Correns (Provence), 100% Organic

Correns, where 100% of what is grown is organic since1995Correns, Var (Provence)
You may have heard already about Correns, this village in Provence which markets itself as being the first village in France to be 100% organic, meaning that 100% of the food and grapes produced on the village's administrative sector are organic. This charming village with a population of 820 has a total administrative surface of 3700 hectares of which 400 are cultivated, mostly with vineyards. The picture above shows one of these vineyards, the village itself being afar on the left of the dark tree in the center [see close-up on the right]. The village and its surroundings are particularly well preserved, I mean still authentic despite its 100%-organic fashionable motto and the recent arrival of a famous American family. It is located in the Var département, relatively far from the Meditterranean, in a hilly and forested region which is dubbed la Provence Verte (green Provence), gathering 37 villages of the inner Var, far from the crowds and the noise. The windy secondary roads that lead to Correns pass through the most scenic Provencal setting you can imagine : woods and garrigue, small plots of vineyards stuck in the undulations and curves of valleys, intertwinned with olive tree orchards and opening here and there on these mountain villages with narrow streets and lots of fountains where houses seem to huddle tight against each other around the church. Just the trip from Brignoles, the nearest mid-size community in the region is a wonder by itself : after you pass Le Val, you have this scenic road across the scented landscape, vineyards, olive trees and an occasional chapel or old construction standing there, exemplifying the beautiful interaction between an age-old civilization and nature.

The Cercle's terrace in the main street of Correns The village is accidently known also for being the new home of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who have bought an estate of several hundreds hectares where one of the organic wineries is located, Chateau Miraval. The couple seems to live secluded in the property and is said to almost never venture in the village because of paparazzi pressure. That's too bad for them because whatver the size of the property, the easygoing ways of the atmosphere and of its inhabitants is one of the main assets of the village. Chateau Miraval makes wine from organically-grown vineyards, like all the wineries based in the village. You'd have a hard time trying to visit the winery, from what I read. To be frank, I didn't try or even call, that may be a mis-assumption that the answer would be no. Maybe Brad and Angelina read wineterroirs... if this is the case, let me know that you love wine and show me around...;-) I'll then say more about this estate which has been regularly noted for the quality of its wines. They even have a Rosé Cuvée Pink Floyd over there. One of the previous owners, Jacques Loussier (a musician, see this interview in French), had created a recording studio (studio Miraval) there through which many French and international stars spent some time... He later sold the estate to an American banker who in turn sold it to Brad Pitt.
There's one place where the couple occasionally goes for dinner, this is L'Auberge du Parc, the gastronomic restaurant of the village (owned by the Dutch Onno Stijl), at a stone throw from le Cercle de l'Avenir, the Café/bar. According to this recent article (in French) about the famous couple in Correns, the coming of the couple to the Auberge was kept secret when they decided recently to dine there and other customers in the restaurant were asked to switch their mobile phone off by fear of snapped pictures ending up in magazines... The Chef makes a Menu du Marché every day, based on fresh products bought in the area and adapted to the client's tastes. There are two formulas for lunch, priced 25 and 30 Euro, and a Menu Complet for dinner at 35 Euro. A few wines (bottle prices) spotted on the wine list :
Le Vallon Sourn (coop) Blanc cuvée tradition 2007, 17 Euro; White l'Or des Fées 2007 (coop), 30 Euro; there are three other Correns-coop wines including a red magnum at 36 Euro; Domaine des Aspras : a red, a rosé and a white (2006-2008-2007) at 25 Euro each; Chateau Miraval (this it !) : Miraval Rosé 2008 C. de P. 25 Euro; Miraval Red 2004 C. de P. 30 Euro; white 2007 Coteaux Varois, 25 Euro; Miraval, Red Bergerie d'Aquino 2004 (from vineyards Miraval has in Tourves, near La Roquebrussanne) 58 Euro; Domaine de Saint Andrieu, Sauvignon 2007, 16 Euro; Bandol La Tour du Bon, white 2008 28 Euro, rosé 2007/2008 25 Euro, red 2005/2006 30 Euro; Chateau des Annibals, white and rosé C. V. 2008, 20 Euro, red 2004 la Ribotte 28 Euro; Real Martin rosé 2008 30 Euro, red 2005 30 Euro, Optimum Rouge 2003, 30 Euro. Chateau Routas, white Blanc coqueliquot 2007, red Rouge Cyrano 2007, both at 34 Euro; Champagne Corbon Cuvée Prestige Avize Grand Cru 53 Euro. and other wines... Seems a very well-priced wine list here.
