Somewhere along the way of my haphazard, improvisational French culinary education I got interested in olive oil—the diversity of olive oils—the different levels of greenness and maturity, olive varietals, oils produced after slight, controlled fermentation of the olives, and aromatic olive oils. It’s done wonders for my cooking; with few ingredients, I can enhance a salad, vegetable dish, fish or beef with a drizzle of this or a sprinkling of that.

I’m still an olive oil amateur, mind you, but I did get invited onto the jury of an international olive oil competition earlier this year. There were several juries, including a jury of olive oil professionals and juries of individuals experienced in tasting things. Mine was one of the latter. The challenge of being a juror isn’t to say I like this one or that one (anyone can do that) but to articulate your impression of each one, to compare judiciously and to defend your position, if necessary. I don’t know if I was up to the task, but I was certainly into the challenge. Here’s a picture of other members of the jury wondering what I’m doing there.

What was I doing there? I was using and improving my education in olive oil.

That was in Paris, but of course the most interesting way to educate one’s palate, improve one’s ability to articulate, and to meet producers and have fun along the way, is through travel, which for me means leaving Paris. Hitting the road and meeting people who know how to talk about what they produce or create—that’s the way I enjoy educating myself, and I take great pleasure in introducing travelers to those producers and creators.

Bastide du Laval in Cadenet (Luberon)

It was while biking in the Luberon area of Provence—lots of olive orchards in Provence—that I first stopped at Bastide du Laval. You don’t even have to be interested in olive oil to enjoy a walk among the orchards there with a beautiful view out to the Luberon hillscape.

In 1998, Roland and Carine Coupat, after living in the United States for a dozen years working in the tourist and travel industry, decided to return to France, and the following year they bought a wine estate in Cadenet in the Luberon area. While continuing to work in the travel business in France, they planted thousands of olive trees on the property. The trees grew and so did their son Léo. Léo now runs the place, which has about 4000 olive trees spread over 37 acres. Olive oil is the main product but there’s also still vineyard on the estate that produces some easy-drinking wine. Meet Léo.

Like most producers, Léo Coupat makes a wide range of olive oils. As I say, there’s a question of greenness, maturity, varietals, etc. Some of them are more to my taste than others—rather, some I would know how to use more than others. Visitors can have a free tasting of them all and also learn how olive oil is made. Any olive oil education should avoid the study of aromatics for the first semester, but here, on a second visit and with a little experience on my palate, I bought a bottle of Bastide du Laval olive oil with natural truffle aroma. I wanted to figure out how to use it without overpowering a dish. You know truffles, right?, truffe in French, those pungent tumor-shaped mushrooms that are dug up in, among other places, Provence. Call it truffle oil if you like, though that makes it sound as though the oil is from truffles whereas it’s produced by mixing truffle aroma in with the olive oil.

So what to do with this truffle oil? Léo advised me to start by drizzling a little on pasta to get a feel for how to use it. Start with some neutral extra virgin olive oil, he said, so that the fresh pasta won’t stick, then add just a bit of truffle oil, taste, then add more until you’ve found what you consider to be the appropriate dose. So that’s what I did, with a little salt and pepper, and topping my dish with parmigiano reggiano. Quite simple and quite good, I must say. My truffle oil education is now off and running.

So what do I try next? I’m thinking a slight drizzle on roasted or mashed potatoes, maybe grate some cheese on that. I’ll have to think about what cheese to use. If I were a French truffle hunter (or an expensive restaurant during truffle season), I’d add some bits of truffle in scrambled eggs for lunch or dinner, so I suppose that a nip of truffle oil instead of the actual truffles could work. Worth a try. But keep is simple, let the truffle oil do the work. You don’t need a dozen ingredients to make a pleasing meal. A sprinkling on grilled meat? Absolutely, with some herbs on top—herbes de Provence, of course. And pizza, I’ll definitely try it on pizza. How about on fish? Salmon? Maybe. Monkfish. Why not? But you’ve got to be delicate with aromatic olive oil, because as a wise man once wrote: “Just a little, not a lot, or something may happen, you never know…”

Bastide du Laval, 199 Chemin de la Royère, 84160 Cadenet. Tel.: +33 (0)4 90 08 95 80.

CastelaS in Les Baux de Provence

On another trip, driving this time—Saint Rémy, Les Baux, Arles—I had an enjoyable and instructive encounter with Catherine and Jean-Benoît Hugues, producers of CastelaS olive oil, at their mill, tasting room and boutique two miles east of the tourist village of Les Baux de Provence. Coincidentally, for I wasn’t actually looking for an American connection, they, too, had lived in the United States, 15 years in Arizona, before rerooting themselves in Provence in 1997.

