Wine Tasting in the South of France, by Carol Drinkwater

I am frequently asked about good wineries to visit as a day trip from our Olive Farm in the south of France. The fact is there are dozens to suggest. So I thought it would be fun this month during these very hots days - in French we call such a heatwave la canicule - to offer a few snippets about our local wine history as well as making one or two suggestions of fabulous chateaux or more modest vineyards. Havens, where you can sit in the shade and sip a chilled glass or two of local wine.

From Banyuls,  close to the Spanish border, to Bellet above the coastal city of Nice, wines are produced. The South of France is a rich wine area with many varieties growing in the vineyards. Although all colours are being produced, the Midi is most renowned for its rosés. The hot climate marries well with a chilled lighter variety. This is a land of hilltop towns and sleepy villages where the most exciting event of the week is market day and where the playing of boules or pétanque in the village squares, shaded by plane trees, is still the most popular pastime.

The south was its own country. Links with Paris were almost non-existent. Southerners, with their own rich cultural identity, communicated and conversed in their own language, the langue d'oc, until 1539 when the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterets made French, the langue d'oil, the administrative language of France. By 1789,  the time of the French Revolution, these richly-poetic southern tongues had been outlawed. Provençal is a dialect of Occitan and was spoken in the eastern half of southern France. These are romance languages, once the language of the troubadours.

The great port city of Marseille, originally Marsilia then Massalia was founded by Greeks from Asia Minor sometime around 600 BC. These intrepid sailors were Phoceans from Phocaea, known now as Foça in Modern Turkey. That entire western coast of Asia Minor, today Turkey, was inhabited by Greeks until the population exchange of 1922/1923 that followed the Greco-Turkish War of 1919 to 1922.

Within striking distance of Marseille, you will find:
The Calanques National Park is on Marseille's doorstep.

This is where my latest novel, THE HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF, is set. A very moody shot taken on a wet and windy spring day.

Turning north, follow the D9 towards Aix-en-Provence, then direction to Puy-Sainte-Reparade and you will find Chateau la Coste.

This vineyard estate, also a hotel and art gallery, is a unique experience. The 600-hectare property is owned by Paddy McKillan an Irishman from Belfast. The chateau, more a country house, where his family resides, dates from the 17th century. The views while walking in the vineyards are memorable. Timeless. There are works of art scattered all about the place.

Until recently, southern French wines have been rather looked down upon even by the French. That is changing rapidly. The rosé wines from this area, though few are grand crus, are possibly the best in the world and perfectly adapt to the long hot days of our southern summers. 

Paddy McKillan of Chateau La Coste aspires to produce the best rosé in the world.

The Bandol area, west of Marseille, has an abundance of vineyards to visit. The coastal strip is very well-known for it rosés. Bandol itself has become a rather touristy resort town but take a short drive inland and you will find peace and quiet and time to reflect within the dozens of vineyards, most are ready to welcome you.

We usually buy a couple of cases for summer at Moulin de la Roque Bandol. Outside Bandol near Le Castellet. The winery was founded in 1950 in an old wheat mill. It boasts 305 hectares of land and straddles eight communes.

The Phoenicians visited our coast of southern France around the same time as the ancient Greeks, possibly even a little earlier. Both the Greeks and the Phoenicians were experts in agriculture. Wine and olive oil were two of their most valued commodities. The Phoenicians, who came from city-states in what today is Lebanon, Syria and parts of the coast of modern-day Israel, were not conquerors but traders. Traders, par excellence. They were on the look-out for tin and precious metals. They founded or visited ports, entrepôts, emporia, all around the Mediterranean bringing with them olive oil, wine, peacock feathers along with a wide range of exotic goods including marijuana seeds. They also transported aboard their ships, plants and agricultural utensils. They taught the local peoples they encountered how to farm and cultivate the products they were trading (not marijuana as far as I know!). Palestine, a neighbouring terrain to the Phoenicians in the Middle East, was renowned for its wines.

It was the Syrians who first put wine into glass containers and the Gauls who invented the use of the barrel.

There is some evidence to suggest that the Celts were cultivating grape vines here - vitis vinifera, which is the most common of all grape plants - even before the Phoenicians or Greeks arrived. It is a plant native to the Mediterranean. Cultivars of vitis vinifera are the basis of almost all the wines produced worldwide so this small plant, this liana, has certainly travelled and impacted on cultures everywhere and has been around for millennia, rather like the olive tree.

It is not Bordeaux or Burgundy but Provence that is the oldest wine-growing region in France. The Phoenicians transported wine to trade, possibly also vines for planting, but it was the Greeks who established the vineyards. This means that wine production in southern France dates back 2,600 years.

Archaeological remains found in this region indicate that the terraces were handcrafted as early as the 6th century B.C. Irrigation was achieved by the construction of the famous drystone walls. It is possible that the Greeks or even Phoenicians brought this skill to the local people.

