If you have a chance to join the Valais wine and vine museum’s Ascension Day hike this year, you should: Thursday 14 May from 9:30 to noon, rendezvous at the Fol’terres pavilion at the west end of Fully, two minutes from the Martigny-Fully autoroute exit.

The guided walk is in French but Anne-Do Zufferey, the museum’s director, will be joining the hike and she speaks English, so can help out if  your French vocabulary for wild plants and vineyards isn’t perfect.

The walk will take in the Follatères nature reserve, whose loess and silty soil give the renowned wines of Fully their particular character. A guide will show you the natural wealth that is part of the Fully terroir – the plants at this time of the year include wild orchids, poppies – the complex geology and the beautiful “mosaic vineyards” for which this wine village is famous.

The walk ends with an aperitif. Price CHF15. Reservations by e-mail: museeduvin@netplus.ch or telephone +41 27 456 3525.

I joined them last year for a walk in the magical old hamlet of Plan Cerisier, with an excellent guide and an interesting group of people: I can highly recommend this.

Limited number of places.

Note that this is the Valais open house weekend and the area around Fully-Martigny is a great starting point for three days of wine tasting.