Sunshine Wine

High above Nice and the shimmering blue Bay of Angels, the terraced parcel of land known as Le Bellet, a 136-acre expanse of vineyards in the western foothills of the city, is a wine-lover’s sun-drenched secret.

And for good reason. Only 200,000 bottles of Nice’s superb award-winning wines are produced each year, by 14 vineyards. Some of the finest restaurants in Japan and the U.S. may have a few bottles of Bellet on their wine lists, but otherwise it’s hard to find anywhere outside of Nice, even 20 miles down the road.

Standing beside me on a steep slope, oenologist Laurent Walter presents me with a glass of pure white grape juice that is like nectar of the gods—delicate notes of lilac, peach, rose and vine flowers, minus the alcohol. It’s a preview of what the harvest has just brought in, before fermentation—le pur jus. Walter explains how the grapes here are handpicked—no machines are allowed in Le Bellet—and then carefully transported in special temperature-controlled containers and stored in state-of-the art shiny stainless steel vats.

From the enormous terrace of the Château de Crémat, a turn-of-the-century stone castle perched above the sea, you can see all of Nice’s landmarks—the Promenade des Anglais, the pink and white wedding-cake dome of the Hôtel Negresco and the curving Mediterranean shore. Behind us, the snow capped Alpes-Maritimes are a dramatic backdrop to the terraced green hillside.

“Ever since 1941, Bellet has been the only urban A.O.C. (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) wine in France,” says Walter. “Even the vineyards near Bordeaux are all outside the city limits.” Le Bellet’s vines are also among the oldest in France, possibly dating back to the arrival of Phocean Greek traders from their settlement in Marseilles. Certainly the Romans later planted their vines on this remote, narrow parcel of land, high up in the rocky coastal hills. Today the vines are planted on narrow terraces called restanques. Given the altitude—between 200 and 300 meters (650-980 ft) above sea level—and the constant exposure to the Mistral and Tramontane winds along with endless days of sunshine and just enough of the necessary rain, Le Bellet’s microclimate is ideal for grape growing, and so is the land itself. “It’s the soil here,” says Walter. “It’s an unusual mix of beach stones (called galets) and a conglomerate sediment of pale sand and clay called le poudingue,” he continues as he pours me a glass of the Château de Crémat’s pride and joy—a 2001 red that won a gold medal. It’s the elegant color of rubies and full-bodied, with unmistakable notes of cherry, currant and wild rose.

Along with their unique location, another distinguishing feature of Bellet wines is an unusual dark grape, la folle noire—fouola negra in Niçois dialect—the “crazy black” varietal named after the capricious nature of its production level from one year to another. Folle noir is blended into the reds and rosés, along with more widely known Mediterranean varieties, grenache and cinsault, and local braquet grapes (Braquet was the name of a well-respected family living in the region).

Delicate Bellet rosé also uses chardonnay, and the aromatic white wines, which may also include some chardonnay, are primarily produced from rolle, a grape found mostly east of Marseille, in Corsica and in Italy (under the name vermentino), which thrives despite varying highs and lows in temperature.

Local legend has it that the Bellet wines were highly appreciated by Louis XIV, and also by Thomas Jefferson, who spent three months in the south of France in 1897. Each of the 14 Bellet vineyards has its own share of family anecdotes, and the history of Le Crémat is particularly colorful.

Antoine Mari, who expanded the estate and worked hard to improve the quality of the wine, built the vineyard’s lovely, crenellated fairytale castle in 1906. When wealthy American Irene Bretz (nicknamed la Belle Irène) acquired the château in the roaring 20s, it became the site of lavish parties for the Riviera’s high society. “Coco Chanel was one of Irene’s close friends,” recounts Le Crémat’s commercial director and Bellet wine-grower, Bruno Lust as he leads me through the cavernous, artfully lighted orange-walled cellar, explaining that in the mid-1920s Chanel often stayed in nearby Grasse, France’s perfume capital, where she created her famous N° 5. Lust stops to point out the Château de Crémat’s logo, carved out in stone above a vaulted arch: a pair of interlocking C’s. Chanel, it seems, fell in love with the château’s logo and her friend Irene allowed Coco to use it for her own brand. The rest is fragrance and fashion history.

The Crémat vineyard has changed hands several times since then, and is currently run by enterprising Dutch owner Cornelis Kamerbeek, who has energetically restored the Château de Crémat label to its former glory and boosted production up to 40,000 bottles per year. “I came from the financial world,” he says, “but wine has always been a great passion, since my youth.” At first, Kamerbeek feared that he might be ill received as a dilettante and outsider by the tightly knit local wine community, but his massive high-tech restoration of the winemaking facilities convinced everyone otherwise. Plans are now in the works to open a small wine museum across the street in a mini-castle, which will display vintage photos, a scale model of the entire Le Bellet territory, and also host wine tastings.

What do the Niçois think of their homegrown wine? “It’s expensive—somewhere between €17 to €30 a bottle,” says a wine merchant at the Old Port of Nice, “but we still sell everything on our shelves. I think the Niçois are very attached to their terroir and would rather splurge on a Bellet wine than a pricey Bordeaux or a prestigious rosé from the Var.”

“2007 was an exceptional year,” declares Jo Sergi, President of the Le Bellet A.O.C. Syndicate and himself a producer at Clos Saint Vincent, another highly praised Bellet vineyard. “And 2008 will be just as good,” adds Ghislain de Charnace, owner of the Château de Bellet, one of the largest of the long-standing labels.

 

NOTEBOOK

Château de Bellet Ghislain de Charnace, Les Séoules, 04.93.37.81.57

Château de Crémat SCEA Kamerbeek, 442 chemin de Crémat, 04.92.15.12.15

Clot dou Baile Marie-Louise Cambillau, 277 chemin de Saquier, 04.93.29.85.87

Clos Saint Vincent R. Sicardi & J. Sergi, Collet des Fourniers, 04.92.15.12.69

Domaine de Toasc Bernard Nicoletti, 213 chemin de Crémat, 04.92.15.14.14

 

Originally published in the November 2008 issue of France Today. All information is correct and up-to-date.