Amongst the gallic delights on offer on their website they include smoked and unsmoked garlic, Corsican Jams, Snails, Olive Oils and Tapenades as well as an interesting selection of ciders, wines and Champagne from France. The website is interesting with a recipe selection and an interesting article on the Tarte Tropezienne - a dessert tart from St Tropez, which Kimberley Lovato describes as
looking like a “custard hamburger”!

The France Show promises to be an exciting event for Francophiles - and for some of us may be the nearest we get to France this year, unless the exchange rate improves! And as well as visiting French Flavour on Stand L104 , you can also enjoy:=

• Live cookery demonstrations by top chefs including Jean-Christophe Novelli
• The UK’s largest exhibition of French property
• Live music, dancing and entertainment
• Property buying seminars
• Holiday ideas and travel seminars
• Language product demonstrations and seminars
• Art, Shopping, Can Can dancers, Showgirls and so much more…

An you can still book for just £10 per person - see www.thefranceshow.com/

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Moonlit parades, Citrus Exhibition, Gardens of Light and a Sunday Parade of Golden Fruit all offer plenty to see and do in mid-winter.

For more info see www.feteducitron.com

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Montélimar, the capital of nougat and gateway to Provence, celebrates Christmas with a Christmas village and market in the St Martin quarter - with tourist train, christmas lights, christmas carols - and stalls to entice you with tastings of soup,  tartiflette (a warming alpine dish of cheese, potatoes and bacon), French toasts or eggy bread (pains perdus), oysters, local wines from the Coteaux du Tricastin, roast chestnuts, mulled wine and, of course,nougat…

For more info see www.montelimar-tourisme.com/

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A group of the town’s VIPs parade the turkeys through the town and there is the opportunity to purchase various foodstuffs, regional produce, beautifully packaged sweets and chocolates, traditional decorations and local crafts.

Licques is also home to a special liqueur, the Licquoise, which is offered to visitors before the turkey procession. The birds are herded through the town on the Sunday morning, preceded by the Confrerie de Licques (local bigwigs and celebrities).

Throughout the weekend, there is also a regional food market (Marché du Terroir) and a dinner-dance.

For more info see www.licques-volailles.fr

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The younger visitors can enjoy the manger scene, a welcome parade for Santa Claus and for both young and older there is the ice skating rink in the place des Epars.

For gourmets you can try “grandes spécialités chartraines” :such as Mentchikoffs (fine chocolate wrapped in Swiss meringue), sweet soft macaroons or  le Cochelin, a delicious festive patisserie made from flaky pastry in the shape of a man which you dunk in choclate or jam!

For more info see www.chartres-tourisme.com

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So you could try something a little different for your festive fizz. 10% off a mixed case of sparkling wines,

The other half of the business specialises in gourmet foods from SW France and beyond, including duck and goose products such as confit, rillettes, patés, cassoulet and soups, jams, bottled fruit, tapenade and anchoiades and even snails!

Devigne Wines and Confit Direct

Michael & Patricia Robertson, PO Box 13748, North Berwick
EH39 9AA

Tel: 01620 890860 Fax: 05600 756287

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Dijon mustard is essentially a blend of brown and white mustard seeds mixed with wine vinegar. Purists argue that only wine vinegar made from good wine will do, and that cheaper wines produce poorer mustards. 

Generally if a mustard is called “a l’Ancienne” it is a wholegrain mustard as distinct from a smooth mustard which tends to affect the texture rather than the taste.

The other well-known French mustard is from Meaux (77 Seine et Marne, Ile de France) the same area as the Brie de Meaux cheese - unfortunately they do not go well together! Here Pommery produce a mustard with additional spices (secret recipe of course) as a wholegrain mustard in distinctive earthenware crocks with a cork stopper - always looks good on the table.

Maille still has a boutique shop in Dijon at 32, rue de la Liberté - and one in Paris at 6, place de la Madeleine
in the 8th arrondisement - close to those other foodie meccas of Fauchon and  Hediard.

For more info on Maille, its range of products and shops see http://www.maille.com

English mustard is ground mustard seed which is made into a paste often with just water, or sometimes beer or cider. It is much hotter than French mustard, and the best known example is Coleman’s in the bright yellow tin - Colemans is also owned by Unilever!

