Today, the large borough of Bellegarde retains some remains of a rich historic past ; it snuggles up at the foot of a famous tower in ruins, a vestige of a feudal castle which stood there already in the XIth century.
At that time , the time of the first crusade, the village counted only 8 hearths, around 40 inhabitants . The castle then became the property of the Viscount of Uzès, enjoying great splendour and land around. Then, the barony of Bellegarde became the stake of a fierce battle during the Religion Wars : in the midst of a noteworthy fight, the Huguenot garrison chose to commit joint suicide by fire rather than surrender to the Marshal of Banville .
The history of Bellegarde remained rather obscure till the year 1680 when the archives of the town-hall started to record with more clarity . In 1663 , St John the Baptist church was erected in the center of the village with stones from the castle generously offered by the Duke of Uzès. A spring close to the castle was impounded and would feed two mills. At that time the village, administered by a Council, counted 450 inhabitants.
Nowadays Bellegarde, conveniently located between Nîmes and Arles , counts 6000

Dating back to the Romans, the vineyards of the Costières de Nîmes are among the oldest in Europe . It expands at the border of Occitania and Provence provinces . Its soil is constituted of stone alluvium brought out during the ice-age and sandstone gravel resulting from alternating periods of warming up and glaciation of the quaternary era. It `s made of pebbles , in layers of 4 to 14 meters thick, often rolled about in a sand whose colour varies from clear yellow to dark red.
A red clay bed , mostly very deep , can also be found , called "gapan" , along with "taparas"- a sort of chalky cement that amalgamates the gravel. The pebbles store the heat of the sun during the day and restore it at night.
The Mediterranean climate , with its sea-borne influence, is characterized by 3
components : the sun - with more than 250 days of sunshine a year, rains - concentrated on
a limited number of days and the Mistral , that well-known high wind that cleanses the air .
That hilly land produces wines : the round, generous and aromatic red wines, as well as the rosés filled with sunlight, are elaborated from Grenache , Syrah , Cinsault , Carignan and Mourvèdre grapes. As to the whites, uniting Blanc de Blanc and Grenache, they are characterized by an aromatic fullness allied to a beautiful round and ample structure .
The wines of the Costières de Nîmes disclose the seal of their remarkable soil, as well as the "Clairette de Bellegarde" which holds its rank among other well-known white wines.