When it rains in Correns, it does rain...Sun or rain, nothing can altere the charm of this village, and we happened to be in the midst there of one of these poweful late-summer storms where 70 mm of rain can fall in just a couple of hours or less, bringing streams of yellow water on the roads and valleys. The village owes his 100% organic destiny to the will of his mayor Michaël Latz, a vigneron himself, who persuaded the growers of the village to join en masse the organic farming, allowing thus the village to be the first French village to be considered 100% organic. The situation of the village and its valley, ideally nestled in the wooden hills of the backcountry Provence, helped a lot to faciltate the move. Michaël Latz played also a central role in the creation of the Provence Verte concept, and he pushes for a slow food approach, adding in this interview (in french) that Italy is leading on this front and that France should do more. 90% of the farmers in Correns grow grapes, producing in particular white wine on the Cotes de Provence Appellation. Goat cheese producers are also very active in the village. The mayor has new projects like heating the public buildings of the village with wood, which is plentiful around [I'm happy that he is not following the carbon-footprint crowd into considering wood stoves as anathema to the ecology]. He also wants to develop the medicinal plant sector as well as the aromatic herbs on the grounds of Correns. B. bought some dry vervain in a herborist shop there (the only shop of the village that looked more bobo and less local, btw), and she said it was particularly good and intense. On the medicinal plants front, I wish mayor Latz lots of courage, because like for cheese-farms norms (which virtually forbid the age-old cheesemaking tradition) or ancient vegetable seeds (the sale of "unauthorized seeds" , even if indigenous, being forbidden in France), the French administration is not favorable to the free cultivation and sale of medicine plants. France relies on a law edicted by the Vichy regime (under the German occupation), which through laws dated from 1941 and 1943 limited the sale of medicinal herbs and suppressed the diploma of herborist (see the text of the law). There were some 4500 herborists in France at the time in 1943 but the number fell to something like 60 or 80 (all being some 90 years old and received their diploma before 1941). France is among the very few European countries not recognizing the profession of herborist. Germany and Italy have each some 5000 diplomed herborists for example. In a response to a question in the French Senate about the absurdity of this anti-herborist position, the Ministère answered in 1989 (link to the text) that there were authorized plants and that the question of the medicinal plants was a monopoly of the pharmaceutical industry (Toutes les autres plantes médicinales relèvent du monopole pharmaceutique). The message is clear again : France takes the side of the monopolistic industry against the artisans and the real food. We saw the same pattern in the Kokopelli affair, where the French State and the seeds companies united to have punitive fines imposed on a non-profit group accused of selling ancient indigenous vegetable seeds (link to the story in English and to the kokopelli page in French).The tasting rooom and storage facility of the Correns CoopérativeOf course, there's also a Coop in Correns, like in most Provence villages. The facility itself is located in Correns, but the tasting room and storage facility is located near Le Val (D 22 and D 562), closer to larger roads and thus avoiding unnecessary traffic into the remote valley of Correns.
Now, B. and I are cautious with the organic wine concept. There's a lot of confusion behind these words. First, in France, people usually don't say the full "wine made from grapes grown organically" ("vin issu des raisins de l'agriculture biologique") but just "organic wine" ("vin bio"), ignoring in the way that if vineyards are farmed without conventional chemicals, these certified wines can be vinified using all sorts of additives to build artificially the mouthfeel and the tasting qualities of the wine. But most people ignore that these technical ways to "correct" the wines even exist in the first place. And this misconception is not restricted to the ordinary consumer : as Alice Feiring said a couple of years ago in The Pour (Eric Asimov's wine blog), Food lovers are around me are accepting a level of processing in their wine glass they would never accept on their plates. This is a disconnect I find fascinating.
So, keeping that in mind, an organically-farmed vineyard is an important step to make a good wine, and the Coopérative vinicole of Correns like the other vignerons of Correns follow this path. La Corrensoise (this is the official name of the Coop) has a wine range with rosés, whites, reds and sparklings. The Appellations are AOC Cotes de Provence and Vin de Pays d'Argens. Bottle prices begin at 3,3 Euro. We dropped at the tasting room of the Coop to sample the wines. There were local customers buying bibs, and also three Russians who came in a car with Marseilles license plates.
