In the sparkling sunshine and beneath a cobalt sky, the stone of the Abbaye de Valmagne glows rose-ochre and is dappled by the spidery shadows of the tall plane trees beside it. A winter's day is, in many ways, the ideal time to explore this stunning Gothic Cistercian abbey: apart from the resident mouser and two female staff, we had the place to ourselves. Although it's only about 20 minutes' drive from Roujan and 8km north of Meze on the coast, Lizzie, Ali B, Michelle and I had never been there before.
Valmagne was an early Cistercian foundation, begun in 1138 and financed by Raymond Trencavel, a name which will be familiar to anyone who has read Kate Mosse's 2005 novel Labyrinth, set in medieval Carcassonne and the Languedoc eastwards as far as Beziers. Because the Abbey gradually acquired a large number of vineyards, it apparently became one of the richest houses and in time notoriously decadent. A fair amount of its carved decoration is of vines and grapes. On the whole, however, because it was pillaged during the French Revolution and has lost its stained-glass windows, the church, chapter house and cloister are beautiful but fairly austere.
There are several things which make this place special. The first is the wow-factor of the church: it's nave is 370 ft long and its massive pointed arches are said to be as high as those in Narbonne cathedral; it has an earth floor; and in each recess on both sides right down the nave, instead of little side altars there are gigantic wooden wine vats, each of which is big enough to hold a truck - I've never seen such enormous ones. Though the vats are empty now, they were once used for wine storage by a grower who bought the Abbey in order to prevent it being plundered for its stone by local builders.
Within the golden stone cloisters is to be found a second special feature: an octagonal stone Gothic pavilion, over which a creeper (probably a vine) has been trained to shelter a plashing fountain. It's straight out of those evocative illuminated manuscript paintings of the medieval courts of love. Indeed, I'm not the only one to whom this thought has occurred. My copy of the Cadogan Guide to Languedoc-Roussillon says that an eighteenth-century poet by the name of Lefranc de Pompignan declared this a 'fontaine d'amour'. On a hot summer's day this would be a wonderful retreat in which to sit and read a book...
After lots of oohs and aahs, we tried a couple of the Abbey's wines: a red which didn't seem anything special and an OK rose, which at 4.80 Euros is reasonable value. We all agreed, though, that we prefer the rose from our local Chartreuse de Mougeres, where it's sold at 9.50 E for a 5-litre box, or the smarter and yummy rose by Christa and Hans at Domaine Bourdic. The other thing we decided before leaving Valmagne is that the entrance fee of 6.50E is high, but worth it because the money's going towards repairing this marvellous place.
From Valmagne we drove along a little back road through the garrigue to the small hilltop village of St Pons de Mauchiens. (Isn't that a wonderful name? St Pons of the Bad Dogs! Sadly St Pons isn't listed in my ancient copy of the Penguin Dictionary of Saints, so I'll have to track him down later.) This has to be one of the prettiest villages in the area. We entered its medieval heart by a fortified archway and wandered around the winding lanes up to the fine Romanesque church at the top. From here there are panoramic views south across undulating small vineyards and garrigue as far as the Bassin de Thau and the sea, and, from behind the church, the view northwards is of the alluring, dramatic mountains of the Haute Languedoc. Again this would be a nice spot to bring a picnic to eat sitting on the bench at the side of the church - perhaps even, Lizzie suggested, a breakfast picnic early on a summer's day, when you might be able to see the peaks of the Pyrenees about 70 miles away.
After a brief coffee session in Montagnac, we headed home to Roujan for a glass or two of wine chez Michelle and Justin.
We live in the midst of one of Languedoc's great winemaking regions. Roujan itself is a winemaking village. I live, as do many others, in a 'maison vigneronne': a former winemaker's house with a huge doorway at street level wide enough to allow access into the property by a horse and cart carrying grapes. Within the ground floor of the house are two massive reinforced concrete cuves, in which the wine was stored. They are built into a corner of the main house walls, stand about 2 metres high and go down about 2 m into the ground. I know other people have knocked doorways and steps down into their cuves to transform them into dens, workspaces, storage or even a sauna. However, in my case, this isn't feasible, so I'm paying a specialist a lot of Euros to knock them out completely next Tuesday (of which more later); I need the space...
Anyway, over several glasses of Valmagne wine at Michelle and Justin's, we discussed an article in a local freebie mag, Blah Blah Blah, about how overpriced local wines are in many restaurants and how limited is the range of wines on their lists. Restaurant owners here seem to multiply the cost of wine in an oversimplistic fashion. While an ordinary 3E bottle will be charged out at 10E, a 6E bottle will be listed at 21E, giving a whopping 15E profit. I'm sure restaurants would sell more of the middle-priced and more expensive wines if they didn't mark them up so greedily. Greater turnover, more profits and happier customers. As for the limited range of wines you can order with a meal, well that is just absurd when we are surrounded by some really scrumptious wines both single and blended. We eaters-and-drinkers should vote with our feet as well as protesting in print!
On the other hand, the daily set lunches offered by most village restaurant-bars are generally good value and sometimes very tasty: our local Grand Cafe offers a three-course lunch with a quarter-litre of wine for 13 Euros, ie around £8 sterling. (Last year it was 12E, so a bit of inflation there.) At the Caves Cooperatives in St Pons de Mauchiens, local restaurateurs and bar owners were bringing their own bottles to be filled at 0.85E each (that's about 50 pence per bottle). Of course I've no idea how good or bad the wine is they were buying, but, given the competition for business, it can't be too awful, can it?
