Wrong Turns and Wineries
One of the things that we thought would be quite fun about planning a wedding in France but, like many other things, turned out to be quite a challenge, was choosing the wine.
Wine was one of Jono’s wedding jobs and he had been dutifully trying them all while I was away in London. One night, our good friend Patrick introduced him to a local wine that he tends to buy in 10 litre boxes from a place called Chateau Capion. It turned out to be a hit but, when our family discovered we were thinking of serving boxed wine at the wedding, they thought we’d gone a bit funny in the head.
On his side of the world they call it ‘bag-in-a-box’, ‘cask wine’ or, my personal favourite,’ goon bag’, but, in France, wine in a box is just a very practical way of drinking and serving a heck of a lot of wine so we thought: why not? We’ll buy some carafes from Ikea and it’ll be perfect.
So, while the few weeks before our wedding saw us knee deep in wedding planning, one gloriously sunny weekend we hired a car for the weekend to visit Chateau Capion, just a 45 minute drive away from Montpellier and very close to the pretty village of St Guilhem.
On the way, google led us off the main road and onto a road more frequented by tractors and horses than cars. This is pretty standard in France so we weren’t too phased as the little car bounced along the “road” until suddenly google maps started freaking out and telling me turn around, that we’d missed something: a turning to the right.
“Did you see a right? ” I asked Jono. “I didn’t see a right. There was definitely no right there.”
But we stopped the car – we were already in the middle of a field so we weren’t too worried about the traffic – and walked back to find the right.
I was right. There was no turning but there was a dubious footpath through some trees.
Nice try google.
We walked back to the car, making a quick stop to marvel at the biggest dandelion known to man.
Figuring out a new way there we continued on our little adventure. Google maps insisted we needed to turn around and head back into the forest, I insisted we did not, and eventually it gave into our will as we approached a normal road and found ourselves a mere 100 metres away from our destination.
That Saturday we ended up spending a lovely afternoon at Chateau Capion trying their wines and cursing ourselves that we didn’t find this place sooner – if there was ever a perfect south of France vineyard wedding venue, this was it. Unluckily, or luckily as we were just a few weeks away from the wedding, Chateau Capion doesn’t do weddings but it does have apartments which would make it a great little holiday destination one day. I’ve already marked it for our anniversary.
Photo credit: Chateau Capion
Chateau Capion turned out to be not only ridiculously pretty but after a tasting it also ended up being the place we chose our rosé, red and bubbles for the wedding, in bottles as the ones we liked best were in fact bottled, not boxed. The rosé, called Rosebud, was the most popular amongst the guests, there are English speakers willing to help at the Chateau, so if you ever find yourself in and around the area, pop in for a tasting and grab some wine to take home.
