When one thinks of visiting Bellet, the wine region in Nice, one might be thinking of wine tastings – but even the enjoyment of the scenary and the taste of wine doesn’t really count as a Via Nissa Experience. In order to make your visit to Bellet unforgettable, we believe it must be far more than just tasting wine (which face it, you could just buy a few bottles and taste in your living room). For Via Nissa, we want to provide an authentic experience. One where you get to known the Niçois in their natural environment.
Recently, a small group joined Via Nissa to Bellet. The day began with lunch in one of the smallest Domaines. The lunch, home cooked by the vigneron’s wife, was the authentic Niçois food (healthy with ingredients of the season), and the lunch time discussion with the owners of the domaine was about local food, local wine and local culture. Beginning with the homemade vin d’Orange aperitif, the fresh olive oil pressed from the trees of the property, the fresh vegetables that even the finest chef could not duplicate at a local restaurant. This is the essense of “fait maison” and of course, all washed down with wine from the grapes that surrounded us. We followed the two hour visit with two more domaines of different sizes and structures to provide a complete Bellet experience, one that the American President Thomas Jefferson enjoyed and perhaps one reason who for the next twenty years, continued to order the wine from Bellet to be shipped to his home in Virginia.