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Starting on the first Tuesday of December and on every Tuesday until mid-March the truffle market of Lalbenque takes place in the main street, called ” la rue du Marché aux Truffes “.The main street and neighbouring streets are fragrant with the perfume of truffles. Buyers and tourists crowd round the stalls where the producers sell their harvest.

For more info see www.lalbenque.net

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MORE travel ideas to explore
MORE French cuisine, including Jean-Christophe Novelli’s bistro
MORE wine theatres (4 instead of 2 last year)
NEW entertainment stage (Yes, the Can-Can girls are back)
NEW champagne and oyster bar within Property sector
and so many NEW surprises….

After 30 November tickets will be £10 each.

For more info see www.thefranceshow.com/

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Festival of the Wine Press

In Chenove (Cote d’Or, Bourgogne) they celebrate the wine press from 19-21 September 2008 - Fete de la Pressee

Some of the first wooden wine presses in France were constructed here in the 13th Century, and some of them are huge - capable of grapes to produce 23,000 litres of wine!

Over the three days they get one of these mighty machines working (it is harvest time after all) and supply the usual jollity, ceremony, music, dancing and the opportuinity to try good local food and wine!

For more info see www.ville-chenove.fr

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from 11-14 September 2008

The name Salies comes from the “Sel” in the naturally ocurring saline water of the area, which is famous as a Spa town. The local salt is an important contribution to the quality of the waters, and is also used in the local cuisine and for curing meats. As often is the case in France, worthies are invited to join the Jurade du Sel

The Bearn region also gives its name to Bearnaise Sauce which is a sauce made of clarified butter and egg yolks flavored with tarragon, shallots, chervil and tarragon - served with steak.

www.tourisme-bearn-gaves.com/

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The Chateau is also a fancy hotel and was the setting for an American TV series “Joe Millionaire”

The Château de la Bourdaisière is a magnificent sixteenth-century castle offering spacious and refined bed and breakfast rooms and apartments. Château de la Bourdaisière is set in a 140-acre park located between Tours and Amboise France, just an hour from Paris on the TGV - France’s high-speed train.

The castle was built by François the First for his favourite and is the setting for the program ‘Joe Millionaire’ on Fox television in 2003. Relax by the large open-air heated swimming-pool, enjoy a game of tennis or simply enjoy the pleasure of staying at this most remarkable French castle in the heart of the Loire Valley.

For more info see www.chateaubourdaisiere.com

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Mouries claims to be the premier oil-producing commune in France with a reported 80,000 olive vines producing Huile A.O.C. Vallée des Baux-de-Provence.

One of the key producers is Christian Rossi at the Moulin St Michel:-

Made from a variety of four olives: the Salonenque, the Berruguette, the Verdale and the Grossane. It is mellow and exquisite with delicate tones of small green fruit, Moulin Saint-Michel A.O.C. olive oil from the Valley of Baux-de-Provence is fragrant and exceptionally fine, bringing out all the best qualities of the dishes with which it is used.

There is also the Moulin du Mas de Vaudoret and the Moulin Co-operative de Mouries,

A number of signposted trails have been established including the Route de l’olivier (the olive route) which runs through the olive groves and around the okive oil mills. There is also a wine route and a route which takes you around the key buildings of the area.

For more info see www.mouries.com

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The sparkling wine appellation of Clairette de Die holds its Festival de la Clairette de Die on Saturday 6 September 2008 in the village of Vercheny (26 Drome, Rhone-Alpes), a vertiable feast of local food and all aspects of wine-making and drinking - with the added bonus of a local food market, music, dancing and ceremony!
Clairette de Die AC is a sparkling wine made east of the Rhone Valley between Montelimar and Valence. It is made from the Clairette and Muscat grapes, and tends to be light, fruity/grapey and refreshing - not to be confused with the drier Cremant de Die AC which is made solely from the Clairette grape. So just to clarify - Clairette de Die tends to be mainly Muscat - whilst Cremant de Die is mainly Clairette!!?!

Clairette de Die is a naturally sparkling white wine, which is characterised by its fruity flavour and its floral aromas. No sugar is added during the production process. There is simply no need, since tasting it is like biting into an extremely ripe fruit, an apricot or a peach, and simultaneously inhaling the aroma of white flowers such as the rose, eglantine, or honeysuckle. The colour can be more or less intense, ranging from an extremely pale straw colour to golden, depending on the method of production used by the winemaker. The sugar contained in Clairette is derived solely from the grapes, which means that this is a naturally sweet wine.

