Wine day trips from Rome without a car

A private driver from your hotel

Four tours on this site collect you at your hotel, take you to an estate in the Castelli Romani and bring you back in 3 hours. Prices are per person when two travel, so check the figure for your own group size. None of the four includes lunch; you taste the wines with bread, olive oil and local snacks.

• The private driver tour featured above: about 45 minutes each way and a 1.5-hour visit, from $156, 4.8 from 65 reviews.
• The Countryside Wine Tasting with Local Family & Food Pairing: about 20 minutes by car to a historic Frascati estate with underground cellars, two hours there, from $139 and 4.8 from 208 reviews.
• The Private Castelli Romani Wine Tasting Tour: 45 minutes each way and a 90-minute tasting after a walk through underground cellars, from $155 and 4.8 from 93 reviews. Guests must be 17 or older.
• The Rome: Private Castelli Romani Wine Tasting Tour: the Antico Casale estate, three wines with Roman pizza or olive oil, from $175 and 4.6 from 48 reviews.

A driver means nobody in your party drives after the tasting, and Italian law sets zero alcohol for professional drivers. What you give up is time at the estate: the low-rated reviews of these tours often mention a short visit for the price, sometimes a quick look at the vines and then the tasting room. If a long lunch and a vineyard walk matter more to you than door-to-door service, the train tours give you both for less. Our half-day wine tours page compares the two kinds side by side.

The coach from Piazza del Popolo

For Montepulciano, Pienza, Montalcino or Orvieto in a day without driving, you take a coach. Four of the five coach tours meet on Piazza del Popolo, near Flaminio station on metro Line A, and the fifth meets a short walk away on Piazzale Flaminio. Expect an early morning start; the exact time is on your voucher. On the most-reviewed tour the coach takes about 2.75 hours each way, so you spend roughly five and a half hours on the road.

• The Rome: Tuscany & Montepulciano Day Trip with Lunch & Wines: Montepulciano with a guide, a 1.5-hour lunch and tasting that includes Brunello di Montalcino, then an hour in Pienza. From $131, 11 to 12 hours, 4.7 from 3,480 reviews, the most reviewed tour on this site. Its private option adds hotel pickup.
• The From Rome: Tuscany, Montepulciano Tour with Wine & Lunch and From Roma: Montepulciano and Montalcino, on the Wine Routes: Montepulciano with a tasting and lunch, then Montalcino, from $121 each, about 12 hours. Both are guided in English and Spanish.
• The Rome: Tuscany Day Trip with Vineyard Lunch and Wine Tasting: sold as a Tuscany trip, but the option priced here pairs Pienza with Civita di Bagnoregio, which is in Lazio, and a winery lunch near Montepulciano. From $101, 11 hours, 4.7 from 174 reviews.
• The From Rome: Bagnoregio & Orvieto Day Trip with Wines & Lunch: the “3 Regions” day, with Civita di Bagnoregio, a lunch with five wines near Montepulciano and two hours in Orvieto. From $122, 12 hours, 4.7 from 1,539 reviews.

If you searched for a Tuscany day trip from Rome by train, note that none of the Tuscany wine tours on this site starts from a station; all of them leave by coach. For a wine day you reach by train and plan yourself, Orvieto is the option below. Our Tuscany wine tours page compares the coach days in detail, and our breakdown of the Montepulciano day follows it stop by stop.

By train to Orvieto, with a winery near town

Orvieto, in Umbria, is the wine town on this site with a direct train from Termini and a winery tour that picks you up in town. A regional ticket from Termini costs €10.10. The fastest direct trains take about 1 hour 15 minutes, but many services need a change and take 1.5 to 2 hours, so pick your train before you book anything else. From Orvieto station a funicular climbs to the old town every 10 minutes on weekdays (07:30 to 20:30) and every 15 minutes on holidays (08:00 to 20:30). Its €1.30 fare is added to the train fare when you buy the combined Orvieto Link ticket, and you collect a magnetic pass at the station ticket office.

The Orvieto: Wine Tour, 5 Minutes from the Historic Center picks you up in Orvieto and drives about 10 minutes to the Cantine Neri estate. You get a 30-minute guided visit that includes Etruscan caves, then 80 minutes tasting three wines with local products, in a group of no more than 7. It costs from $111 and holds 5.0 from 39 reviews, a small count but with no low-rated reviews. The Etruscans dug caves like these in the volcanic tuff as early wine cellars, and the Orvieto DOC white is made mainly from Procanico (Trebbiano Toscano) and Grechetto. Add the train and funicular and the day costs about €22.80 per person in transport on top of the tour. Our breakdown of the Orvieto winery tour has the full listing.

A private driver to Tuscany

If you want Tuscany at your own pace, the Private: Tuscany from Rome, Wine, Pienza & Val d’Orcia Views sends a driver to your hotel for a day of about 10 hours: Montepulciano with a wine tasting and part of its underground city, then Pienza and photo stops in the Val d’Orcia. It costs from $432 per person when two travel and holds 4.8 from 39 reviews. Lunch is not included. Montepulciano is about 177 km from Termini, roughly 2 hours 15 minutes each way without traffic. A few low-rated reviews describe a driver with little English and no vineyard stop, so confirm the language and the winery when you book.

Which way suits your day

• Lowest cost: the Frascati farmhouse tasting at $83 plus €4.20 return on the train.
• Least effort in half a day: the private driver tour featured above, or the countryside tasting from $139.
• Tuscan hill towns with lunch: the Montepulciano and Pienza coach day from $131, or the Pienza and Civita option from $101.
• A day you plan yourself: the train to Orvieto and the Cantine Neri visit.

Choose Frascati if you want a long lunch and the afternoon back in Rome, and the coach if seeing Montepulciano or Pienza matters more to you than 5.5 hours on the road.

Before you go

• Validate a paper train ticket before you board.
• On Sundays, plan around trains to Frascati about every two hours; on Saturdays, check whether your tour starts at Tor Vergata.
• For the coaches, take metro Line A to Flaminio and arrive early; check your voucher for the time and the drop-off point, which on some tours is Viale Giorgio Washington or the Flaminio obelisk.
• If you do rent a car, Rome’s historic centre has a daytime limited-traffic zone (ZTL) from 06:30 to 18:00 on weekdays, and Italy’s general limit is 0.5 g/l of alcohol in the blood, zero for drivers in their first three years.
• Every tour named here has free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

Sleeping near Piazza del Popolo makes the coach mornings easier, and a room near Termini suits the Frascati trains; our where to stay guide has the areas and hotels. To see every tour in one table, read the best wine tours from Rome guide.