WHEN ROD HOOPER

rented a villa in the south of France with friends last summer, he thought it would be a neat idea to check out the vineyards in the nearby Ch teauneuf-du-Pape region. And he figured it would be pretty easy. Living near Napa, Hooper, an air traffic controller, figured all you had to do was grab a map and drop in on a friendly vineyard.

Turns out Hooper was in for his own com die fran aise one that included an afternoon of aimless driving, shuttered vineyards and a locked gate. The region has its own wine map, but Hooper soon found out it wasn't detailed enough. Worse, the wineries themselves were unmarked, so he had to guess which places were wineries and which were private residences. In the end, he stumbled upon one vineyard but was met with a locked gate in the middle of the day. Where did Hooper end up tasting the region's wines? At a local store in town. "They asked me why I had even bothered with the vineyards," he says.

Much like shopping, visiting wineries has become a growing part of world travel. But if you're thinking of going beyond Napa and sipping and spitting your way through your next overseas vacation, here's a tip: You might want to do a little planning. To the surprise of many Americans, wineries in Europe, South America and elsewhere are playing catch-up in the wine tourism game if they're playing at all. While many areas of France do have inviting wineries, regions as famous as Bordeaux, for example, do almost nothing to promote their wineries or welcome visitors. In Italy and parts of Spain as well, some wineries are even closed to tourists altogether. And finding good web sites on wineries is almost as hard as trying to ship bottles back to the States, which many tourists discover is a bureaucratic headache.

And yet, it's not all bad. Curiously, you can actually find some pretty decent quaffing in countries where you'd least expect it. Chile, for example, has its own special wine train to shuttle visitors through its Colchagua Valley wine region. Many of New Zealand's vineyards have restaurants; some host outdoor concerts and farmer's markets. But try to get a winemaker to show up at a tasting in Italy's Piedmont region and you may be out of luck. "Don't expect a Napa Valley in every port," says Mark Oldman, wine educator and author of Oldman's Guide to Outsmarting Wine.

Guidebooks, naturally, provide some help. But most dedicate little space to wineries (for all of Italy, Fodor's devotes just three out of 900-plus pages to vineyard visits). In today's global vineyard-hopping world, you need more information: which countries are most friendly to oenophiles, and how to navigate through the ones that aren't. There are plenty of companies that will arrange package tours to make the process smoother (see chart, but much of the charm lies in going your own route. Below, a survey of five countries to taste your way through, and the pros and cons of each.

France/Italy
Number of wineries: 5,000 each
Best region: Champagne (France), Tuscany (Italy)

These two countries are the first places you'd expect to find fabulous wineries. And they are there but only for producing the stuff. In Italy, government officials say wine tourism is still too new and that many of its famous vineyards are run by families that speak only Italian. Up until recently, you couldn't even visit the vineyards unless you were involved in the wine business, and even then it was luck of the draw. "They'd say, 'Get out of here, I'm eating dinner,'" says Sergio Esposito, co-owner of New York's Italian Wine Merchants. Meanwhile, the French government heavily promotes its wine internationally, but not its wineries; many vineyards don't post hours and, as Hooper found, may not be open to the public at all. In Bordeaux, visitors to the region's wine museum this fall will be in for a special surprise: It's closed.

But don't scratch France and Italy off your wine-touring list just yet. If you can get into the wineries in the difficult regions, there's a lot of charm to be found in these centuries-old cellars. Many don't even have formal tasting rooms; instead, the vintner may throw a plank of wood over some old wine casks. To be sure, some regions in both countries are more tourist-friendly than others: Many of the bigger vineyards in France's Champagne region, for example, like Mo t & Chandon and Mumm, offer tours in English. While lacking any official tourism infrastructure, Italy's Tuscany region has some 3,000 wineries, and the area is full of villas to rent. Thanks to recent government subsidies designed to help attract wine tourism, many vineyards themselves now offer overnight accommodations too.

In these countries, Karen MacNeil, author of "The Wine Bible," suggests calling the wineries you want to visit, no matter the size, a few months in advance and confirming a few times before you go. "You have to be very vigilant," she says. On her last trip to Burgundy, she triple-confirmed her visits. Same goes for Italy: On the whole, vineyards there are friendlier than in France, but the Italian sensibility of la dolce vita persists, and it's not uncommon for winemakers to forget to show up for tastings.