For more about the area and the festival see http://www.diois-tourisme.com/

For more about the wine appellation see http://www.clairette-de-die.com

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The Garlic bulbs are UK Grade 1 and are supplied in strings of 5, 10 and 20 heads, although larger sizes of up to 45 bulbs per string can be ordered.
Harvested at the end of each July, dried in the French sunshine and then smoked ntensively for 10 days, the Garlic string, if hung in a normal Kitchen environment will be remain in a good state until well into the following year. The Garlic Bulbs are large, strong flavoured and will remain edible well into 2009.

FrenchFlavour is now offering New Season Garlic from Picardie in addition to its other specialist offerings such as snails, pates, wine and champage, prepared meals, french cider. olives and tapenade etc.

There are passions about Garlic in France, whether you prefer the white, pink or purple garlic (each has its own proponents) - and of course there are numerous Garlic festivals such as St Clar (32 Gers, Midi-Pyrenees) and Lautrec (81 Tarn, Midi-Pyrenees) - see more about French Garlic here

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However at Domaine du Closel/Chateau des Vaults at Savennières AC (west of Angers) in the Loire Valley are offering enthusiasts the opportunity to get closer to the harvest and wine-making process with their “Harvest Adventure”

Take part in the celebration of the centuries-old tradition of grape harvesting hosted by the winemaking team of Domaine du Closel - Château des Vaults.
On the 27th of September and 11th of October Domaine du Closel-Château des Vaults invites you to spend the day at the historic 17 hectares (42-acre) vineyard in the Savennières appellation of the Loire Valley; a vineyard with the best terroirs of the region.
Space is limited ! To reserve your space for the Harvest Adventure, please contact Audrey Vergondy
on +33 (0)2 72 81 00 or request your booking form via email at chateau.des.vaults@orange.fr

This could be quite an experience - you are not expected to do the back-breaking work of picking the grapes, but the programme for each day does include an introduction to wine-making, a go at sorting grapes picked from 100 year-old vines, a chance to crush grapes with your feet, a vineyard brunch with music and dancing, a tasting and finishes off with a Gourmet Harvest Dinner with one of the region’s top chefs.

Savennières AC is a small prized wine area which many consider to produce the finest Chenin Blanc wines in the world. The stony vineyards lie on slopes of slate and sandstone which must be worked by hand, as they are too steep for machinery. Situated close to the Loire river, warmer temperatures and early morning fogs protect the vines from frost, a common problem in the area. The stoney soil retains heat from the sun providing warmth at night. At one time, Savennières was made sweet, but the style has evolved over the years to a point where Savennières is now made fully dry. (For more on Savennieres and the wines of the Loire Valley see www.loirevalleywine.com

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Duck casseroles and confit, Duck breast stuffed with foie gras, Snail confit, Escargotine (snail pate), Snails in a spicy Catalan sauce, Organic Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil, Organic peanuts, Haricot Beans and Green Lentils - just some items from an evocative list of fine stuff from small specialist producers in South West France - this is what Its French have on offer.

Based in Ashbourne, the company was set up by a husband and wife team just over a year ago. Simon and Carolyn now split their time between their homes in Derbyshire and Gascony (in Marciac (32 Gers, Midi-Pyrenees) with their French base providing the perfect platform for sourcing the finest of locally produced food direct from small artisan producers.

The It’s French! range is wholly sourced from small artisan producers, many of whom have inherited and continued the business of their parents and grandparents. All of them are passionate about their products, from conception through to distribution - so these are not mass-produced factory packed items.

It’s French! is committed to providing high quality products, not available in supermarkets in France or the UK, to people passionate about food. All the It’s French! selection is free from artificial colourings and preservatives.

Some new products have recently been launched which are sledom found in the UK (nor readiuly available in much of France) including snails sucarelle (in their shells in a rich wine and tomato sauce), a range of 7 different honeys (flower, acacia, lime and others) and a French version of gingercake made from honey and spices with orange or chocolate or apples and Calvados.

So you now have a source of some really interesting quality foods - and through the website at www.itsfrench.co.uk you can also read up about the small farmers/producers who make/grow/rear the products.

