accommodating these easier than at the table.

NOTE: Prices are approximate per-person figures in US dollars and are subject to seasonal change.

A multigenerational guide

Culinary trails turn out to be some of the easiest multigenerational trips to plan

Wine and farm country are often seen as adults-only destinations, but several stops along these scenic trails have become some of the most grandchild-friendly travel options. 

In the Hudson Valley, many wineries go beyond the requisite tasting room with a farm visit. Several outfitters offer alpaca hikes and orchard tours that keep younger travelers engaged between stops. In Charleston, a farmers market visit often holds a child's attention better than a formal restaurant meal, and most farm-to-table tours welcome children over eight.

A few notes that make these trips easier:

• Call ahead. Many tasting rooms limit the number of groups inside at once, and a winery that's casual about children on a quiet Tuesday may feel different on a busy Saturday.

• Build in a non-wine stop between tastings, like a farm animal pen, an ice cream stand, or a short walk, so the day doesn't feel entirely centered on adults.

• Choose lodging with extra bedrooms or separate suites rather than a single hotel room; multigenerational groups consistently report that this matters more than proximity to any single winery.