“This is the real south of France,” Christine Bertoli says. “Most Brits think of Cannes and Nice as the south, but it’s really here, in the Midi, where real people live, sweat and work.”
We are winding our way through the hills of inland Languedoc, green oak and maquis shrubland crowding in on both sides. Occasionally, the greenery clears to reveal neat rows of vineyards in the valley below, mountains painted a hazy blue in the distance; at other times, a village appears with almost no warning, its pale, terracotta-roofed houses leaning in around us.
A rough track off the main road takes us to Domaine de Pouzes, where a three-storey stone farmhouse overlooks the herb farm’s orderly lines. Owner Sophie de Clock takes us down into the fields, which,…
