River cruising isn’t all about the food and wine. But on my recent sailing with Riverside Luxury Cruises, they became a pretty compelling part of the experience.

I already knew Riverside’s wines were excellent from the other times I’ve been invited to sail with them. The house Champagne is Taittinger, the included wines are thoughtfully chosen and you never feel like you’re settling for “cruise wine.” That’s true on every Riverside voyage. But on this sailing, I learned more about wine than I ever thought I cared to. 

It started with a fellow guest who happened to be passionate about wine. Instead of ordering from the included list, he’d explore Riverside’s Connoisseur Collection each evening, a premium wine list featuring rare and highly regarded bottles, introducing us to wines I would have never thought to try on my own. Suddenly I was taking notes on vintages, producers and terroir. For a minute, it actually sounded like I knew what I was talking about.

One evening, Hotel Manager Max described a wine as having notes of gunpowder.

Gunpowder?

“I didn’t realize they took you to the shooting range at sommelier school,” my friend joked.

Max laughed.

“No,” he said. “Think of fireworks.”

Boom. It clicked.

There were a lot of little “a-ha” moments like that throughout the week, and many of those came from conversations around the table.

I found myself asking Hotel Manager Max and Riverside’s sommeliers, Aleksandra and Bojan, all kinds of questions. What did certain winemaking terms actually mean? Why did it matter if the soil was porous? Why did one Riesling taste completely different from another?

They never made wine feel intimidating. They were happy to explain what made each bottle unique, suggest pairings and answer every random question we threw at them.

Before long, I was smelling unripe lime in some of the rieslings, roses in some of the reds and even beeswax in one of the whites (though everyone laughed when I insisted it smelled more like ChapStick).

Bojan especially shined during Riverside’s Vintage Room dinner, where he guided us through a multi-course tasting menu and explained why each wine worked with the food and what made every bottle special. I showed the wine list to a sommelier friend afterward, and she was wowed. The lineup took us from Champagne to Alto Adige, Tokaj, Franken, Napa Valley and finally Austria’s Burgenland, with wines from producers like Kellerei Terlan, Oremus by Vega Sicilia, Rudolf Fürst, Robert Mondavi and Kracher. If those names mean something to you, you’ll probably appreciate the lineup even more than I did. I was just happy to be invited.

Listen up, wine nerds, this part’s for you. Over the course of the week, we opened bottles like Tement’s Zieregg Sauvignon Blanc, Dönnhoff’s Felsenberg GG Riesling, Poggio Antico Brunello di Montalcino and even Sassicaia. Some of those bottles had been opened almost two days earlier so they’d have plenty of time to open up before we drank them. That’s commitment. 

Plenty of cruise lines serve good wine. Fewer create an environment, or have the resources, where you’re encouraged to ask questions, try something unfamiliar and leave dinner knowing a little more than you did when you sat down.

That, to me, is what Riverside gets right. If you simply want a nice glass of wine with dinner, they deliver. But if you’re the type of traveler who enjoys asking questions, trying something you’ve never heard of or lingering over one more bottle after dessert, I think you’ll appreciate what Riverside has built. I certainly did. 

If you’re looking for a river cruise for wine lovers, Riverside is one I’d happily recommend.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find a bottle of 2022 Schloss Gobelsburg Grüner Veltliner.