Sarah Tucker learns about wine, cheese and drug-fuelled cyclists at a dreamlike hotel in Provence
A day without wine is a day without sunshine. So says Sebastien, general manager of Hôtel Crillon le Brave, the luxurious rhapsody of Provencal stone nominated by Condé Nast Traveller as the best hotel in the world.
Around 25 miles from Avignon, Crillon le Brave owes its appellation to a courageous 16th-century general, Louis des Balbes de Berton de Crillon, whose statue stands in the village. Around 400 years later, a Canadian named Peter Chittick pitched up, fell in love with the place and began to turn it into a hotel.
A former partner in luxury hotel group Soho House, Peter knows everyone who is anyone – as well as loads of people who aren’t. He was there on my first day at the hotel, trapped in paradise by a strike at air traffic control, and is clearly blessed with that pervasive Canadian calm. Just as well, really, given the 26 years it has taken to convert a medieval village into a 36-room, split-level hotel complete with monumental views.
It was an incremental job, one purchase at a time, each building a virtual ruin at the time it was acquired. Thanks to the skilled ministrations of a family of builders – grandfather, father and latterly the son – all are now sympathetically restored. This in itself is a tribute to Peter’s passion and patience. Trust me – I’ve worked with enough French builders in my time.
As for the villagers, they’ve been very responsive, says Peter. True, there is still one French family plonked in the middle of the hotel buildings, refusing to sell. But that simply gives the place an edge, rooting it firmly in local soil. If you are expecting Babington House in France, forget it: Hôtel Crillon le Brave is quintessential Provence.
The eight buildings – formerly a presbytery, school and stables – are all interconnected via stone steps and arched alleyways and bridges carved from local limestone. All around are olive groves and vineyards, while Mont Ventoux – the Giant of Provence, famed for its pivotal role in the Tour de France – dominates the horizon. For ordinary mortals, seven hours is the average time for cycling up, though one guest is reported to have made it in less than two. Mind you, he was supposedly on drugs at the time.
And so, at last, to the wine – and cheese. Listen to the sparkling Claudine Vigier, local maître fromager affineur, as she talks hotel guests through the finer points of goat and sheep cheese. It takes an hour, but you won’t want her to stop.
“Joost byte et role ze cheeze eeeground ze mauf weev zee tung, veery sloo,” she exhorts us in seductive tones. It’s like a scene from ‘Fifty Shades of Cheese’.
And then it’s over to Benoit Liebus, the equally magnetic sommelier, who tells guests all they need to know about the fruit of the vine: how there is no right or wrong way to describe wines; how it is “veeery difficult” to match wine with food; how one should never eat egg with wine, on account of its overpowering flavours. According to Benoit, a chef should always create his masterpieces around the wine list – not the other way round. As he put it to his spellbound female audience:
“I think of wine like I think of a relationship with a woman. Food and wine should bring the best out of each other. Apart they may be disgusting, but together they are amazing.”
Hope for us all then. Santé!
FInd out more on the Crillon le Brave website