After the Greeks came the Romans who, while empire-expanding, spread the knowledge of viticulture throughout France giving birth to France's most famous wine regions: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Alsace, Champagne amongst others.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, France's agricultural prowess went into decline. Charles 1, Charlemagne, crowned Emperor of the Romans by Leo III on Christmas Day in the year 800, brought unity to Europe and power to the Catholic Church. The church was involved in the development of viticulture.  Wine was an important part of monastic life. There are many Benedictine and Cistercian abbeys that in their day offered rooms to travellers, spiritual repose and were centres of learning. Hospitality, of course, included food and wine.

Right on our doorstep, a half an hour journey by boat from the old port of Cannes, lies the island of Saint-Honorat. This pretty little island is home to a community of Cistercian monks who grow their own food, keep bees and produce their own wine from eight hectares of vineyard. They have been producing fine wines and liqueurs since the Middle Ages.

(A little fact about Saint-Honorat Island that always pleases my Irish soul is that Saint Patrick studied here during the 6th century).

The vineyards of Bellet nestle quietly up in the hills behind the port-city of Nice which became a part of France in 1860 when it was ceded from Italy. Nice is the only city in France - aside from one small vineyard in Montmartre in the heart of Paris - to claim vineyards within its city boundaries. This area was once an important viticultural department. This is no longer the case. Still, the Bellet wines are well regarded and sell for a good price. I recommend a visit to the vineyards of the Château du Bellet with its rather lovely private chapel.

                             The interior of the private chapel, once part of the family estate of the Château du Bellet, Nice. The chapel has been deconsecrated and converted into the wine-tasting area.

The Château de Bellet is approximately twelve kilometres inland, high above Nice. The vineyards are no longer owned by the de Charnacé family, the ancestors of the Barons of Bellet. The present owner, Ghislaine de Charnacé, grandson of the last Bellet Baron, inherited the estate from his mother Rose de Bellet, whose family gave its name to the local wine. In 2012, the family sold off the vineyards and chapel but not the ancestral home with its round towers and ochre and red façades. The vineyards are now in the hands of a conglomerate, 'La Française Real Estate Managers' - a rather unattractive moniker that conjures up none of the romanticism and history of 'Barons of Bellet'. To be fair, this company has kept the traditions, the local cépages, while bringing its winemaking technology into the twenty-first century.
A day trip from Nice is easy and, when I last looked, you did not need an appointment. Lovely views, four to five degrees cooler than down at the coast and well worth a visit.
By the way, this is an organic vineyard and has been since 2013.

                                      Views from one of the Château du Bellet vineyards.

There are many influences and a wide variety of political histories, Greek, Roman, Catalan, Provençal to name but a few. Each has brought something to our wine story.

Cheers! This is me sipping our homemade orange wine.

My novel, The Forgotten Summer, is set on an vineyard in the south of France. A French family who fled Algeria after the War of Independence buy a rundown vineyard overlooking the Mediterranean ...

www.caroldrinkwater.com

A visit to Marseille and its stunning MuCEM, by Carol Drinkwater

                                                               Museum and Fort

Although I live but an hour's drive from Marseille, France's principle Mediterranean port and second largest city, I do not visit it all that frequently. This month, however, I had the opportunity to spend an entire day there and I decided to dedicate most of that precious time to a first visit to MuCEM. If you have been then you will understand my excitement, if you haven't, it is a must.

What is MuCEM? It is the Museum of the Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean.  (Le Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée). It was conceived in 2000 as part of the seven-billion-euro Euroméditerannée redevelopment of the city's dock areas.
It was built alongside and integrates several medieval stone structures. The complex is situated on the waterfront at the far extreme of the western arm of Marseille's huge and very splendid harbour. 

MuCEM was opened on 7th June 2013 to celebrate Marseille as European Capital of Culture, 2013. It is the first museum anywhere to be dedicated to the culture of the Mediterranean.

There is so much that is remarkable about the place that it is hard to know where to begin to describe it. Its architectural brilliance is what struck me first and, of course, its location. I spent hours, literally hours, wandering around the old stone Fort St-Jean built in 1660 on a site previously occupied by the Knights of St John, hence its name. The fort guards the entrance to the Vieux Port and sits across the water from the cuboid museum, which is accessed by a high-flying footbridge.
I left the fort area mid-afternoon making my way by the footbridge to the museum. It was with some regret that I felt bound to move on because I had been told that with its westerly aspect, watching the sun set from the fort is a very memorable experience.

                                   The high footbridge that transports from the old to the new.

The newly-constructed museum space, designed by the French architect Rudy Ricciotti (born in Algeria of Italian descent), is a giant cuboid encased in a lattice-work shell made from fibre-reinforced concrete. The concrete has been painted, rendered black. It gives the impression that the place has been wrapped in webbing or chain mail, or a giant mantilla. (Or perhaps it also hints at the idea of a hijab?) From the interior, the lattice-work creates a dappled effect (see photo below). It protects from the burning heat of the sun and yet the overall effect is dazzling. The sea and sun are omnipresent. The Mediterranean, veiled and at bay, still dominates.

                                                   Refreshment area within MUCEM

The space within the cuboid, laid out over several floors, is very fluid, interconnected in such a way as to create what feels like one enormous meandering space where exhibitions, restaurants, sitting areas, bars, a cinema, and a large and comprehensive bookshop co-exist.

