Leg 5: Pre-Alps and Nyons, olives and the gîte du Lièvre
A few years ago I read an article about how many of the olive oils we buy today are fake or altered.
That’s to say that where people can get away with using crap oil and then colouring it with chlorophyll or what have you, they’ll happily scam whomever they can to make a buck. What you’re left with, paraphrasing the late Douglas Adams of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is an end product that “becomes something not entirely unlike olive oil.”
That really bugs me. My husband watched a report on television a few months ago on how olives are processed and said he will never again buy commercial black olives. Basically, almost all the black olives you buy are picked green and soaked in an alkaline solution, oxygen and an iron compound which turns the skins black and shiny. Ew.
Well, not in Nyons.
When we left our friend’s place in Haute Provence, we drove down through some amazingly rugged country, through deep cut gorges with rock walls resembling layer millefeuille pastry squished sideways. There was very little water below us and everything was tinder dry and ready to go in flames with a careless flick of a cigarette out the window.
Nyons
We arrived in the heart of France’s olive country, namely, the renowned olives and olive oil of Nyons. It’s a gorgeous town and they even have a Roman bridge that is still in use today. We stopped for a drink and were served a small bowl of luscious black olives bathing in the most delicious oil I’ve ever tasted.
Olives start out green, then turn purple and finally, when they are actually ripe in December, they’re all black and wrinkled. Our server brought us a little dish of these olives and they were bathing in golden green oil. We each speared one and as I bit down, the skin of the olive broke away leaving the luscious oil-covered pulp filling my mouth.
Oh, my Lord. No wonder real olives are so expensive; and so worth it. I glanced up at my husband who had a dreamy expression on his face. When he looked at me he broke into a wide, happy grin, his eyes crinkling up as he took a sip of his beer.
The sun had gone down and dusk was quickly falling into the cracks of the valley. It had been a long day and we headed to a camping-on-the -farm spot where the owner greeted us with polite simplicity.
Camping on a farm
We tasted his delightful olives, tapenade and affinade, which is a simple purée of black olives. We ended up with two small bottles of olive oil from different kinds of olives, a package of black olives and one of green olives, a jar of affinade and I couldn’t resist buying a bag of toasted hazelnuts from his farm as well.
I proceeded to make a stunning pasta dish with all of his products. Gallbladder disease be damned, the meal had us both swooning in delight.
We wandered around town, visited a free museum that shows how oil used to be made, including beautiful examples of pottery that held oil and olive jars. I could have stayed in Nyons a week and not get bored of the view or the olives. I seriously need to go back.
Next stop, Le Gîte du Lièvre
A gîte is a kind of holiday rental accommodation and can take the form of a house, apartment, little cabin or even a campground.
My husband had been to this Gîte du Lièvre many years before during the open season. We drove through Les Buis de Baronnies, picked up some groceries and then headed up the long, dead-end road. Don’t try it with a long campervan as you have to navigate down very bumpy roads to the place. The air was dry with just a hint of crisp fall weather. The resinous pine aroma blended with the wild lavender and thyme growing all around me. Natural aromatherapy at its best!
We hopped out of the van and the owner had a slightly perplexed but welcoming look on her face as we asked if we could have a place to camp for a night or two. She said that they were closed for the season but we were allowed to park up by the volleyball field and had a spectacular view of the mountain.
We settled in for the night, and the next day geared up for a long walk up and around the mountain behind us. It took around 4 hours and we were gifted with some of the most spectacular views I’d yet seen on the trip.
As I gazed out at the mountain dominating the horizon in the distance, I kept thinking how small we are and yet, in the same light, how rare and precious we all are at the same time. Alas, I am philosophic at the best of times but add a good red wine to the mix and I can get pretty existential.
And wine is where we were headed next. I’d been drinking the wines and hearing about the Côte du Rhone for years and was looking forward to seeing and savouring Beaumes de Venise, Vacqueyras and Gigondas in the next few days.