Valmagne was an early Cistercian foundation, begun in 1138 and financed by Raymond Trencavel, a name which will be familiar to anyone who has read Kate Mosse's 2005 novel Labyrinth, set in medieval Carcassonne and the Languedoc eastwards as far as Beziers. Because the Abbey gradually acquired a large number of vineyards, it apparently became one of the richest houses and in time notoriously decadent. A fair amount of its carved decoration is of vines and grapes. On the whole, however, because it was pillaged during the French Revolution and has lost its stained-glass windows, the church, chapter house and cloister are beautiful but fairly austere.
There are several things which make this place special. The first is the wow-factor of the church: it's nave is 370 ft long and its massive pointed arches are said to be as high as those in Narbonne cathedral; it has an earth floor; and in each recess on both sides right down the nave, instead of little side altars there are gigantic wooden wine vats, each of which is big enough to hold a truck - I've never seen such enormous ones. Though the vats are empty now, they were once used for wine storage by a grower who bought the Abbey in order to prevent it being plundered for its stone by local builders.
Within the golden stone cloisters is to be found a second special feature: an octagonal stone Gothic pavilion, over which a creeper (probably a vine) has been trained to shelter a plashing fountain. It's straight out of those evocative illuminated manuscript paintings of the medieval courts of love. Indeed, I'm not the only one to whom this thought has occurred. My copy of the Cadogan Guide to Languedoc-Roussillon says that an eighteenth-century poet by the name of Lefranc de Pompignan declared this a 'fontaine d'amour'. On a hot summer's day this would be a wonderful retreat in which to sit and read a book...
After lots of oohs and aahs, we tried a couple of the Abbey's wines: a red which didn't seem anything special and an OK rose, which at 4.80 Euros is reasonable value. We all agreed, though, that we prefer the rose from our local Chartreuse de Mougeres, where it's sold at 9.50 E for a 5-litre box, or the smarter and yummy rose by Christa and Hans at Domaine Bourdic. The other thing we decided before leaving Valmagne is that the entrance fee of 6.50E is high, but worth it because the money's going towards repairing this marvellous place.
From Valmagne we drove along a little back road through the garrigue to the small hilltop village of St Pons de Mauchiens. (Isn't that a wonderful name? St Pons of the Bad Dogs! Sadly St Pons isn't listed in my ancient copy of the Penguin Dictionary of Saints, so I'll have to track him down later.) This has to be one of the prettiest villages in the area. We entered its medieval heart by a fortified archway and wandered around the winding lanes up to the fine Romanesque church at the top. From here there are panoramic views south across undulating small vineyards and garrigue as far as the Bassin de Thau and the sea, and, from behind the church, the view northwards is of the alluring, dramatic mountains of the Haute Languedoc. Again this would be a nice spot to bring a picnic to eat sitting on the bench at the side of the church - perhaps even, Lizzie suggested, a breakfast picnic early on a summer's day, when you might be able to see the peaks of the Pyrenees about 70 miles away.
After a brief coffee session in Montagnac, we headed home to Roujan for a glass or two of wine chez Michelle and Justin.
We live in the midst of one of Languedoc's great winemaking regions. Roujan itself is a winemaking village. I live, as do many others, in a 'maison vigneronne': a former winemaker's house with a huge doorway at street level wide enough to allow access into the property by a horse and cart carrying grapes. Within the ground floor of the house are two massive reinforced concrete cuves, in which the wine was stored. They are built into a corner of the main house walls, stand about 2 metres high and go down about 2 m into the ground. I know other people have knocked doorways and steps down into their cuves to transform them into dens, workspaces, storage or even a sauna. However, in my case, this isn't feasible, so I'm paying a specialist a lot of Euros to knock them out completely next Tuesday (of which more later); I need the space...
Anyway, over several glasses of Valmagne wine at Michelle and Justin's, we discussed an article in a local freebie mag, Blah Blah Blah, about how overpriced local wines are in many restaurants and how limited is the range of wines on their lists. Restaurant owners here seem to multiply the cost of wine in an oversimplistic fashion. While an ordinary 3E bottle will be charged out at 10E, a 6E bottle will be listed at 21E, giving a whopping 15E profit. I'm sure restaurants would sell more of the middle-priced and more expensive wines if they didn't mark them up so greedily. Greater turnover, more profits and happier customers. As for the limited range of wines you can order with a meal, well that is just absurd when we are surrounded by some really scrumptious wines both single and blended. We eaters-and-drinkers should vote with our feet as well as protesting in print!
On the other hand, the daily set lunches offered by most village restaurant-bars are generally good value and sometimes very tasty: our local Grand Cafe offers a three-course lunch with a quarter-litre of wine for 13 Euros, ie around £8 sterling. (Last year it was 12E, so a bit of inflation there.) At the Caves Cooperatives in St Pons de Mauchiens, local restaurateurs and bar owners were bringing their own bottles to be filled at 0.85E each (that's about 50 pence per bottle). Of course I've no idea how good or bad the wine is they were buying, but, given the competition for business, it can't be too awful, can it?
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