By Ellen Wallace – The vines are great any time of year, but it’s hard to do better than autumn, when the vine leaves are turning the hillsides into golden mazes, fermentation is in the cool air and skies are blue. One of my own favourite areas is beyond the famous Lavaux terraced vineyards and the end of the lake, around Aigle, which is home to the Vaud wine museum, which gives you 2,000 years of winemaking history in an amazing old castle.

I just learned aobut a great way to walk there in October if you have visitors coming to Switzerland, or if you prefer to earn your glass of wine by hiking first. “A Different View” does a series of October (sign up ahead) brisolée and vineyards lunch tours that end up in Aigle. The company uses experienced guides for a variety of out of the ordinary day trips in the Lake Geneva region. I have UK relatives followed by old friends from the US and elsewhere coming just when my work will be at its September-October busiest, so I will point them in this direction – a familiar dilemma for many of us who started life in another corner of the world.