It’s French! 24 rue de juillac , MARCIAC, 32230
Tel: (UK) 01335 348452 Email: itsfrench@btinternet.com

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Eating and drinking in the Lot is not so much gastronomy, it is more a way of life. Simple pleasures like early-morning mushrooming results in gastronomic treats at meal times.
The food used to revolve around the polyculture practised by the small propriétaires, less so today. But fruits are still bottled, geese are still stuffed, pigs are fattened, påtés are tinned, ducks are turned into hunks of confit, and yellow chickens, dotted with oil and butter and legs akimbo, are forced into ovens to emerge an hour or so later, tasting simply sensational. It is a day-in, day-out, year-long occupation. Tout es bou per sa sason ‘To everything there is a season’ takes on new meaning. ©Helen Martin

Helen Martin writes more about the Lot in her blog at http://lotbook.blogspot.com/

To read more about Food and Wine in the Lot see………
From Helen Martin’s Book Lot: Travels Through a Limestone Landscape in SouthWest France
CHAPTER SIX: Food and drink

You arrange to meet at half-past five in the morning. Bleary-eyed, you rise and throw open the shutters to the day. The sky is white-blue and a thin summer mist, like half-whipped egg white, swirls over the valley beneath you, smothering the familiar landmarks. Only the pigeonniers can pierce it. It looks like a gigantic plate of îles flottantes.
As the mist lifts you see smoke rise from the cottage chimney. Across the fields you can hear the children shouting and then the slow rumble of the car. You pile in on top of the chatter and drive to the farm.
Everyone is up already, so we leave the children and plunge down the meadows behind the farm buildings towards the woods. Our feet are wet. The grass is soaked with dew. Through the woods we go, heads down. ‘Attention vipères!’ says Reine, but we do not see any snakes.
We are mushrooming and our eyes are skinned for the little yellow girolles with wavy up-turned caps and big bold ceps.
The floor of the wood is soft with the mould of centuries. It rained yesterday and our feet sink into a bed of moss and leaves.
For two hours we walk thus, abreast, eyes down, following the forest’s invisible paths, mushroom paths, etched across Reine’s mind in an almost subliminal way. Every year since childhood she has followed the same tracks.
We don’t find many- enough girolles for breakfast, and only one cep; it is too early in the year for ceps. We leave the woods and wade back through the grass, heading towards the children’s cries. The sun is up, the light is limpid. We enter the dark warmth of the cottage and sit at an old table in front of the fire.
Madame, Reine’s mother, examines our finds and sets tiny cups of thick black coffee in front of us. The talk is relaxed and convivial.
“Did you go to such and such a spot? What! There were none under the fallen chestnut? My God! Do you remember the ones we found here the year before last?’
It could be any day, any year, any century. We divide the spoils, sink a drop of eau de vie and I make my way home. It is only half-past ten. The day has begun well.

Eating and drinking in the Lot is not so much gastronomy, it is more a way of life. Simple pleasures like early-morning mushrooming results in gastronomic treats at meal times.
The food used to revolve around the polyculture practised by the small propriétaires, less so today. But fruits are still bottled, geese are still stuffed, pigs are fattened, påtés are tinned, ducks are turned into hunks of confit, and yellow chickens, dotted with oil and butter and legs akimbo, are forced into ovens to emerge an hour or so later, tasting simply sensational. It is a day-in, day-out, year-long occupation. Tout es bou per sa sason ‘To everything there is a season’ takes on new meaning.
If you want to know about eating and drinking in the Lot, you should read Pierre Benoit’s novel Le Déjeuner de Sousceyrac, a piece of writing in which is immortalised what was a rather dreary looking hotel in the slightly unprepossessing town of Sousceyrac, For a long time and in spite of its dreariness it had a Michelin star.* Today, it has to be said, the hotel has been renovated and the town cleaned up too.
In the days of the fictional book, Mme Prunet surprised her uninitiated guests with the offer of a simple chicken. It was just that she forgot to mention that it would be preceded by foie gras of duck and little freshwater crayfish straight from one of the many Ségala streams. Maybe she was being a touch mean, she wondered after the crayfish. Should she send the youngster to the épicerie for sardines? Then there was the trout and the dish of stuffed ceps, followed by jugged hare, then, at last the chicken, ending with a sumptuous omelette au rhum……