South Africa
Number of wineries: 400
Best region: Stellenbosch

Compared with France and Italy, South Africa all but rolls out a red carpet and does a tap dance for wine tourists. True, South Africa may not be the first place that jumps to mind when you think about wine, but the country has 400 wineries and a 300-year history of winemaking. More important, over the past 10 years, there's been an aggressive push to turn its vineyards known as "wine farms" into tourist destinations.

The country's best-known area is Stellenbosch, a fertile region a 40-minute drive from Cape Town that's seen an explosion in wine tourism: Five years ago there were roughly 40 wineries on its wine trail; now there are 120. And unlike many other wine-growing regions of the world, it isn't known for one type of wine. Vineyards here produce the full gamut of wines, ranging from cabernet, shiraz and merlot to chardonnay.

Fans say South Africa could write the book on pleasing both veteran and newbie oenophiles. To start, there's a "wine desk," a fully manned information booth, smack in the middle of Cape Town's touristy waterfront. Partially funded by the vineyards themselves, the desk books tastings, as well as restaurant and hotel reservations; assists with shipping wine home; and offers a jump-on, jump-off bus that makes a continuous loop to five different wineries. Maps? The desk hands them out by the dozen, fully marked with color-coded subroutes.

As for the wineries themselves, most are open six days a week, and in addition to tasting rooms, many have full-scale restaurants. The Boschendal Estate near the region's Franschhoek Valley has three separate dining options: a newly renovated restaurant, an outdoor cafe for lighter meals and a to-go operation that sells picnic lunches. Nearby, the Spier winery has added a hotel, golf course, conference center and three restaurants. Looking for one more advantage to traveling all that way (after all, South Africa is a 16-hour flight from the U.S.)? Even with recent shifts in value, the dollar still goes far against the South African rand.

Chile

Number of wineries:

400

Best region:

Colchagua Valley

For five days last December, Karl Marchionna sipped wine in brand-new wineries complete with spacious, modern tasting rooms; high-tech equipment; and a friendly, knowledgeable staff. No, Marchionna wasn't home in California, but almost 6,000 miles away in Chile. "I knew the wineries there were up-and-coming, but I didn't know they were this good," the electrical engineer says.

Up until recently, tourists could visit only a few very large and well-known vineyards in Chile, such as Concha y Toro and San Pedro. But in the past five years, there has been a big push to open up the smaller wineries, which have been adding tasting rooms and hiring staff for tours. In many ways Chile now has the feel of California 20 years ago, and that's no coincidence: Many major wine companies, including Kendall-Jackson and Baron Philippe de Rothschild, have invested heavily in Chile's wineries over the past few years, making wine there under their own names or joint-venture names, much the way French vineyards like Mo t & Chandon or Baron Philippe de Rothschild have bought or taken stakes in California wineries.

As a result, there have been vast improvements in the tourism infrastructure, most notably in the Colchagua Valley, 70 miles south of Santiago. Major upgrades to the highway have shaved an hour off the trip, and there are now roughly 130 hotel rooms, some three dozen wineries and several restaurants in the area. There's even a "wine train," an old-fashioned steam locomotive that shepherds tourists from vineyard to vineyard with entertainment including a ballet troupe and folk singers.

The downside? Chile is taking another page out of California's playbook on prices. Many wineries are now charging for all the fanfare, with tasting fees of up to $25 per person. Some will waive the fee if you call ahead and introduce yourself and it never hurts to mention that you plan to buy a case of wine.

New Zealand
Number of wineries: 500
Best region: Marlborough

New Zealand has been making wine seriously for only about 25 years, but it's come a long way in that time. A 240-mile wine trail connects the three major winemaking areas of the country Hawke's Bay, Marlborough and Wairarapa.

Because of a shortage of workers, New Zealand wineries are some of the most high-tech in the world, allowing relatively few people to run a winery. And much like South Africans, the Kiwis are sophisticated when it comes to wine marketing. At most vineyards, visitors can just drop in on the staffed tasting rooms. Some, like Mission Estate Winery, offer outdoor concerts; Black Barn Vineyards, a small winery in the Hawke's Bay region known for red varietals, has an outdoor amphitheater, hosts a farmer's market on Saturday mornings during the summer and has its own art gallery.

Obviously, it's a long trip, but since New Zealand is below the equator, the harvest period begins in the middle of our winter. That means visitors going in the fall will miss the harvest, but they'll have the New Zealand wineries all to themselves.