Château Vaugelas

A traditional Corbières wine domain, its warm pastel-coloured walls surrounded by vines and shaded by trees. The cliff behind it may look like a quarry face, but it's actually a natural geological feature caused by a massive landslip millions of years ago, which created the river valley where the vines are planted. You can see the other face of the landslip here.

For obvious reasons the cliff is known as la falaise bleue.. The dense pine forest above it is relatively recent; 50 or 60 years ago the land on these hills was kept close-cropped by sheep.