'Whycation' is the new way to travel - and this NSW wine region gets it right

I'm in my hotel room, googling photos of partridges. Because the most highly regarded hue for a pinot noir rosé is the eye colour of a freshly killed partridge.

I learn this fascinating, albeit slightly gruesome fact on a four-day wine tour of the NSW region of Orange.

Our small group of wine aficionados is being escorted by wine writer Peter Bourne, aka The Wine Man, who's been writing and educating people about wine for 40 years. He's also an Orange local, so he's deeply familiar with both the region's wines and the people who make them.

The tour exemplifies a shift in priorities - from consuming to actively participating in travel, and positioning the destination as a backdrop to a passion rather than just a place to tick off. Now, rather than asking where they want to go, travellers are starting to ask themselves different questions: why do I want to go there? And what do I want to learn? The trend has been dubbed the "whycation" and, in response, tour companies such as Renaissance, which I'm travelling with, are offering immersive, expert-led experiences with a theme, in this instance, wine and food.

Beyond the expert guidance, my Orange trip also stacks up nicely on other fronts. About 250 kilometres west of Sydney, it's a compact region - most of the wineries are within a 25-kilometre radius of the city centre, meaning minimal travel times and, with a luxury coach to ferry us around, no-holds-barred tasting opportunities. As a delicious bonus, Orange has some excellent at-source produce and a well-renowned dining scene.

Our initial vinous get-together is at our boutique hotel in the centre of town, where Peter leads us in a pre-dinner sparkling wine tasting and backgrounder on the winemaking in Orange.

Compared to other Australian wine regions, its history is quite recent, with vines planted just 30 years ago. Vintner Philip Shaw, formerly of Rosemount Estate, is generally credited with bringing Orange to the public's attention, and the region was given GI (Geographical Indication) status, meaning the name "Orange" can only be used on wine made from grapes grown here, in 1997.

The region makes particularly good sparkling wines, Peter says, because the altitude (between 600 and 1100 metres above sea level) produces the much-needed high acidity.

The first sparkling is from ChaLou, made with the arneis grapes and aged for 10 months in barrel. We then try a Ross Hill Blanc de Blanc, made with chardonnay grapes and the methode traditionnelle, and an excellent 2014 Lofty Cuvee de Salis, fermented in wood, Peter tells us, for a more savoury character.

It's a short walk afterwards to dinner, at Summer Street Wine Room in Orange's main street, where we share plates of dips and bread, split grilled prawns and slow-cooked lamb, plus tastings of four more wines. Pours are glass-with-dinner rather than tasting-size, and a sense of bonhomie quickly develops.

While I share my fellow travellers' enthusiasm for wine, I'm more of an interested amateur, buying on an as-needed basis and rarely letting a bottle survive the week unopened, while they, it seems, have not only more restraint, but bigger budgets, and in some cases impressively large cellars. But there's definitely no one-upmanship here; everyone's come to learn and enjoy.

With about 60 wineries around Orange and about 40 cellar doors, it's impossible to visit them all, but the itinerary is broad enough to orient and deep enough to satisfy, with visits to three wineries per day and dinner-time tastings of the wines of those we don't get to.

Due to the climate and altitude, there's a lot of chardonnay and pinot noir, grapes that like the cold and the volcanic basalt soils, but we also get to try some superb rieslings, arneis, semillon, syrah and even a "tempinot" - a tempranillo and pinot noir blend.

A winery is also our designated daily lunch stop, and we enjoy leisurely meals at the award-winning and architecturally impressive Printhie, the gardens at Rowlee Wine and the cellar door at Seesaw Wines, with generous quantities of wine and free-flowing conversation with Peter and winemakers.

The writer was a guest of Renaissance Tours