Theirs is a tremendous estate, with 110 acres within the olive oil appellation (AOP or Protected Designation of Origin) Vallée des Baux de Provence and another 160 acres outside of the appellation zone. In the photo above, you can see the village of Les Baux in the background. From another angle, one would see the Alpilles in the distance. As at Bastide du Laval, you can enjoy a tasting of their wide range and also visit their installation to see how olive oil is made.

Returning recently, I bought a bottle of Noir d’Olive (Olive Black) oil, which has a deep, rich, slightly peppery, slightly fermented taste. “Perfect for salads, fish, mushrooms, mashed potatoes” reads the bottle, all of which sounds appropriate to me. I started with salad since it’s nearly a dressing in its own right. Next up, fish and mashed potatoes. The CastelaS website provides recipes for use of their olive oils.

Moulin CastelaS, Mas de l’Olivier, 13520 Les Baux de Provence. Tel. +33 (0)4 90 54 50 86. Taking D27 east of the village, you’ll see CastelaS on the left shortly before reaching D5.

Other Provence Olive Oils

Those are but two of the many olive oil producers in Provence. I discovered many other quality producers when the labels were revealed after my participation on the jury of the AVPA olive oil contest. AVPA stands for Agence pour la Valorisation des Produits Agricoles, meaning Agency for the Appreciation of Agricultural Products. Jean-Emmanuel Jourde, AVPA president, and Philippe Juglar, AVPA secretary, have created a judging system to award different types of edible oils (of which I was on one of the olive oil juries), coffees roasted at place of origin, teas of the world, and chocolates processed at place of origin.

(Several months after participating on the olive oil jury, I accepted an invitation to join on the jury for “fantasy” chocolates, which I found much more difficult as far as my own abilities to analyze, describe and rate. Along with notes of citrus, basil, cherry or whatever, I kept finding that the earthy dark chocolates tasted like delicious mud and had trouble finding other words for it without prompting.)

The olive oil competition was international, with most entrants naturally coming from Mediterranean countries, which produces the vast majority of the world’s olive oil. Spanish and Italian olive oils dominated among the winners. Lots of uninspiring industrial olive oils come from those world leaders in production, but we tasted some exceptional artisanal oils from there. French production, by comparison with other countries along the Mediterranean basin, is relatively confidential. Nevertheless, there were some Provençale stand-outs among the awardees,  such Domaine Salvator (Cuvée Paradis), Huile H de Leos (Selection H de Leos Fruite Mur), Moulin à huile de Partegal (Cuve Magali), Moulin Cornille (Cuve 63), which can also be visited also near Les Baux de Provence, and “Lol’ive” Domaine Leydier (Noir cuve 9,2).

Balsamic Vinegar from Bals’Art in Roussillon

“French dressing” as known in the U.S. has little relation to the homemade dressing put on salad in French homes, which is typically a vinaigrette of olive oil, (wine) vinegar, (Dijon) mustard and seasoning. So after getting to know the olive oils of Bastide du Laval and Moulin CastelaS, I jumped on the occasion to get to know the balsamic vinegars of Jean-Michel Martias’s Bals’Art when I chanced upon his shop while visiting the pretty ochre-cliff village of Roussillon during a recent driving tour of the Luberon.

Jean-Michel Martias, who is originally from Marseille and has been producing vinegar since 2017, may have advisors and assistants, but to hear him speak about his balsamic vinegars is to hear the passion of a one-man band explaining how he arranges and plays his instruments. From my point of view as a vinegar novice, though a bit less so after visiting the shop, he presents a superb range of about two dozen vinegars. He also does perpetual research for future products. Most sales are from his shop in Roussillon, where visitors can have an extensive tasting, and online.

Jean-Michel currently produces his vinegars from the musts of organic syrah and granache grapes from Provence and Lambrusco (red) and trebbiana (white) from Italy. He uses low-temperature reduction over 10 to 40 hours, so while his balsamic vinegars don’t follow the process (and pricing) of 12+ years of wooden-barrel ageing that goes into Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, they are also a far cry from the watered down industrial balsamic vinegars that are typically found in supermarkets. For his flavored vinegars, the flavor comes through maceration of, for example, basil, pepper, lemon or lavender honey.

