Wine-loving Brits who crave vineyard views from their French home historically would have moved to Bordeaux but now another region is gaining a reputation as a great place for wine aficionados to live.

 

Languedoc-Roussillon in the South of France, with its stretch of Mediterranean coastline and rolling foothills below the Pyrenees, is already deemed an affordable alternative to Provence but it’s also becoming increasingly recognised for its wine production. In fact, the region has roughly a quarter of France’s vineyards, produces more than a quarter of the country’s wine and is said to have the world’s largest extent of vineyards, with vines stretching from the Rhône almost to the Spanish border.

Expats there benefit from access to an interesting selection of affordable local wines, notably from the Coteaux du Languedoc, Corbières, Faugères, Minervois, and Saint Chinian areas. Some even get involved with wine-making, such as Steve Hovington, former lead singer of 1980s band B-Movie. In 2006/2007 Steve worked with a local wine producer in Saint Chinian to create his own vintage, an experience he recounts in his published book A Grape Escape.

Anyone who needs to transfer money to complete a property transaction in the Languedoc or any other part of France should use a currency specialist to exchange their pounds into euros. For more information, contact Smart Currency Exchange.

To understand the full step-by-step process to buying a property in France, collect The Overseas Guides Company’s ‘France Property Buying Guide’