Hilltop Villages, Ancient Vines and 104 Degrees: Exploring the Southern Côtes du Rhône

Having many times taken visitors into the Luberon to enjoy its charming hilltop villages, we decided it was time to explore another corner of Provence: the country north of Avignon, in the southern Côtes du Rhône.

We had read about a lovely 35-mile or so loop connecting ancient villages, vineyards and wineries tucked around the Dentelles de Montmirail. On a normal day, it would have been an easy and delightful outing.

This, however, was not a normal day.

It was during the seemingly endless heat dome summer of 2026, and the temperature had reached a blistering 104 degrees. The mere act of exiting our little air-conditioned car required a degree of bravery and fortitude that, as the day progressed, we found ourselves increasingly short of.

So consider this the abbreviated version of a journey we fully intend to complete someday when Provence is not trying to cook us alive.

Why All the Villages Are on Hills

One of the things that makes this part of Provence so beautiful is the string of ancient villages seemingly glued to hillsides and rocky outcrops above the vineyards.

There is a reason they are up there.

People had been building fortified settlements on high ground here even before the Romans arrived. Height meant visibility and protection. Then came Rome and the relative peace and prosperity of the Pax Romana. People could spread out again across the fertile plains and valleys, connected by Roman roads and attracted to thriving cities such as nearby Nîmes and Arles.

When Roman authority collapsed, security collapsed with it. Populations once again sought refuge on defensible high ground. By the Middle Ages, villages clustered behind walls beneath castles, towers and churches, with a local lord, prince or bishop providing protection. Séguret itself takes its name from the Provençal word for “safe” or “secure.”

As France gradually became more stable, the practical reasons for living on top of a steep hill diminished. People and commerce drifted toward the valleys, where roads, farms and eventually railways made life easier. Abandoned castles and buildings sometimes became convenient stone quarries for newer construction below. Crestet’s castle, for example, was pillaged for building stone for generations.

Then came another reversal. During the 20th century, artists, architects, vacationers and second-home owners began rediscovering these nearly forgotten villages, buying and restoring old houses and breathing life back into places that had been slowly emptying. Today, galleries, restaurants and restored homes mingle with families whose connections to these villages go back generations. The result is an intriguing mixture of medieval fortress, working village and carefully preserved piece of Provence.

Séguret

Our first stop was absolutely lovely Séguret.

Built into the hillside beneath the Dentelles de Montmirail, Séguret is officially one of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, yet somehow it felt remarkably untouched by the crowds we so often encounter in the Luberon. Perhaps the heat had scared everyone away. But I suspect it also has something to do with being just a little farther from the standard Avignon day-trip circuit and considerably less plastered across Instagram.

Why, I couldn’t tell you.

The village took shape in the 10th century, its houses crowded together behind defensive walls beneath a fortified château. Two medieval gateways still lead into the old village, including the wonderfully named Portail de la Bise, the Gate of the North Wind. Inside are steep stone calades, tiny passageways, old houses, the 12th-century Church of Saint-Denis, a 17th-century fountain decorated with mascarons, and the remains of the château still higher on the hill.

Séguret is less about any one monument than about wandering. The lanes twist upward between stone houses, occasionally opening to views that explain instantly why someone chose this particular hillside a thousand years ago.

Before moving on, we found a café terrace overlooking the immense green valley below. Vineyards stretched seemingly forever beneath us, the vines lush and full in the summer sun.

We ordered something very cold and sat very still.

Crestet

Next came Crestet, another gem and another hilltop village where we encountered perhaps a dozen other equally overheated tourists. Even in the middle of summer, it felt as though we had stumbled onto someplace largely overlooked.

Crestet occupies a narrow rocky ridge above the Ouvèze valley near Vaison-la-Romaine, a location selected for exactly the reasons you would expect: from up there you could see trouble coming.

Its castle dates to around the middle of the ninth century and later became associated with the bishops of Vaison. Over the centuries it endured sieges, religious wars and revolution before eventually being abandoned and, like so many old fortifications, becoming a source of ready-cut stone for local residents.

