Day 1

Caroline and I are picked up from our hotel in Bordeaux by our tour operator and driven 37 miles (60km) to the silent, sun-baked market square of Sauveterre de Guyenne. There, we meet the first of our guides. Sleek, black and topless, Bella will be with us for three days.

She and Grace are the stars of the trip: Grace is silver and topless - we are of course talking cars here - Bella is a Fiat Barchetta sports car - and both of them have GPS. In these few days I will become a satellite navigation convert. Setting the destination and without fretting over maps, we can drive at a relaxed pace, soaking up the countryside, driving down lanes which we would never touch otherwise.

But down them we go, and if we take a wrong turning, the system simply recalculates the route - the ideal way to discover a region that is filled with interest: fortified water mills here, old abbey ruins there, charming market towns everywhere. After refuelling ourselves at a small café, off we go to our accommodation: a large loft room in a fabulous old farmhouse run by the hospitable Dominique and Patrick.

Then off again, past an abbey or two to the wine resort of St Emilion (www.saint-emilion-tourisme.com), where we wander around the cobbled streets before finding the pleasant quiet restaurant Dominique recommended for dinner. Well satisfied, we set the GPS again and make our way gently home.

Day 2

Eight home-made jams, eight local honeys, home-grown figs, croissants, big bowls of good coffee ... ah the joys of a French B&B. Over breakfast we chat to Dominique about the day's plans. We are booked in for her cookery course, so first she packs us off to the busy market in Sauveterre, transformed from the quiet square of the previous day. We wander round admiring the produce and are given an illustrated lecture at the onion stall on how the strings of onions are made. We fill our baskets and on the way home use the satellite navigation to make a detour a couple of restored water mills.

The course is the most enjoyable hard labour. For four hours we slave over the stove as Dominique chivvies and instructs us. We start with the desserts: five of them, including one with three sauces. We then prepare a salmon fillet starter with a red wine sauce, and finally roast duck with an armagnac sauce and five vegetable accompaniments. It is a huge feast, and we sit down in triumph and exhaustion and try to eat it all, a tall order even with the help of the other guests.

Day 3

Today's treat is the wine spa attached to the Chemin de Smith Haut Lafitte vineyard (www.sources-caudalie.com) in the Medoc district. We spend the afternoon in the sauna or lounging by the pool drinking herbal tea periodically being called for one of our four wine-based treatments. The grape oil massage is pretty good, but the best is the wine and honey wrap. A nubile young French woman tells me to take off my clothes and lie on the bed in just the paper thong that she hands me. She leaves the room, and returns with a bowl of wine and honey. "Here, taste it," she says. I dip a finger in - it is delicious. Then she pours the contents over me and rubs it gently in.

Just when I think this might be paradise she wraps me in a heavy rubber sheet and leaves me to baste for 15 minutes. By the end of the afternoon we are so relaxed we are almost floating. We drift homewards as the sun sets. The GPS guides us through the familiar sounding town of Cadillac, and past the recommended L'entrée Jardin. It is supper time, and this calm, elegant restaurant, with its inventive and delicious food, is the perfect end to the day.

Day 4

After breakfast, John, our operator, comes with Grace, a 1969 Mercedes convertible. This was the big attraction when we first read about the holiday, and she is a truly lovely car. We are booked in for a tour of a small Bordeaux vineyard, Chateau Barreyre, so we set the GPS and off we go. We are greeted by the owner, Philippe. His face looks familiar, and then I discover why: we met ten years ago in Hungary. Unbelievable. If that is not surreal enough, when we sit down at trestle tables on the veranda to lunch and excellent wine with the vineyard workers, we are serenaded by one of them, a Georgian singer with a powerful voice and a traditional Georgian guitar.

Having eaten our fill and toured the winery, we drive back via the ruined abbey at Sauve-Majeure, with its magnificent 13th-century carved capitals, and the astonishing oyster wall St Croix du Mont: a 25 million year old bank of fossilised oysters stranded at the top of the Garonne valley. The final delight today is dinner in one of St Emilion's top restaurants, the Michelin-starred Hostellerie de Plaisance (www.hostellerie-plaisance.com). John and Sian come and chauffeur us home - they know how to give guests a good time - so we can indulge in the sommelier's recommendations.

Day 5

Our last day, and we take it gently. After another hearty breakfast, we bid farewell to Dominique and Patrick and direct Grace towards the Sauternes district across the Garonne river, where the Maison du Vin gives excellent guidance on the subtle variations of this wine. We taste a few and then buy a few more. We saunter back via a magnificent chocolate shop selling chocolate-coated raisins soaked in Sauternes wine - we buy a packet as emergency supplies. We are due to meet the operator at 5pm, who reclaims Grace, then chauffeurs us back to Bordeaux. The next day, waiting for our flight home, we sit nibbling the raisins and dream nostalgically of Grace and Bella.

Need to know

A five-day trip, as described above, costs £1,080pp, excluding flights. A three-day trip, driving a Fiat Barchetta convertible, costs £500. Gourmet Touring is run by John and Sian Mears, www.gourmet-touring.com