Bellet

Bellet is one of the few French wine appellations that lies entirely within the limits of a major city. The vines hold the hills of north-west Nice, above the Var valley, across an area measured in tens of hectares. Braquet, folle noire and rolle are grown here.

Life is rural at an urban address. The roads are narrow, the houses far apart, the neighbours known. You need a car for everything, and in exchange you get a silence the rest of Nice has lost, dry-stone terraces, and a view that carries to the sea.

The building stock is that of the Niçois countryside: bastides, restored farmhouses, a few contemporary builds slipped between two plots. The grounds are large, often sloping, sometimes planted.

On the market, Bellet trades on scarcity and patience. Few properties change hands, almost all of them houses with land, and buyers come for the place rather than the address. Timescales are long on both sides.