Cruise life Ships Food and drink

Wine and travel: the perfect pairing

We catch up with Olly Smith while he’s on Arvia for a Food Heroes cruise to find out why nothing beats globe-trotting while exploring the world of wine

10 min 22 Aug 2025

Lucy Ryan

Head of Content

With Olly Smith In the Glasshouse on board P&OC Ariva photograph by Alun Callender

Olly, how do wine and travel pair perfectly?

They bring one another to life! Think of a cool wine destination like Madeira: the traditions of winemaking there are totally unique. They used to put casks of the stuff on ships and send them to hot places across the equator, and they would literally cook as they went, giving the wines this incredible complexity. These days they mimic that by making it in hot attics above the wineries, a technique you simply don’t see anywhere else in the world. So, when you’re in Madeira, you’re tasting wine that is absolutely of its place and that also has a wonderful maritime connection. Wherever you travel to, nothing beats the joy of sitting on a terrace (or deck), sipping local wine and looking out at exhilarating views or cityscapes. These are the moments that you cherish, that connect you to a place and time in your life.

When you return home, do wines tastes better having experienced them in destinations?

If you’ve been to a place and connected with it and seen how the wine is grown and tasted it there, it leaves an indelible mark. It’s almost like your best holiday memories come to life. Once you’re back at home, it’s the coolest thing to pour a glass from the fridge, relive those moments and enjoy them all over again.

What’s your favourite destination for a holiday with great wine and food?

Greece is such an invigorating place to visit. I love the climate at any time of the year, but especially spring or autumn. The food there is incredibly pure – it’s very modern and they use wonderful ingredients. The wine is my favourite because there are so many grapes we simply haven’t even heard of, but they all taste superb. I would say the white wines in particular are well worth exploring. They’re bright, they’re crisp, and a new generation of winemakers is bringing them to life.

Are there any exciting regions for you that aren’t ‘on the map’ yet?

In Europe, I would say Portugal. Great Britain and Portugal, we’re old friends, we have the oldest alliance in history. There’s such a variety of wines here and they feel really undiscovered to me. You’ve got good old-fashioned Vinho Verde, the wonderful port wines, great reds – they do every single style from sweet to dry and sparkling in between. The wine regions are really varied, too; it’s a whole hinterland of unique flavours to explore. And with the coast, the mountains and inland, there’s something for everyone.

Olly's top spots for wine lovers

Lisbon, Portugal

If you’re looking for somewhere off the beaten track, Bonjardim is a rough-and-ready, fun little restaurant that does excellent peri-peri chicken. Last time I was there they only served one wine, Mateus Rosé, which was very popular in the 1980s. It actually went really well with the spicy food!

Canary Islands, Spain

Visit the vineyards and taste all their wines. My one rule with the Canary Islands is whenever you’re there, if you’re eating out in a bar, ask to try the wine that’s most local to that place and you’ll be enthralled. Each island is different, but they have such a heritage and history with their volcanic soil.

Madeira, Portugal

Blandy’s in Madeira is a wonderful winery. The visitor centre is fantastic and just at the entrance there’s a restaurant called 1811 that has great food and a whole range of Madeiran and Portuguese wines. When you’ve finished you come out into a little square with a garden that always has butterflies, no matter what time of the year. It feels completely magical.

Nice, France

About a 20-minute taxi ride inland from Nice is one of the most famous restaurants in the world, La Colombe d’Or – The Golden Dove. I try to go once a year, but you need to book months ahead. It’s in this wonderful little courtyard. It’s the sort of place where you can imagine in the 1950s David Niven would have gone, it’s got that old kind of Hollywood charm about it. And inside there are paintings by very famous artists like Picasso and Chagall, who used to stay there and pay in art rather than settling their bills. I love the humble, local food, and the house rosé is cheap as chips – order it by the magnum, it’s scrumptious!

Santorini, Greece

The village of Pyrgos has a couple of nice restaurants and it’s right up on a hill so you get commanding views down over the countryside. But if you want to do a tasting, there’s a winery right by the beach called Gai’a that makes a lovely range of white wines, in particular Wild Ferment Assyrtiko. It’s a wine of enchantment; it almost makes me feel the power of the volcanic soil of Santorini. Imagine a giant lemon rammed into a volcano and then it just erupts into the galaxy – it has that kind of cosmic force!