Drink Driving Limits at Wine Tastings, Country by Country

Zero is the safest number. Spain's traffic authority puts it in one line: the only truly safe rate is 0.0 g/L (DGT). The same page says a blood alcohol level of 0.5 g/L doubles the risk of a collision and 0.8 g/L makes it five times higher. The general limit in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal is exactly that first figure. It marks where the law starts, not where driving becomes safe.

This page lists the limit for the countries we cover. A row carries a number only where we read it on an official text on 2026-09-30. Where we did not, the row says so and names the authority. It is general information, not legal advice, and it is not a guide to how much you can drink: we give no such figure and we do not calculate blood alcohol.

Units differ, so each cell carries its own. Read the row for the country or state where you will drive, then the lower-limits column: a driver with a recent licence, a professional driver or a cyclist is often held to a stricter figure than the general one.

Not legal advice. Limits change, and this table is a snapshot of 2026-09-30. Check the official source for the place where you will drive and for the category of licence you hold.

For Greece, New Zealand and the Australian states we did not open, go to the police or road authority of that country or state. We could not open an official page that states the limit, so we give no number for them. The links for every other row are in the list at the bottom of the page.

Italy keeps the general rule and the zero rule in two articles of the Highway Code. Article 186 starts its penalties above 0.5 g/L (Normattiva). Article 186-bis forbids any alcohol for drivers under 21, for anyone in the first three years of a category B licence, for drivers who carry people or goods for a living, and for drivers of vehicles over 3.5 tonnes and buses; a reading above zero and up to 0.5 g/L is punished with an administrative sanction (Normattiva). We found nothing in the text on how this applies to a visitor with a foreign licence. If you are under 21 or recently licensed, treat zero as your limit. The same code provides for an alcolock restriction on the licence of anyone convicted of the offenses above 0.8 g/L.

France writes the lower limit around the licence, not the car. A driver with a probationary permit, and someone training in accompanied driving, is held to 0.2 g/L, which the government service-public.gouv.fr converts to 0.10 mg per liter of exhaled air (service-public.gouv.fr). The same page says a driver whose licence is tied to an anti-start ethylotest device must drive with it.

Spain is the one country where we confirmed on the legal text that the limit covers bicycles. Article 20 of the traffic regulations applies the 0.5 g/L figure to drivers and to cyclists alike (BOE). On a bike day between cellars that matters. The same article sets 0.3 g/L for anyone in the first two years after getting a licence, and for drivers of goods vehicles over 3,500 kg, passenger vehicles with more than nine seats, public service vehicles, school and minors transport, dangerous goods and emergency service. A tour minibus driver sits in the stricter group.

Portugal's road safety authority lists the lower band, 0.2 g/L up to under 0.5, as an infraction for probationary drivers, emergency vehicles, buses carrying children up to 16, taxis, heavy passenger or goods vehicles and dangerous goods (ANSR). Georgia puts the rule in its Administrative Offences Code. Article 116 defines intoxication as more than 0.3 per mille of ethanol in the blood; between that and 0.7 the penalty is a six-month suspension of the driving licence, and above 0.7, or refusing the test, it is one year (Legislative Herald of Georgia). The first paragraphs of that article write the bands with a percent sign while paragraph 10 uses per mille, so read the original if you need the exact figure.

South Africa sets 0.05 g per 100 mL of blood, or 0.24 mg per 1,000 mL of breath, with 0.02 and 0.10 for professional drivers, in section 65 of the National Road Traffic Act (Government Gazette text). The section also bans sitting in the driver's seat with the engine running while over the limit, so the parked car is not a refuge. We read the text as gazetted on 22 November 1996. A Department of Transport statement from 2006 gives the same limits (gov.za), but we did not check later amendments.

Argentina has one national rule. Ley 27.714 rewrote the alcohol paragraph of article 48 of the national traffic law so that driving with an alcohol level above zero mg/L of blood is prohibited; Congress passed it on April 13, 2023 and the Boletin Oficial published it on May 3 (Boletin Oficial). The transport ministry reports a Senate vote of 48 to 9 (argentina.gob.ar). We did not check whether any province applies a rule of its own.