So what do you wash all this down with? What do Lenin, the Orthodox Church, the Tsars, Pope Jean XXII, Henri IV, Clément Marot, and the Romans all have in common? The answer is the wine of Cahors. The Orthodox Church adopted it as its communion wine; the Tsars used it at official functions; Pope Jean invited Quercy wine growers to cultivate his new vineyard at Chateauneuf (du Pape); Clément Marot called it ‘une liqueur de feu’; Caesar drank and exported it. It is thought that the slaves accompanying the Roman invaders brought wine-making skills to the area.
The English liked it enough to make the wine-growers of Bordeaux feel so threatened that they started to operate a protection racket of taxes and constraints against the Cahors growers during the Hundred Years War, François I planted Cahors vines at Fontainebleau.
A long history, therefore, but not always a proud one. Quality declined drastically in the fourteenth century, for example, and at subsequent times the wine was so poor it was only fit to be added to Bordeaux to give the latter depth. The region clawed its way back to prosperity in the nineteenth century (as much of the local architecture attests) only for phylloxera and war to drag it back down again. Cahors reached a milestone in 1971 when it was promoted to be an AOC wine and today the region produces 30 million bottles annually on about 4,000 hectares.
Traditionally a black wine full of tannin, Cahors is made from 70% Malbec, ( sometimes known Auxerrois or Cot grapes) combined with Merlot and/or Tannat, usually 15% of each, though the proportions are now being slightly modified to attract a wider market. Cahors is the only European stronghold of Malbec, a grape that has declined in popularity in Europe and which is very sensitive to frost. In recent years it has been grown very successfully in Argentina..
In spite of the tannin you can drink it young, when it is at its fruitiest, but also, sometimes, a bit harsh. Best to lay it down down - Malbec does need ageing to develop into a full-flavoured, robust, purple wine, with a long finish. It’s good with game and, as already mentioned, astonishingly good with the local cheese and duck.
But the tannin in the wine is a source of some discussion among the wine growers, some feeling that the essential nature of the wine is being altered to accommodate more modern palettes. Fingers are often pointed at incomers to the area, though there are some growers like Philippe Bernède of Clos La Coutale who are local and who successfully export less tannic, lighter wine, more adapted to contemporary taste.
The Jouffreau family take an opposite point of view. It is almost as if the wines are designed to be provocative and they pander to no one’s taste but their own. The wines they make, though, speak loudly of terroir and tannin as well as individuality and they are honest, earthy and often very, very good.
With your foie gras try a dessert wine by Jean Baldès who also makes the Clos Triguedina award winning wines- Triguedina meaning in Occitan “I am looking forward to dinner, me trigo de dina. One of his new offerings are the Vin de Lune ( white ‘moon’ wines) picked by hand in the dark, or very early in the morning when temperatures are cool. This is an apparent revival of a sixteenth century habit when the peasants used to creep into the manor and steal the grapes, which cool and fresh as they were, retained their fruitiness. Baldès also produces the 100% Malbec Prince Probus and recently started making the New Black Wine, based on a thirteenth century method of production when the black wine of Cahors was famous all over Europe.
The cradle of the Cahors wine is the area between Catus and Bagat, Soturac and Arcambal, but again disagreements arise on which is the best land, though tradition has it that wine produced higher up the coteaux of the river banks is best, albeit production on the steep slopes is also the most expensive. The wine grown along the river valley tends to be full-bodied and deeply fruity, that of the causse, lighter and elegant.
The growers’ aim is firmly set at quality now, the AOC appellation being hard-won and for this reason they try to stick together. But reclassification of the vineyards is now the big fault-line in the area, with some, like Alain-Dominique Perrin (see p 133) feeling that poorer land must be dumped in favour of zones de cru and others afraid that it is their land that will be dumped and that there will be little compensation.
Many of the château vineyards are visitable …and the Chateau de Haute Serre, high on the causse offers an interesting tour as well. Rows of vines are a heart-warming sight somehow and here in the Lot, as in some other places you will often see roses planted at the end of the rows, not to look pretty, although they do, but as an early warning system for mildew
At the end of the last century, the phylloxera parasite, all but wiped out the wines of the area. The propriétaires were advised to replant with American vines, which were resistant to the disease, but these were expensive and many of the small farmers could not afford such a venture. Moreover the wine produced was of poor quality. It was a devastating time. It is impossible to overstate the effect phylloxera had on the rural economy. Production fell dramatically, livelihoods were lost and it was in desperation that some turned to truffles.
The slow climb back, therefore has been all the more impressive, though there have been other blows along the way, such as the hard frosts of 1956 that killed the young vines, and things seem to be at another crossroads just now when harsh decisions will need to be made if the appellation is to go on improving. It boils down to quantity or quality.
The big cooperative, Côtes d’Olt (Olt is the old name for Lot) which incorporates about 250 growers, is at Parnac, where a modern plant is capable of bottling some 9,000 bottles per hour and produces 25% of the entire appellation.
You can buy direct from the cooperative at very reasonable prices, but it would be a pity not to buy direct from some of the vineyards. There is a list available of all AOC producers- livret du vin de Cahors
Names to look out for are Perrin’s Lagrezette; Bernède’s Clos La Coutale; Jean-Luc Baldès at Clos Triguedina; Georges Vigouroux at Haute Serre and Clos de Gamot, home of the late, great Jean Jouffreau. However there are many others.
And although Cahors is associated with red wine it now produces both white, rosé and even desert wines too. The white and rosé are sold as vin de pays however not Appellation Controlée.
The best years of recent times are said to be 1990, 1995 and 2000.
Lesser wine, if honest, is that produced by the Coteaux du Quercy and the Vins du Pays du Lot.
Not all that long ago it was a common sight to see portable stills, the Hell’s Cauldrons as they were known, being dragged round the communes by tractor, going from farm to farm as people distilled their year’s supply of eau de vie de prune, a strong colourless liquid smelling strongly of plums. Twenty litres was the maximum allowed, but at up to 50% alcohol.
In an effort to stamp out the practice and earn a bit of money, the government introduced a licensing system. Licenses were issued to the head of the household for life only. As the men die off, so the right to distil dies with them and soon the only eau de vie will be that available on supermarket shelves. Vieille Prune is available in pretty bottles all over the département, taking 10 kilograms of plums to make one bottle.
Another popular digestif is made from walnuts. Eaux de noix is a dark brown sticky drink, too sweet for me, although I quite enjoy its companion drink, vin de noix, an equally sweet aperitif. This is made from walnuts too though the fact that it is served on ice reduces the sweetness a bit. Noisette is a digestif made from hazel nuts and there is also now a new Valentré aperitif which combines Cahors wine, walnut and blackcurrant and is not as dire as it sounds. At Arcambal, Christophe Ratz is making Bière d’Olt, good for quaffing in the summer heat, but unlikely to make toomuch impact on the wine production of the area.
Of course wine in France is always associated with food and it is the simplest meals that are sometimes the most enjoyable. A glass of Cahors and a cabécou or Rocamadour and all seems right with the world
Oun y a pa et bi Lou rey pot Béni - Where there is bread and wine a king may come.

