The Languedoc is the Midi before it learned to pose. The vineyards run all the way to the sea, the towns keep their working harbours, and a bottle that would cost a fortune two regions east costs almost nothing here. It is the south for people who would rather not queue.
I. The lagoon and the sea
At Bouzigues, on the Étang de Thau, the oysters are pulled from the lagoon and eaten on the quay an hour later. Across the water, Sète climbs its hill above a working port — eat a tielle, watch the water-jousting in summer, and climb to the cemetery Paul Valéry wrote into the sea.
“In the Languedoc the wine is honest and the prices have not heard the news.”
II. The garrigue and the vine
Inland, the scrub of the garrigue runs up to the vineyards of the Minervois, Faugères and the Pic Saint-Loup. The wine here has gone from bulk to serious in a generation, and you can taste it at the cellar door for the price of a coffee elsewhere. The Canal du Midi threads it all, plane trees and slow water.