Chile is the trap in the names. The law is nicknamed Tolerancia Cero, but it is not a zero limit: CONASET says the law in force since March 2012 set "estado de ebriedad" at 0.8 g/L of blood and "bajo la influencia del alcohol" at 0.3 g/L (CONASET). Do not read 0.3 as permission.

The United States has no single figure. California writes 0.08 percent by weight into Vehicle Code 23152 (California Legislature), and Washington writes 0.08 or higher, measured within two hours after driving, into RCW 46.61.502 (Washington Legislature). Utah is the exception: its code sets .05 grams (Utah Code), and the state highway safety office says the law took effect on December 30, 2018, making Utah the first state to lower the limit from 0.08 (Utah Highway Safety Office). We opened these three and no others. If your route crosses a state line, the number can change at the sign.

Canada layers two systems. The federal Criminal Code offense starts at 80 mg of alcohol in 100 mL of blood within two hours after you stop driving (Justice Laws Website). The provinces add lower bands and administrative penalties. Ontario has a warn range of 0.05 to 0.079 and zero alcohol for young, novice and some commercial drivers (ontario.ca). In British Columbia a warn reading of 0.05 or more can bring a driving prohibition, three days for a first time (RoadSafetyBC). Niagara-on-the-Lake is in Ontario and the Okanagan is in British Columbia, so those two rows cover the two Canadian destinations we list.

Australia also sets limits by state. New South Wales has three: zero, under 0.02 and under 0.05, depending on licence and vehicle, and visitors who hold an overseas or interstate learner, provisional or equivalent licence are in the zero group (Transport for NSW). The Hunter Valley is in New South Wales. The Barossa, Yarra Valley and Margaret River are in South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia, where we could not open an official page that states the limit, so the table has no number for them.

None of the limits in the table is defined by what you were poured. Each is a measurement of alcohol in blood or breath. The DGT notes that the level a person reaches can vary a lot and lists the amount drunk, the speed of drinking, the type of drink and a full or empty stomach among the reasons, then says the best course is never to drive after drinking any amount (DGT). Transport for New South Wales is blunter: trying to calculate your blood alcohol is impossible, and counting standard drinks to guess it is difficult and often inaccurate (Transport for NSW).

Decide who is not drinking before the first cellar. For that person the working limit is zero, whatever the table says, and it stays zero at the last stop too.

For the hour-by-hour version of a tasting day, including when to spit, read how many wineries you can visit in a day.

On 2026-09-30 we downloaded each page or legal text below and read the figures in the raw text, not in a summary. A figure went into the table only if we found it there, and each limit is written as the source writes it: where one text says "more than" and another says "or more", the table keeps the difference. Two pages blocked direct access and were read on Internet Archive copies: Transport for NSW (a copy from March 2025) and the Utah Highway Safety Office. The Utah Code page builds its text with a script, so we read the version it links, in force from 1 July 2024. Rows marked not confirmed are pages we could not open today (the Hellenic Police and the NZ Transport Agency sites returned access errors) or states we did not look up. We give no fines and no blood alcohol calculations. We did not use the WHO Global Health Observatory as a cross-check.

• Normattiva: Italian Highway Code, art. 186
• Normattiva: Italian Highway Code, art. 186-bis
• service-public.gouv.fr: alcohol at the wheel
• BOE: Spanish traffic regulations, art. 20
• DGT: alcohol and driving
• ANSR: infractions under the Portuguese road code
• Legislative Herald of Georgia: Administrative Offences Code
• California Legislature: Vehicle Code 23152
• Washington Legislature: RCW 46.61.502
• Utah Legislature: Utah Code 41-6a-502
• Utah Highway Safety Office: 0.05 BAC law
• Justice Laws Website: Criminal Code s. 320.14
• Ontario: impaired driving
• RoadSafetyBC: alcohol prohibitions
• Boletin Oficial: Ley 27.714
• argentina.gob.ar: alcohol cero al volante
• CONASET: Ley Tolerancia Cero
• South Africa: National Road Traffic Act 93 of 1996
• gov.za: Transport on drink driving, 2006
• Transport for NSW: alcohol

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