A lot of people ask me what wine regions are closest to Toulouse, because they’d like to get out of the city to taste some wine.  I thought I’d write up my wine tasting recommendations in one place.

If you want to spend a day visiting a wine region near Toulouse, I’m naturally going to recommend that you visit me at O’Vineyards or spend the night in our B&B.  I’m a little more than an hour’s drive from Toulouse and after you visit O’Vineyards, you can spend some time at the Cité de Carcassonne.  But this page has information about all the other wine regions you can visit near Toulouse.

Wine regions close to Toulouse

• Gaillac (near Albi) – Probably the closest wine area that people talk about frequently.  You can check out Albi’s cathedral or the Toulouse Lautrec museum on the same day as they’re in the same area as Gaillac.
• Cabardes (near Carcassonne) – The Languedoc-Roussillon appellation that is closest to Toulouse, Cabardes is just a few kilometers away from the Cité de Carcassonne, so that can be an interesting day trip or weekend.
• Cahors – This is the original home of Malbec, a grape varietal made popularized in Argentina.  Try to find a winery that makes real black wine, so dark you can add water and still not see through it.
• Madiran – A southwestern appellation that has gained notoriety more recently for it’s highly tannic wines generally dominated by the Tannat grape  variety.
• Cotes de Millau – I don’t know much about the wines, but it’s made right around where they make Roquefort cheese (and you can often visit those cheese caves).  So if you’re into salty blue cheeses this would be a pretty epic day trip.
• Armagnac –  Not strictly wine, but worth mentioning, as this spirit is distilled from wine.  Similar to cognac but aged differently.  Check it out if you like spirits.

These are generally ordered by a combination of how interesting I think they are and how far they are from Toulouse.  It’s not an exact science because some wine regions are very large and oddly shaped and so even though most of the region is farther away, some wineries in it may be closer.  To illustrate this point, the map here shows all the southwestern French wine designations, but Cabardes (which is technically Languedoc-Roussillon and not southwestern France) is not shown even though it is much closer than most of southwestern France.  Such is life!

Here is a more complete list of wine areas classified as Southwestern French wines which includes some regions that I don’t know as much about:

• Côtes du Frontonnais
• Vins de Lavilledieu
• Gaillac
• Cotes de Brulhois
• Cotes de Buzet
• Cotes du Marmandais
• Cahors
• Cotes de Saint-Mont
• Tursan
• Madiran / Pacherenc du Vic Bilh
• Bergerac
• Cotes du Duras
• Montravel
• Monbazillac
• Saussignac
• Pecharmant
• Rosette
• Marcillac
• Vins d’Entraygues et du Fel
• Vins d’Estaing
• Cotes de Millau
• Bearn
• Jurancon
• Irouléguy (Basque country)