by “Does it taste like a strawberry lollipop from a supermarket, or more like mummy’s perfume?” Christine Bertoli, the wine expert at the Languedoc resort of Château Capitoul, asks my seven-year-old son as he holds a glass of white wine on its stem and swings its contents for the dark pink.
To our delight, the brisk plinth available today is 0 percent ABV, a lively cabernet grape juice that didn’t make it to the giant wine fermentation vats in the nearby cellar. “It is part of the French philosophy to let children taste the flavors of wine adults,” explains Bertoli.
It is 12 years since the publication of the French Children Don’t Miss Food, a bestseller that recounted the tricks and philosophies of French parentage through the eyes of an outsider. Written by the American journalist Pamela Druckerman, the book introduced us to rarefied monastery where babies sleep through the night, babies sit for long hours, peacefully at bistro tables, eating whatever is put in front of them, and new mothers are more likely to be seen in skimpy sweaters than tracksuit bottoms.
He also introduced scruffy Anglo-Saxon terms like goûter (a small snack that French children have at around 4pm, often a reserved sweet treat) and French chétins such as perineal rehabilitation (state-funded therapies to whip women’s pelvic floor back into shape).
It doesn’t take long for holidaymakers to spot the main differences between the parent cultures of France and Britain. Delinquent Brits may note that fewer toddlers are tending to iPads in public spaces, for example, while French children are taking off to tackle unaccompanied black runs at ski resorts. Contrast Château Capitolul’s wine tasting initiative with reports in January that a pub in London refused to serve apple juice to a five-year-old girl in a champagne flute New Year’s Eve with her parents for fear of “encouraging” the tot to drink.
Perched atop a vineyard-fringed hill above the sandy lagoon of La Clape, Château Capitoul is one of four vineyard hotels in Domaine & Demeure’s Languedoc stable. A collaboration between the French wine-producing family Bonfils and the Irish hoteliers Karl O’Hanlon and Anita Forte, the villa’s setting has the usual trappings of 2020s luxury: fine dining, an infinity pool with 180-degree views over sweeping vineyards and an elegant view aplenty. spa service. He also goes hard on everything viticulture.
Wine offerings include the on-site cave, which hosts daily tastings with Bertoli; an immersion tour of the soon-to-be-launched wine cellar; and initiatives to introduce children to the blessed products of the vine. In addition to simultaneous wine and juice tasting for parents and children, these include a summer camp where children learn the winemaking process and play among the property’s vines. “Why should the great pleasures of life be for adults only?” Bertoli asks. “For the French, parents and children do not live separate lives.”
In 2022, Dr Jo Mueller, a British clinical psychologist who specializes in parenting, was sitting in the summer sun outside a restaurant near Lake Annecy, in south-east France. Mueller and her husband Adam ordered an amuse bouche of Dordogne foie gras and were surprised that their son and daughter, aged four and two at the time, were served tiny portions.
“I think I told the kids it was kind of a ham,” Mueller laughs. For a while Mueller lived between France and the UK and says the stereotypes about French parenting are accurate. “French children don’t have their own special foods and are expected to sit and eat adults’ food at the table because they are seen less as independent people and more as part of the family,” she says. she Mueller also says, there is not much in France when it comes to “helicopter” or parenting.
“There is one way to do things and that is the traditional French way.” Mueller also believes that the you and you the structure of the French language, with children usually addressing elders with the polite “vous”, creates an intergenerational respect that is lacking in the UK.
As any Brit who has had to put together a dinner for hungry children from a supermarket knows, French children eat later (usually around 8pm with their parents) and go to bed around 9pm (an hour later than the average British teenager). At Château Capitoul our family of three, in true British style, sat down to dinner at 7pm, and French families only started arriving with their children in arms as we left.
Guillaume Marly, French Joint Management Committee of the five-star Hotel Café Royal and Hotel Lutetia in Paris, London, said that French hoteliers have to adapt to this difference if they want to cater to UK guests: “In the UK, it is customary to eat children earlier, around 5pm, and in France, although diets are more similar than you might think, children eat more fresh raw vegetables, and, of course, cheese.” Most super-luxury hotels will serve breakfast, however, something Marly says American tourists are also in demand.
“There is zero concept in France that children’s bedtime means that adults’ bedtime can begin,” says Mueller about the French night owl children. “On the other hand, it’s very common for parents to get babysitters to go out to a restaurant for grown-up time.”
Although (posh) chicken nuggets have invaded the French capital in recent years, designated children’s menus are so sparse that the Paris Office of Tourism features a handful of restaurants that offer anything for a smile over the haché steak mandatory. (bottomless French beef burger). Among them is the Bofinger brasserie, which offers variations on its famous fruit platters de mer stripped of more challenging additions such as snails and langoustines.
A guidebook for French tourism professionals, written by Brittany’s regional development authority, highlights – brilliantly – the peccadilloes of British family tourists. “Les Britanniques”, as he says: “is used for museums that are open all day from 9 to 5 and have an on-site lunch area as well as soft play areas for children. They like less formality and are very sensitive to safety messages – ‘keep your step’, ‘keep your head’ – and are quick to claim damages in case of injury.”
Does this concept of two nations divided by distinct parenting methods resonate with this traveler parent? Yes and no. On the one hand, the extended family group at a table is an incredible feature of French life; on the other hand these days I regularly see Parisian parents plugged into their devices at restaurants, barely aware of the steak tartare approaching their corner. So on better parenting in France, at least, the jury is out.
Back tasting Château Capitoul wine juice, how is my petit adult going forward? Unlike his mom, Leo is clearly not a merlot man. “He loves my sports socks,” he concludes. “Très bien!” Bertoli beams.
Sally Howard was a guest at Château Capitolul, where a two-bedroom garden villa (sleeps four) costs from £400 per night (chateaucapitol.com; 0345 686 6506)