                                          Walking one of the corridors within the museum.

Seating, (over at the fort there are felled tree trunks used as benches), have been placed everywhere to offer the opportunity to pause, sit, to stare out to sea at the busy shipping channels, the pleasure yachts tacking and rolling. At every moment there is the opportunity to reflect upon what a mighty seaport this city has been for close to three thousand years.
From this vantage point, it is easy to see the small island, part of the four-island Frioul archipelago, that houses Château d'If, made famous by Alexandre Dumas's novel, The Count of Monte Cristo. You can take a boat to the island and the château if you fancy the short ride.

Attention back within the museum. Glance about at all the visitors, eating together, strolling to and fro, visiting the temporary or permanent exhibitions. This place is for the community as much as the tourists and I think, ultimately, that is what I find so inspiring about it. Entrance was free the weekend I visited because I was fortunate to fall upon one of the days of Journées européennes du Patrimoine 2017. So many languages were being spoken all around me. It made me feel excited to be European, to be living alongside a city that celebrates diversity and its multiculturalism.

Marseille is a gritty city with many stains on its history. I felt that Ricciotti's design for MuCEM, its remarkable waterside location, is entirely in tune with the dichotomies which are Marseille.

In all my travels for THE OLIVE ROUTE and THE OLIVE TREE, much of the history I was uncovering frequently re-routed me back to Marseille. Marseille, or Massalia as it was originally called, was founded as a trading post on the waterfront site, the Lacydon, a rocky cove, that later became the city's Vieux Port somewhere around 600 BC by Phocaeans who crossed the Mediterranean by sea from Phocaea, modern Foça, on the Aegean coast in what today is Turkey. Back then, that coast belonged to Greeks from Asia Minor. The Phocaeans are credited with bringing olive culture to France.

The trading post flourished, became a city-state and the preeminent polis in the Hellenic region of southern Gaul. It retained its independence throughout Roman rule until, siding with Julius Caesar, it lost its independence during the Siege of Massilia in 49 BC.

                                  A splendid silver drachma with the name Massalia engraved on it.

It was an early seat of Christianity and retained its position as one of the most important maritime trading posts in the Western Roman Empire.

However, over the centuries to come, it went on to suffer sacking, a major loss of population through the Black Death. Its fortunes rebounded when, during the sixteenth-century, it hosted naval fleets belonging to the Franco-Ottoman alliance.

Over its long and sometimes troubled history, Marseille has been a renowned soap-producing location. It did business with the Venetians when Venice was controlling the eastern Mediterranean shipping routes. The soaps that were fabricated in Marseille were made, as they still are today, by the same methods as they have been for millennia in Syria, in the now devastated city of Aleppo. Like Aleppo, Marseille operated many factories and produced soaps that were sold to the textile industries. Marseille soaps, as in Aleppo and Nablus in Palestine, are olive oil based.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the land at the far end of the port was used to cultivate hemp for the manufacture of rope for the ships. This is the origin of the name of the city's principle street, the Canebière.

Do you remember the 1971 film, The French Connection? Marseille was portrayed as the drug capital of Europe. It was seedy, dirty, dangerous and corrupt. From before WWII, the city was riddled with heroin laboratories. The Italian Mafia had much of the city in its grip. The port was the ideal location for importing vast shipments of Turkish or Lebanese opium and exporting to the United Sates via Canada, billions of dollars worth of heroin. It was not until the 70s, forty years on, that the drug rings were dismantled. Still, the city was left with a very grubby image. Few tourists cared to venture there.

With its large Mahgrebian population, including huge influxes of Algerians after the Second World War, a great deal of cheap and not very attractive housing was constructed. The Algerian War of Independence, which cost the French so dearly, also brought about hatred towards France's fast-growing population of northern African residents. In 1972, The FN (Front National) party was founded. Jean-Marie Le Pen was its first leader and president. Marseille was one of the regions of France with the greatest support for this far-right nationalist movement.

Marseille's reputation as a city to visit was in shreds, but over this last half century, Marseille has worked hard to embrace its multiculturalism, to re-educate its citizens, to present itself as a melting pot with many positive aspects. To embrace its rich and muddled history.

Strolling about the city in the sunshine before and after my visit to MuCEM, I watched many of the local fishermen with their families setting up for a port-side feast. Some were in Provençal costume, some were talking in Provençal. A few were playing accordions, others grilling fresh fish caught overnight at the water's edge. Elsewhere, I drank mint tea in a cafe where customers were smoking narghile water pipes. I wandered through some of the old squares with lovely ochre-façaded buildings and coloured shutters, to the cobbled Arsenal district with its book and music shops, its lively cafés and clothes stores. I ate an Italian ice cream. I bought bricks of local soap. I booked us dinner for a fine bouillabaisse ( a Catalan-influenced dish) down at the waterfront. I glanced up towards the lovely neo-Byzantine basilica of Our Lady of the Guard. Perched on high, it overlooks, protects the entire sweep of the harbour.

I wished I had longer, several days. There is much to see. Marseille has come a long, long way.

                                                                          Paul Cezanne

www.caroldrinkwater.com