View From The Salon Balcony

What a great view, it will be even better covered with snow in a few months time. It almost feels as though you could put your skis on, jump off the balcony and straight on to the nursery slopes.

The Wine Cellar

I think it's the small things that make a difference and last week I discovered that some of the biggest and most expensive ski chalet companies buy their wine in the UK! They tell us they are all sourced especially for the customer and that that they have a sommelier, but what they actually mean is,they get someone to go to the warehouse and drive it down to the resort in a van!


I made this discovery last week when I was on a tour of the Savoie vineyards. I went to source some delicious local wines.I didn't 'go it alone' as you can imagine. I thought that old adage 'I know a lot about wine I drink it all the time' wouldn't get me very far, so I employed a wine expert to help and took along my friend Mrs H, who is a professional chef and the fussiest drinker I know!! It was our expert Wink (yes that really is her name) who enlightened me as to how chalet companies buy their wine. I was horrified. Talk about cheeky.

We found some fantastic wines, not at all what I expected. I am planning to add a link to the vineyards websites from our own, so that everyone can see what I mean.For me,it's important to support the local producers, so it was a good place to start the cellar.Next we will be doing a champagne tour to find some exquisite aperitifs.I plan to visit Ruinart (my personal favourite) Drappier, Mailly and Gimmonet. The last two are smaller houses that supply many UK wine stores under 'own names'. I'm looking forward to it.It's good to try something new, you never know when you might make a great discovery. After that, it will be the Rhones,Bourdeaux and Loires.

Fingers crossed they don't deliver in a white van, then I will look silly!!

Illustrations of interior (artist's impressions)

View of the salon on the top floor,with truly spectacular views of the slopes.


The seating area of the salon with open fire and french windows


One of the master bedroom with en suite jacuzzi bath.

Here we go

I thought it might be a good idea to document the progress of Chalet de la Cloche, so here we go...
It sounded like a great idea at the time, an adventure; create the perfect ski chalet. No more tiny bedrooms, no more vinegary wine, no more dictatorial chalet hosts and NO more cauliflower cheese. Yes, adventure it certainly is, a huge learning curve, but the best possible learning curve. Sure, it took a while to understand that the French wont answer emails unless in fear of their lives and yes, of course we weren't quite geared up for the fact that the bureaucracy involved in building in a conservation area in the French alps would take 2 years to get through, but we are on track now and on schedule to open on December 5 2007.

I can't believe we are nearly there and all the fun bits are coming up, like sourcing the very best wine we can drink (oops sorry I mean taste) and sampling seven wonderful menus each from the the short list of chefs (there are a lot of dinner parties chez nous at the moment!)

There's a lot of competition out there so we have to make Ski-base different, a bit more personal and may be even a bit more in touch with the locality. It's one thing to brag but entirely another to deliver, but I have a point to prove. I am fed up with paying through the nose for second rate quality so I can see no point in moaning about it, the thing to do is change it.We're ski mad, we know what we want from a place in the mountains, so I'm figuring that other people will want it too, and there's only one way to find out...