Ideas for a long weekend trip in europe

[obn_ben]

I started off planning a road trip taking in a few French villages, Alps passes and the Italian Lakes but having proposed the itinerary to my girlfriend she wasn't best pleased with spending that long in a car. It's safe to say I need to scale it back to two nights away somewhere nice that involves a good balance of good driving roads, not too much motorway action or time in the car, a decent hotel and something romantic/interesting to keep the good lady happy.

Champagne seems the obvious choice but seems a bit uninspiring? Is that unjustified? Drinking red wine or decent beer is somewhat more appealing to me.

I can cross using the Eurostar or south coast ferry crossings so fairly flexible on routes and plan to go April 2016.

Inspiration and suggestions welcome and appreciated...