*Michelin star regained post-publication

©Copyright: Helen Martin
Lot: Travels Through a Limestone Landscape in SouthWest France

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….It’s good to visit them, too, to get to grips with the subject properly. They need all the allies they can get in the battle against industrial dairy plastic. They’re also to be found in some of the remotest, greenest and loveliest bits of France. Here are five of our favourites. All have an AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée), which, as with wine, means that the item has to come from where it has always come from and be made as it has always been made. All will be glad to see you (and your money). Naturally, they might still drive you crackers with purple prose. You’ll just have to live with that. We’re travelling north to south.

So his tour encompasses Camembert (61 Orne, Normandy), Munster (68 Haut Rhin, Alsace), Epoisses (21 Cote d’Or, Burgundy), Comté (39 Jura, Franche-Comté) and the Auvergne which includes Saint Nectaire (63 Puy de Dome, Auvergne) - all of which are in beautiful parts of France and well worth a visit.

In the Auvergne there is a signposted Cheese route (Route des Fromages) - you can download a map and details at www.fromages-aoc-auvergne.com

In the Jura there is a Cheese Trail - details of creameries and farms open to visitors can be seen at www.lesroutesducomte.com

If you cannot get out to the farm, then these are French Cheese shops we can recommend:-

Fromagerie Marie-Anne Cantin, 12 rue du Champ de Mars PARIS - just off rue Cler in the 7th arrondisement - an overwhelming selection of delicious cheeses - very professional but also very helpful - also run tasting sessions.

To guide you in this wide field of cheese gastronomy Marie Anne Cantin and her husband Antoine Dias offer you tasting sessions.
According to the seasons , they will have you discover the different families of cheeses, their history, their making process , their character and particular flavour. You will learn how to choose your cheeses, eat, present and keep them.

Cremerie Marty Patrick, 160 rue Nationale CAHORS (46 Lot, Midi-Pyrenees) - excellent choice, also includes butter, cream and fresh pasta (see video)

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