Wine has been grown here for longer than history records, and this vineyard still produces 80% of the wine bearing the Palette AOC. Vines surrounding the handsome, eponymous honey-coloured château and its formal gardens produce grenache, syrah, cinsault, mourvèdre and the 'secondary varieties' that, fermented in barrels in a 16th-century cellars dug by monks, become Simone's award-winning wines.
Château Simone
Transportation
- bus: 13
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
7.82 MILES
East of Aix rises Cézanne’s favourite haunt, the magnificent silvery ridge of Montagne Ste-Victoire, its dry slopes carpeted in garrigue (scented scrub),…
28.63 MILES
Named after its fiery red and orange landscape (which locals likened to Colorado), this former ochre quarry is one of the best places to appreciate the…
19.72 MILES
The calanques (coves) of the coast surrounding Marseille became France's 10th national park in 2012, preserving their astonishing beauty and harbouring an…
15.8 MILES
Ships have docked for millennia at Marseille’s birthplace, the vibrant Vieux Port. The main commercial docks were transferred to the Joliette area in the…
Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde
16.42 MILES
Occupying Marseille’s highest point, La Garde (154m), this opulent 19th-century Romano-Byzantine basilica is Marseille's most-visited icon. Built on the…
23.39 MILES
In the scrubby hills about 6km south of Bonnieux, a twisty back road slopes up to this wonderful cedar forest, whose spreading boughs provide welcome…
2.51 MILES
Aix established one of France's first public museums here, on the site of a former Hospitallers' priory, in 1838. Nearly 200 years of acquisitions …
15.52 MILES
'The Basket' is Marseille's oldest quarter – site of the original Greek settlement and nicknamed for its steep streets and buildings. Its close, village…
Nearby attractions
0.95 MILES
This tiny, 9-hectare winery manages to cultivate 25 different grape varieties, many ancient and rare, producing highly respected, AOC-protected whites,…
1.88 MILES
In 1895 Cézanne rented a cabanon (cabin) at the Carrières de Bibemus, east of Aix, where he painted 27 works. Atmospheric one-hour tours of the ochre…
2.51 MILES
Aix established one of France's first public museums here, on the site of a former Hospitallers' priory, in 1838. Nearly 200 years of acquisitions …
2.52 MILES
This 13th-century Gothic church in Aix’s Quartier Mazarin, built as a fortified place of worship by the Knights Hospitaller, was the first of its kind in…
2.6 MILES
South of Aix’s centre is the peaceful Parc Jourdan, home to the town’s Boulodrome Municipal, where locals gather beneath plane trees to play pétanque. An…
2.62 MILES
This especially charming square in the Quartier Mazarin has a baroque fountain (1667) with water-spouting dolphins.
2.66 MILES
In the centre of cours Mirabeau is this lovely sculpted fountain from 1823, depicting the 15th-century king holding muscat grapes (which he reputedly…
2.69 MILES
Dating to 1667, this small fountain, the first along the Cours Mirabeau, is fed by 18ºC spring water that encourages the diversity of greenery with which…
- placement: superzone
- path: Destinations/POIs/superzone
- possible size: [970, 250], [970, 90], [728, 90], [1, 1],
- targeting:
{ "url": "france/pays-d-aix/attractions/chateau-simone/a/poi-sig/1596397/1322961", "position": "superzone" }