Wine, chateaux and popes

GO FEEDBACK: Synonymous with wine, Chateauneuf du Pape in France is also a great place for food, kids and history, writes SARAH WALSH

FOR A SMALL village in the southeast of France – population circa 2,000 – Chateauneuf du Pape manages to punch above its weight. Popes, Huguenots and second World War Germans all made their mark on Chateauneuf du Pape – and that’s before we even get to the wine for which it is now world famous.

From a first recorded settlement in around 1120, it became important in 1320 when Pope Jean XXII of Avignon (to where the Popes moved their court from Rome following the election of the first French pope, Clement V in 1305) built a summer chateau there – the 14th-century Papal equivalent of having a holiday home in Brittas Bay, but without any chance of traffic on the N11.

Today, the village is compact and beautiful. The original town walls are still evident and the streets wind picturesquely up the hill to the Chateau. We arrived in Chateauneuf du Pape “en famille” – two adults with three children in tow (aged six, four and one). We had been to the village on a previous holiday with just one one-year-old and a second on the way.

Not a great place to visit when you can’t drink the wine, eat the cheese or the pâté, so I had always promised myself a return visit when I could do all of the above. On that trip, we had stayed in a small, charming hotel right in the centre of town and we duly turned-up on their doorstep again. After some discussion, we ended up with their last two rooms (a single and a triple) and we were able to manage well.

The village of Chateauneuf du Pape is not surprisingly all about the wine – every business in the village, and one suspects every inhabitant, too is involved in the wine trade. Most of the vineyards have a tasting shop along the main street, so you can easily wander and learn about the wines while safely tasting too.

The original Chateau du Pape still dominates the town from a height, but is reduced to two walls from a combination of damage during the 16th century Wars of Religion with the French Protestant Huguenots and later damage from the retreating German army in 1944. It is still worth the short walk to see it though – it evokes all the history it has seen while also providing great views of the surrounding countryside and of course vineyards.

While Chateauneuf du Pape is small, anyone with even a passing interest in wine and/or history will find it easy to spend a day there. There are some very good restaurants – we had lunch in the charming Provençal restaurant Le Pistou, up a winding street from La Place de la Fontaine – and there were several others dotted around the village that looked appealing.

As a two- or three-night weekend destination, Chateauneuf du Pape could make a great base from which to explore spectacular Avignon. We turned our attention instead to the nearby town of Orange 10km away.

Orange was founded in 35BC by the Romans and still boasts a Roman Amphitheatre and Triumphal Arch, amongst the best preserved in Europe. After seeing those, we still had time to visit the museum of its other most important residents – as strongly Protestant as Chateauneuf du Pape was Catholic – the Princes of Orange, including Prince William who ruled England. This town also gave its name to the Orange Free state in South Africa – far-reaching influence for a place with fewer than 30,000 inhabitants.

We had dinner at our hotel in Chateauneuf du Pape – in fact, we stayed there for the food and service, rather than the rooms which look like they hadn’t been touched since it opened in 1922. The food though and the warm welcome, make it a wonderful place to stay.

As the five of us sat down to dinner, the hotel owner came to suggest serving food immediately for the children and discuss the wine with us. When he brought the chosen bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape to the table and started to open it, he turned to our six-year-old and asked him his age. On hearing the response, he excused himself and then came back with a third wine glass.

After opening the bottle and giving my husband some to taste, he then proceeded to show the six-year-old how to read the label, smell the cork, pour a little, admire the colour and finally to taste a tiny amount. When our four-year-old asked to do the same, he was told, he was too young!

Dinner was wonderful – worth waiting for that wine, cheese and pâté!

* We stayed at La Mere Germaine (tel 00 33 490 835027) in the centre of Chateauneuf du Pape and enjoyed an excellent dinner there. There are various Chambre d’hôtes (BBs) in Chateauneuf du Pape, as well as the four-star Chateau des Fines Roches a few kilometres away.