I purchased a bottle of his Velours Noir (Black Velvet), a dense, syrupy vinegar tasting of ripe cherry and raspberry. Too rich and intense for a vinaigrette, I think. When I called Jean-Michel later from home to ask how else he recommended that I use it, he suggested dribbling it on a tomato or sprinkling it on vanilla ice cream or drizzling some on duck magret. For now, I’ve only enjoyed a few drops on a teaspoon, then a few more drops, and I had to stop myself before consuming the entire bottle as though it were an after-dinner liqueur.

I also bought a balsamic vinegar block, a product that Jean-Michel makes by adding to his vinegar the gelling agent agar-agar, an extract from red seaweed from along France’s Atlantic coast. Using a fine grater, I grated a few bits on an endive salad on which I’d simply poured some of the CastelaS Noir d’Olive mentioned earlier. It tasted as I would have imagined: vinegar strips in an olive-rich salad. Interesting, I’d say for now. Again, I asked Jean-Michel how best to approach the block. Use it wherever you might otherwise add a squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, he told me. In other words, it’s something to play with during recess while pursuing my Provence olive oil education.

Bals’Art, 15 rue du Castrum, 84220 Roussillon. Tel.: +33(0)4 32 52 16 40.

© 2021, Gary Lee Kraut

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Some impressions and practical information concerning the area covered in Parts 1 and 2 of “Eat like a sixth grader, drink like a wine enthusiast,” including Nyons, Taulignan and Grignan and featuring olives, lavender, silk and Madame de Sévigné.

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Nyons
After dinner I set out alone from the Hotel Colombet to haphazardly explore the cobbled streets and alleys of the oldest portion of Nyons. I eventually made my way an ancient bridge arching high over the narrow Eygues River. It was dark. The bridge was blocked at my end. In the dark it didn’t appear to go anywhere one would want venture at night. The area felt abandoned, forgotten.

It was just an impression on a cold night but the truth didn’t matter. There’s an attractive mystery that comes from wandering through an old town at night, a hesitation before turning corners and walking under archways, a mix at apprehension and relieve at seeing someone walking towards you in the opposite direction against a backdrop of stones walls and strangely cast shadows. It’s the reason I’d set out alone rather than accept an invitation from the others to visit the town with them once they’d finished the wine. I didn’t want to visit; I wanted to explore.

In daylight the following morning the mystery had evaporated. The shops were opening. The ancient bridge was now interesting for its form rather than its enigma. The shutters and the rooftops of the old town and the vegetation along the hill on the opposite side of the bridge all spoke of Provence.

Nyons is best known for the table olives and olive oil produced in the surrounding area. The olive oil is a smooth and light with a mild taste of spice and a nip of pepper. The unlikely traveler passing through the area from the end of November through December can enjoy the view and buzz of the olive harvest. Visitors in summer will more likely be seeking out lavender fields in bloom when exploring the area of Provence and Haute Provence, including the Nyons region.

The cultivation of lavender has increased substantially since the early 1980s in the provençal areas of southeast France (Drome, Alpes de Haute Provence, Haute-Alpes, Vaucluse), whose land and various altitudes lend themselves to growing three main types of lavender—aspic lavender, “true” lavender and lavandin. Lavandin, the most ordinary of the three, is what grows in the lower-lying areas around Nyons.

Nyons has a distillery for lavender and other aromatic plants, Bleu Provence, one of about 120 such distilleries in France. Visitors can learn about the production and distilling of lavender now and in the past I the distillery’s little museum open. There’s also a selling all things lavender. See Bleu Provence’s website for opening times and entrance fees. www.distillerie-bleu-provence.

For suggestions of itineraries of “Lavender Roads” throughout Provence and the Alps that can by car, motorcycle, even bike see this official tourist board website.

Taulignan
Taulignan is a small town that’s a 20-minute (12-mile) drive from Nyons. It has a population of 1600 of which only 160 within the medieval walls. A quick walk through that medieval portion gave the impression of a gated community that hasn’t yet figured out parking restrictions. I suspect that it’s deserving of a more leisurely stroll, however Taulignan’s Silk Museum was my actual destination.

The history of silk production is one of those many things that I’d hardly think myself curious about, but once inside the museum I found myself absorbed for a good 30 minutes by the history of silk production beginning in the area from the 17th century until the end of the 19th century, with a particular emphasis on 18th- and 19th-century developments in techniques and machinery. There are explanatory panels in French and English. The museum also tells the story of local silk factories that housed and employed orphans and disinherited girls.

