Can you do a vineyard or wine tour in Morocco?

People are often surprised that Morocco makes wine at all, and then surprised again at how decent it is. The heart of it is around Meknes, where the altitude, limestone soils and warm days with cool nights suit vines well. I have spent unhurried afternoons at Château Roslane, the flagship of Les Celliers de Meknès — a proper French-style estate with a cellar, a tasting room and rows of Syrah, Cabernet and Grenache running toward the hills. Tasting there feels worlds away from the medina you left that morning.

My favourite pairing is the Domaine de la Zouina (Volubilia) estate, because it sits beside Volubilis, the best-preserved Roman ruins in Morocco. You can wander mosaic floors that once belonged to a wine-trading Roman town, then taste contemporary Moroccan wine made on the same soil a few kilometres away. That continuity — Romans pressing grapes here two thousand years ago — gives the visit a depth a simple tasting never could.

A word of context, because it matters: alcohol is legal and available in Morocco but consumed discreetly out of respect for the Muslim majority. Tastings happen on the estates and in licensed venues, not in the street, and during Ramadan availability tightens considerably. I arrange these visits with that cultural sensitivity built in, and the estates themselves are gracious, professional hosts.

For the wines themselves, the rosés (the famous gris de Boulaouane style) are crisp and food-friendly, and the better reds — Syrah and Cabernet blends — have real structure. I like to fold a Meknes wine afternoon into an Imperial Cities route, often with a long lunch among the vines. It is an unexpected, grown-up half-day that guests remember precisely because they never knew Morocco could offer it.