The village below it remains a wonderful tangle of old stone houses, fountains, archways and steep lanes climbing toward the castle. Its Church of Saint-Sauveur has origins going back more than a thousand years. There are also whimsical sculptures and gargoyles scattered through the village, the work of painter René Durieux, who settled here in 1931 and helped begin the restoration of the old village.

But by this point history was losing its battle with hunger.

La Fleur Bleue

We had taken the advice of a guidebook and sought out La Fleur Bleue, just outside Crestet. We both agreed afterward that it might have been one of the most authentic and charming restaurant experiences we have had anywhere in France.

The restaurant occupies an old Provençal farmhouse. We sat outside beneath a plant-covered arbor with perhaps a dozen tables scattered around the courtyard. Several cats had sensibly abandoned all activity and were sleeping in whatever patches of shade they could find.

Our table appeared to have been made from an old door.

There was no discussion of what we wanted to eat. What had been prepared that day was what we were going to eat.

I explained that I am allergic to fish.

No problem. A double helping of vegetables appeared instead, accompanied by a smile and a slight nod that seemed to say, essentially, too bad for you.

We couldn’t have been more delighted.

It was one of those meals that reminds you why the most memorable restaurants are not necessarily the fanciest ones. Sometimes all you need is an old farmhouse, a table under the vines, several sleeping cats and someone in the kitchen who has already decided what you should be eating.

Suzette

With full stomachs, a glass of wine under our belts and skin that seemed to be reddening despite layers of sunscreen and hats that would have put an Easter church lady to shame, we crawled our way onward to Suzette.

Possibly a tactical error.

Suzette is tiny, perched amid the spectacular Dentelles de Montmirail with views extending toward Mont Ventoux, the Rhône Valley and the surrounding mountains. The site has been inhabited since antiquity, but the village appears in written records in the 12th century. Its strategic position made it important enough to have its own fortified castrum, later destroyed during the Wars of Religion.

For centuries, though, Suzette was known less for wine than for apricots. Its celebrated local variety, the Rosé de Suzette, once supported an industry producing hundreds of tons of fruit each year. Beginning in the 1960s, the apricot orchards gradually gave way to vineyards, and today vines producing Beaumes-de-Venise wines surround the village.

We wandered the little streets, admired the views and attempted to absorb some of this history.

But at 104 degrees, our intellectual curiosity had limits.

A gelato restored sufficient life to continue.

And Then There Was the Wine

It would have been impossible to spend a day traveling through the Côtes du Rhône without stopping at a winery, so we visited one.

It was charming. But our conversation with the owner left us thinking about something much larger than the bottle of wine in front of us.

She told us they had planted 5,000 new vines that spring. By the time we visited, she estimated that 90 percent were dead, victims of the extraordinary heat.

The changing climate was only part of her concern.

Wine consumption has been falling, particularly among younger generations. At the same time, regions once considered too cool for serious winemaking are warming. Grapes are now being grown successfully farther and farther north, including, remarkably, in England.

For a family winery in southern France, all of this changes the equation.

Her father had started the business. She had inherited it. But rather than dreaming of passing it along to another generation, she told us she was discouraging her own children from taking it over.

That stayed with us.

We had spent the day wandering through villages whose histories have always been about adaptation. People climbed into the hills when they needed protection. They descended when life became safer. Castles became quarries. Apricot orchards became vineyards.

Nearly abandoned medieval villages found new lives through artists, residents and visitors who saw beauty in what earlier generations had left behind.

And now the region may be facing another transformation.

Wine has been part of this landscape for an extraordinarily long time. Written records document vineyards around Séguret more than 1,400 years ago. Today the vines still sweep across the valleys beneath those ancient villages, looking from a distance as permanent as the hills themselves.

But perhaps they aren’t.

Our planned 35-mile loop ended considerably earlier than intended that afternoon. We retreated to the air conditioning, leaving several villages and wineries unexplored.

We will be back. Preferably when it is 75 degrees.