Led by Chef Marcus Guiliano across five countries and 350+ producer relationships built over two decades.
VIP Winery Vacations is built around access you cannot buy from a booking engine.
These journeys are personal, relationship-led, and hosted by people who know the producers behind every bottle. You are not passed from vendor to vendor. You are welcomed into the rooms, cellars, vineyards, distilleries, and tables where real hospitality happens.
The result feels less like a tour and more like being introduced by trusted friends.
VIP Winery Vacations was never designed for volume. Every departure is intentionally small — eight to twelve invited guests who share a table with the producers themselves.
This is the result of two decades spent building relationships, not itineraries. From Aroma Thyme Bistro in Ellenville, New York, to estate kitchens across five countries, Marcus and Jamie Guiliano have earned the kind of trust that opens doors no travel agency can access.
Every winery vacation package is personally shaped. No booking engines. No group tours repackaged under a luxury label. Just producer relationships that took years to build and a team that manages every detail from consultation to return.
Access is extended, not advertised.
These are not destinations selected from a catalog. Each region is chosen through direct relationships with producers, estates, chefs, and families.
We didn’t choose Italy from a map. We chose it from a dining table — at estates like G.D. Vajra and Vietti in Piedmont, where the families pour from barrels they’ll never sell to distributors. From Puglia to Sicily, our wine and food tours in Italy are built on years of direct relationships with the families who make what you drink.
Burgundy and Champagne are not destinations we rotate through. They are places we return to, year after year, because the domaines expect us back. Marcus has returned to these estates season after season, building the kind of trust that opens private dining rooms to small groups of eight. Vineyard-row conversations at generational domaines most visitors will never see.
Catalonia is emerging. Penedès and Priorat are producing wines that rival their French neighbors — at a fraction of the pretension. Our Catalonia Wine & Gastronomy Tour pairs these estates with Michelin-level dining curated by Chef Marcus. Spain rewards the curious. We built a departure for them.
Aroma Thyme Bistro, open since 2003, is the foundation. From boutique producers along the Finger Lakes to the estate vineyards of Santa Barbara and the farm-to-table corridor of the Hudson Valley, our luxury wine tours across the US carry the same insider access as our international departures. Marcus and Jamie Guiliano live here. The relationships are not seasonal — they are daily.
Marcus Guiliano’s authority in agave spirits is not borrowed. It was built across years of sourcing alongside producers like Siete Leguas, Fortaleza, and through a long-standing collaboration with Primo Imports and industry authority Tom Bracamontes. Every winery vacation package begins with a relationship, not a booking engine. Mexico is where that principle started.
Each destination is selected for the relationships behind it — not because it fits a standard tourism package.
Mezcal, tequila, and Valle de Guadalupe through trusted producer access.
Piedmont, Tuscany, Sicily, Apulia, Emilia-Romagna, and Veneto.
Catalonia through food, cellar visits, and regional character.
Burgundy, Rhône Valley, and Champagne with intimate context.
Cool-climate wines and regional hospitality close to home.
Chef Marcus Guiliano and Jamie Guiliano are restaurateurs, wine educators, and agave-industry authorities based in the Hudson Valley.
As founders of VIP Winery Vacations and owners of Aroma Thyme Bistro, they have spent more than two decades cultivating direct relationships with winemakers, estate owners, and agave producers across Europe, Mexico, and the United States.
These are not business contacts. They are trusted relationships.
Every winery vacation package is built around a simple promise: nothing between you and the experience.
Tastings, transfers, accommodation, meals, and gratuities. One price, nothing added later.
Eight to twelve guests per departure, designed for real conversation and comfortable access.
Marcus and Jamie are present on every journey, from first morning to final evening.
Market visits, artisan workshops, and regional experiences shaped by relationships.
Visits with winemakers, cellar masters, distillers, and families behind the label.
No scripts, no crowds, no staged mass-market itinerary pretending to be private.
Wine Tour Operator of the Year by the Global Prestige Awards, three consecutive years. Sustainability and hospitality honors from LUX Life, Corporate Vision, and additional international bodies. Trusted by producers in eight countries.
Short reflections from travelers who experienced the difference between standard wine tourism and producer-level access.
“I've been on very expensive wine trips that charge a lot of money, and this trip has just topped it at half the cost.”
“You would have to be a rock star or a celebrity to get a tour like this unless you go with Jamie and Marcus.”
“The benefits of traveling with Chef Marcus and Jamie, they know the owners of these wineries personally. When you come, they treat you like family. You come into their homes, you meet their moms.”
Taste the world the way winemakers show their friends.
This is the difference between being booked into a destination and being personally welcomed into it.
Every VIP Winery Vacations departure begins with a private consultation.
We learn how you prefer to travel, what regions interest you, and what level of immersion you seek. European cellars. Agave fields at their source. Producer homes no visitor has seen before.
Each winery vacation package is built from the conversation — never from a catalog. Planned personally. Managed by the same people who pour your wine at the estate.
Only once we understand your expectations do we extend an invitation to join an upcoming departure.
A Personal Invitation from Chef Marcus
