DOMAINE DE LA BEGUDE

Provence, France

Situated on the highest section of road between Toulon and Marseille, la Bégude was a place to stop at night during travel, with a special name: "Beguda" in provençal means the drink or the place where to drink!. It was before a refuge because this road was the territory of our provençal Robin Hood, Gaspard de Besse.

La Begude's aging storehouse is actually a former 7th century Merovingian chapel of Conil, a village no longer in existence though mentioned in 966 in the Saint Victor cartulary. It should be noted that the site was an often-visited destination for pilgrims during the Middle Ages. People came to worship relics of Saint Antony of Padua sent by the cardinal of Montfort from Rome, thanking the inhabitants of the village for the care he received when lying ill at the inn of la Bégude.

At the end of the 18th century the Benet family invested considerable sums of money. The family also owned La Ciotat shipyards and was sufficiently well off to develop the vineyards, olive groves and winemaking cellars. The beams used to build the cellar and particularly roofing are actually genuine ship posts.

Beginning in 1996, the Tari family aroused the sleeping beauty, replanting the old terraces, creating new ones and restoring the buildings, especially the oldest. This itself was another enormous task which still continues to preserve the domain’s soul.

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