In Drôme Provençale, just as in neighbouring Vaucluse, truffle production is the centre of attention between December and the end of March. This precious mushroom is only harvested during the winter months. In the area there are about 200 professional truffle producers, which basically means farmers who own, irrigate and maintain the truffières, or truffle plantations. Sylvain Gauthier, who is owner of Le Saint-Rémy limted company based at Saint-Restitut in the Drôme Provençale, is one of the biggest producers of truffles in the Tricastin.
He divides his time between growing wine on his 40 hectare vineyard which produces Côtes-du-Rhône, Côtes-du-Rhône Villages and Grignan-les-Adhémar (all former wines from the Tricastin), and cultivating truffles on his 10 hectares truffière, five hectares of which is in actual production.
“My family has been producing truffles for the last four generations,” he explains. “Each generation plants truffle orchards for the next generation, bearing in mind that it can take between 10 and 25 years before truffles grow. We have to plant young, green oak trees in chalky soil with a PH of 7 to 7.5. As far as I’m concerned, producing truffles is a real passion and it also brings in a bit of extra money. During the truffle season, I visit my truffières,with my dog Théo. In 2003, which was a very dry year, I harvested less than 10 kg of truffles but in good years you can harvest almost 100 kg, which is pretty amazing”.
On average France produces approximately 30 tonnes of truffles, 70% of
which come from the Triscastin, Vaucluse and Uzès area. A keen advocate of his trade, Sylvain Gauthier shares his passion throughout the winter with seminar groups staying at the Esplan Hôtel.
“The hotel’s owner, Claude Paulin, calls me up and I then take groups into the truffière for a session of truffle hunting lasting over an hour. I provide the service free of charge because I know that most of the participants will buy truffles at the end of the session, once they’ve been served a glass of good wine. They’re always impressed by the sight of my dog running off, stopping at a specific place and starting to scratch the soil. Our aim is to find really good truffles, by which I mean the black truffle (tuber melanosporum) and the winter truffle. Both of them look the same but the price doubles for black truffles, which are more refined. It’s actually not that easy to tell the difference, which is what we try to get our clients to understand when they come to the Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux market, monitored by professional truffle producers”.
This is an activity that is growing in popularity, attracting truffle fans from throughout Europe all winter long. Sylvain Gauthier accompanies three or four groups of between two and15 people every week, whilst also working hard on looking after his truffières. The hard work seems to be paying off, as the market at Saint-Paul-Trois-Châtraux is beginning to overshadow the one at Richerenches which is more targeted at wholesalers…
Sylvain Gauthier, in Saint-Restitut (DrĂ´me)
Tel.: 00 33 (0)4 75 04 74 07
