This trip to Languedoc turned me into a wine snob
I’m not a wine guy. The oenophile subjects alcohol to a level of scrutiny that, to me, feels antithetical to the loosening joys of boozing. I enjoy wine. I prefer wine that tastes nice. But to theorise about it, to intellectualise it, to hold it to the light and inspect its colour, to soliliquise about the nose, or the notes, or the grape, is to fundamentally miss the point of alcohol. Because the point is not the taste. The point is the feeling.
Or at least, that’s what I believed when I arrived at Chateau St Pierre de Serjac. So unashamed was I in my ignorance that I felt no twinge of embarrassment when, having ventured deep into the ancient undulating landscape where the Romans planted France’s first vineyards — a lush corner of Languedoc that draws wine nerds from Tokyo, Melbourne, Atlanta — I looked the sommelier in the eye and ordered a nice crisp glass of… lager.
Hours earlier we’d landed in Montpellier. We rented a car and drove 60 miles east along the Mediterranean, finally veering inland on the road to Pezanas. Languedoc, which stretches from the Rhone river to the Spanish border, has long been overshadowed by the lavender and hilltop villages of Provence. But relative obscurity has been kind to France’s southernmost region. Tourists are few. Beaches are wild and empty. As a colleague put it before I left: “Languedoc is like Provence but without the dreadful English people.”
We arrived at St Pierre de Serjac at sunset. Cypress trees flank the long straight road up to the chateau, standing to attention like mediaeval subjects. The drama of the entrance quickly gave way to tranquillity as a smiling porter appeared and showed us to our room. Built in the late 19th by a wealthy wine baron, Serjac is a 200 acre working wine estate with self-catering villas and several rooms in the main chateau. We had one of the latter: a high-ceilinged suite with an enormous bath in the middle of the room. Wooden shutters opened onto postcard views of vineyards and olive groves and verdant gardens with tempting paths winding into the distance.
But before we could even think about exploring: time for a drink. And I really, really fancied a beer. “Of course,” said the sommelier, showing admirable restraint to conceal his disdain. “And will you have any wine today, sir?” I looked around the room. To my left, a German man was scrutinising the wine list like it was a fixed penalty notice or some fiendishly hard sudoku. I felt happy to be unburdened by such discernment and shook my head. “Just the beer, thanks.”
The next day we explored Pezanas, a pretty town half way on the road to the coast. Largely built in the 16th and 18th centuries, the market overflowed with brightly coloured tomatoes, white asparagus spears and exuberantly flowering artichokes. At one stall a man in greasy apron stared dolefully at a football match on his smartphone as chunks of pork slowly revolved behind him on a spit. As is the norm for French market towns, there was plenty to wear as well as to eat. Mounds of novelty tees, pleather handbags and fake designer tat piled high along the street, adding to the feeling of pleasant chaos.
After a quick stop we hopped back in the car for the final stretch down to Le St Barth Tarbouriech, a restaurant recommended by my Languedoc-loving colleague. It comes as a surprise, appearing at the end of a dirt road on a remote stretch of coast with no shops, bars or commercial activity for miles around. The only clue to the sorcery within is a large green bin overflowing with pungent pearlescent shells. Intrigued, I heaved the rickety sliding door to one side and was immediately assailed by the aroma of gently sizzling garlic, the clink of Noilly Prat-filled glassware and the happily inebriated chorus of around 150 people joyfully exalting in the transcendent pleasures of one very special ingredient: the oyster.
This place is a kind of devotional mecca built in tribute to this mythic crustacean. Diners can feast on two kinds of oyster: regular and “bouzigues”. The latter, which are cultivated in the farm attached to the restaurant, are, the restaurant insists, renowned for “their fresh, iodised taste, enhanced by a hint of hazelnut.” My favourite were the cooked bouzigues. Presented on a charred log, and suspended in a soup heady with white wine and garlic, they retained their marine freshness but carried with them the farmyard tang of the land. Delicious. Naturally, guests can pair their seafood with local Picpoul and Noilly Prat wines. Naturally, I opted for beer.
But my pigheadedness was about to meet its toughest test. The following evening, our last, we had wine tasting at the chateau. Our guide, an elegant French woman called Christine, uncorked a bottle of chilled rose. She trickled a serving into her glass, swirled it round, and inserted her nose. “Lovely aromatics on this one,” she said. Next it was our turn. What notes did we detect? “Strawberries,” I said. “It’s… minerally,” ventured my wife, which was met by approving nods.
As we tried wine after wine, a feeling of lightness took over. I proffered my scepticism about wine hobbyists. To my surprise, Christine didn’t totally disagree. For her, part of the allure of wine is its mysteriousness; the way it eludes understanding. Those who claim mastery should be treated with scepticism, she said. “I’ve met some very, very knowledgeable people, but we don’t know everything,” she said. “To an extent, we can be objective about the processes, about how wine is made, but it doesn’t mean anyone is guaranteed to like it.” She stopped for a second. “That’s the element, I think, which makes it poetry.”
A one night stay in a hotel room at Serjac is from €200 per night based on a b&b basis. A two night stay is from €778 based on two people sharing a hotel room on a b&b basis with dinner one night and two 50-minute spa treatments. Go to serjac.com