Locally produced silk thread was transported to Lyon, formerly the center for the production of silk fabrics and products in France. France no longer produces silk though a tiny remnant of the silk fabric and garment business still exists in Lyon. The agriculture surrounding Taulignan, once marked by up to 13,200 mulberry trees and their silk worms, is now devoted to vines for Cote du Rhone wines and lavender with the occasional honey producer and truffle hunter, as throughout the region.

The Silk Museum (Musée de la Soie) is located just outside the main opening in the medieval ramparts. See the musem’s website for opening times and entrance fees. More information (in French only) about the village itself can be found here.

Grignan
The hilltop castle of Grignan, four miles from Taulignan, can be seen in the distance as you approaches from the plain. Its architecture and interior are less notable than its place in French literary history. This is where Madame de Sévigné, the celebrated figure of 17th-century epistolary literature, would come to visit her daughter Madame de Grignan, with whom she otherwise and frequently corresponded with by letter.

“My heart is at rest when it is next to you” (Mon cœur est en repos quand il est auprès de vous), she wrote upon leaving her daughter after a visit in 1673, before concluding “alas, here we are back in letters” (hélas ! nous revoilà dans les letters.) Reading that letter makes me feel nostalgic for the days not so long ago when people were more interested in voice communication rather than in texting.

Madame de Sévigné’s collected letters reveal this intense mother-daughter relationship as well as life, fashion, literature and politics at the Court of Versailles during the time of Louis XIV. Those letters are likely to be on the curriculum of those students now eating 25% organic food at lunch throughout the department.

The countryside of Grignan, Tricastin and the Popes Enclave, all in this same general area, is leading producer of the hunted black truffle “tuber melanosporum.” Grignan is just five miles north of Europe’s largest truffle market held on Saturdays from mid-November to mid-March in the town of Richerenches (see this article on France Revisited). Truffles are integrated into menus throughout the region at that time of year, in dishes such as the creamy scrambled eggs with truffles (brouillade de truffes) that I had just outside of the old town at one of the finer local restaurants La Table des Delices.

For a photo-reportage about this region in winter see here.

End note for cyclists: We are just north of Mont Ventoux, the largest mountain in the sector, known to cyclists both amateur and professional for challenging gradients up to 10%.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

– Return to Part 1 of Drome Provencale: Eat Like a Sixth Grader, Drink Like a Wine Enthusiast
– Return to Part 2 of Drome Provencale Eat Like a Sixth Grader, Drink Like a Wine Enthusiast

The post Drome Provencale: Medieval Towns, Castles, Olives, Lavender and Silk (Part 3 of 3) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

We continue on to Valence. This small city that isn’t quite Provence but even on a mid-winter’s night when the temperature falls below freezing and the café chairs are stacked tall against the wall, there’s no mistaking the affinity of the pastel buildings and gnarly plane trees of its old town square with central squares further south.

Spring and summer travelers are still at home planning sunny vacations as we drive further south to the village of Grignan, whose castle stands cold and silent above the village.

It’s snowing as we venture out onto the terrace of the castle to look out over the dormant lavender fields. If it’s lavender then it must be Provence, n’est ce pas? Indeed, we are in the southern portion of the department called Drôme, a zone known as Drôme Provençale.

Nothing says Provence more than an image of flowering lavender fields in July, certainly not this field of white and green oaks in winter (below). Still, this landscape is a thing of beauty for he who farms and hunts for truffles here, for while the lavender fields await sun and warmth, the soil is still alive enough to give birth to truffles, pungent fungi known as black diamonds or black gold.

From mid-November to mid-March, truffles develop unseen and seemingly haphazardly, and when ripe their odor can be detected by specially trained dogs.

The week’s hunt, whether in the wild or on one’s own plantation, can be sold at the Saturday morning (mostly) wholesale market in Richerenches, five miles south, in what is unmistakably Provence (Vaucluse). This winter’s crop of the prestigious tuber melanosporum, known here as the black truffle of Tricastin, has been selling for $500-550 per pound (800-900€/kg), depending on the week, with a pre-Christmas peak of $730 per pound (1200€/kg). The lesser tuber brumale has been goes for about $245-290 per pound (400-500€/kg). Prices are naturally higher at the retail market held on Sunday mornings in Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateau.

Fifteen miles east of Grignan, the old vines of this Côtes-du-Rhone vineyard take a well-deserved rest, as do the even older olive trees—producing appellation Nyons olives—on the hill in the background.

We go inside for the tasting. No need to wait for warm weather for a taste of Provence in Drome Provencale.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut (photos and text)

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