THE BEST FAMILY FUN IN THE JURA SKI SUPPLIES LES RIVES SAUVAGES

wearily. He was desperate to try the biathlon – skiing cross-country to a range, air rifle on your back, stopping periodically to shoot at targets. A competition on the slopes put paid to that idea, but I had more luck. I dropped them all at the slopes then ran away to the lowlands, leaving Craig with his progeny and promises of compensatory bottles on my return.

In fact, even these jaded children would have enjoyed the Pignier winery. Jean-Étienne Pignier has fabulously creepy 13th-century cellars with vaulted stone ceilings: the winery was church property until it was bought by his family in 1794, after the French Revolution, and there’s still a secret passage (blocked, sadly) between the cellars and the village church. A large block of stone is in Métabief skiing (stationmetabief.com) is easy, friendly and cheaper than elsewhere: child ski passes from €22.50 (£20) per day, adults from €26.50 (£23.50). Equipment from Metaski (metaski.fr). chunks of bread speared on sticks and dunked in the pot. Offered at many places, L’Auberge des Érables in La Pesse’s was a huge success. (£40) for children under 12 – but absolutely brilliant. allowed to use the pool after 5pm, but the hotel wasn’t full and the kind receptionist let us all go in late – fortunately, since otherwise our skiing timetable would have prevented us from going in at all. The steam room and sauna were for 16-yearolds and over, but everyone enjoyed the little room set aside for relaxation and tea-drinking – as well as the high-pressure water jets.

We were having a lovely time, but Craig was still shooting me pitiful looks, probably because he wanted to go wine-tasting, too. I had tried to pacify him on my day of truanting by buying wines from Tissot and Pignier and an absorbing wine shop that was actually open: Essencia, in Poligny. And we had drunk incredibly well. But despite the pinot noir by Ganevat, the chardonnay from Michel Gahier and several excellent crémants (sparkling wines) including BBR, Tissot’s fabulous barrel-fermented 100 per cent chardonnay fizz, he wasn’t satisfied.

So on our penultimate night we let the children loose on the suite’s two gigantic screens – bliss for four addicts cruelly deprived of televisions in both their homes – and went for a fabulous, if less than leisurely, dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant usefully situated a five-minute stroll from our hotel. Le Bon Accueil has an oldfashioned ethos (Marc Faivre cooks, his wife, Catherine, is front of house) and a marvellous cellar: “You could be snowed in there for weeks and you wouldn’t go thirsty,” Jean-Étienne Pignier had assured me.

As we drove home the next day, our multiple wine purchases padded by ski clothing, we congratulated ourselves on having found the holy grail in this unjustly neglected region: sport and spa, good food and fine wine, a little history and a lot of fun. Everybody wants to ski and dog-sled again; the children also demand a return trip in summer to sleep in a treehouse and water-ski on the lake. I want to get into that infuriating wine shop in Arbois. And Craig? He just wants to go wine-tasting. is a 16-suite hotel on Lake Saint-Point, with spa.

Suite for six, including kitchen-dining area, from €120 (£105, les-rivessauvages.fr).

ALL GOOD THINGSAs well as its fine wines, the Jura has a tradition of superb food, below; above right, dogsledding