Château de Germigney

On 11 August 1901, lightning struck the Pernod absinthe distillery in Pontarlier. To keep the fire away from the vats, a quick-thinking employee opened the taps, and something like a million litres of absinthe poured into the river Doubs. Two days later, beyond a mountain ridge, the source of a quite different river, the Loue, turned milky green and began to smell of aniseed.

It was the geological scoop of the century. The Loue, it emerged, was the Doubs in disguise. The river slips underground near Pontarlier and resurfaces some fifteen kilometres away under a new name. No river in France has ever given away its secret more cheerfully.

By the time the Loue reaches Port-Lesney, it has calmed down considerably. Here it runs wide and green past Château de Germigney, a former hunting lodge with medieval roots and eighteenth-century manners, a few minutes from the vineyards of Arbois and about two hours from Geneva. Restored first by a family of Zurich antique dealers, it has belonged since 2016 to Jocelyn Gelé, who extended the house and reshaped the park. It is a romantic country retreat, not a fortress, and a weekend's plans here quietly shrink to a walk and a long dinner.

The rooms and suites, a couple of dozen in all, come with four-poster beds and sloping ceilings under the eaves. The real surprise waits in the park: a swimming pond instead of a pool. There is no chlorine, only pond water patiently filtered until it runs clear, so a swim is more mountain lake than hotel. Like the Loue, it keeps its plumbing out of sight. The spa above it works with grape-seed oils, which in wine country seems only fair.

Dinner is Jura through and through. Nearly everything comes from the surrounding hills, from morels in spring to a Comté that has spent long months ripening in a cellar. With the cheese comes a glass of vin jaune, the region's golden, nutty wine, aged for more than six years under a veil of yeast. Locals defend the pairing with some passion. Afterwards the house goes quiet, and the only sound is the river, minding its own business.

Port-Lesney is a small village, so the château supplies the evening entertainment, and the house shuts for several weeks in winter. The kitchen has had several chefs in recent years, so the menu rarely sits still; the river and the cellar are the constants. Germigney belongs to couples, and to wine lovers exploring the Jura's newly fashionable bottles, with the cellars of Arbois and the old saltworks of Salins-les-Bains close by.

In the village, the owner also runs a bistro called Le Pontarlier, which on this river sounds less like a name than a family memory. And guests who order a pastis on the banks of the Loue need not worry about the effect on the scenery. The river has had stronger.