__ Pesque Lune, white Vin de Pays d'Argens 2008 [pic on left]. 10% Grenache Blanc. 13°. Fruity and fresh. Richness. 3,3 Euro. The Argens is the small river that runs through the village (see pictures below).
__Croix de Basson, AOC Cotes de Provence 2008 white.90% Rolle, 10% Ugni Blanc. Fruity with a nice crispy mouth. 13°. 5,5 Euro.
__Le Vallon Sourn, Cotes de Provence 2008 Cuvée Tradition (white). The Sourn is a smaller river that runs near the village. Vallon Sourn means "Sourn valley". Rolle plus a bit of Ugni Blanc. 13,5°. 7,2 Euro. Vinified in vats, elevage in casks. Nice nose with vanilla. A bit woody in the mouth. B. finds it very nice, with a neat attack and length, and also a very neat end of mouth.
__L'Or des Fées, Cotes de Provence 2007 (white). Rolle 100%. 13,5°. 19 Euro. Aged in casks. Very nice wine. Ampleness. Butterscotch.
__La Croix de Basson, Cotes de Provence 2007 (red). Syrah, Grenache, Cabernet. Very nice nose. Red fruits, cooked red fruits, small black fruits. The temperature of the wine is too high for a tasting though (it's a hot day and the reds are not kept in a temperatured control cabinet). No oak elevage for this wine. Quite good. 5,5 Euro.
__Le Vallon Sourn, Cotes de Provence 2007 (red). Cuvée Tradition. Syrah, Grenache. Spent time in casks. B. says that this wine is in the middle of a low cycle. In the mouth, I had the feeling that it has peaked somehow. 7,2 Euro.
We learn from the young woman who popurs the wine there that the Coop works from a total surface of 200 hectares, all organically farmed of course.
Bibs are also a good sell here [pic on right], here are the prices :
Rosé, Vin de Pays d'Argens, 10-liter bib, 22,2 Euro. 5-liter bib, 12 Euro
White, Vin de Pays d'Argens, 5-liter bib, 12 Euro
Red, Vin de Pays d'Argens, 10-liter bib 24,7 Euro. 5-liter bib 13,9 Euro
AOC Cotes de Provence (white, rosé or red) : 5-liter bib, 17 Euro.le Cercle de L'Avenir : Aurelia bringing our drinksNow, you can't leave Correns without spending some time at the Cercle de L'Avenir, the sole bar of the village. This unsophisticated spot on main street is the perfect place to feel the pulse of the village. And listen, this is not an ordinary bar, this is a Cercle...What are cercles ? Let's open the History book a minute : The Cercles Républicains are central to the political History of Provence. In the early 19th century, say 1820, France was in the midst of a political turmoil. Gazettes and politicized newspapers flourished in a country with high demographics where reading skills as well as living standards had improved. there was no Internet then and the place where people could share their common political passion was the Cafés (page about the History of Cafés Républicains in French). Paris' Cafés for example played an important role for the revolutionary brain storming, radical intellectuals would debate their political vision and find followers there while sipping a glass of wine. In Provence, especially in small villages, you had to create these havens of pro-republican thinking from scratch, and this was done through the Cercles Républicains, a place where citizens could let the steam off and discuss how to change the world. The French were deeply antagonized then (and the left/right divide still endures...), there was the tradition on one side, with the Church, and the fiercly-laicist and anticlerical on the other side, the latter finding in the Cercle a way to have a forum of their own. While elsewhere the Cercles mostly vanished in the 2nd half of the 20th century, there are a few survivors in Provence, like this Cercle de L'Avenir. It was created on dec 2 1851 by 14 young Corrensois the day following a Coup d'Etat in Paris. Clandestine at the beginning, it went official in 1877 when the Républicains won the national elections, taking the name of Cercle National Socialiste. It was later seated in this Café, in 1924, and took its present name of Cercle de l'Avenir.
From the outside it may look like an ordinary café-bar for the unsuspecting visitor, but its status is very special. It is a non-profit group (association) and if you look at your bill, you'll see that for each of the drinks, there is a separate billing for "temporary membership" to the Cercle. For example, my glass of white wine served with an ice cube (not very good btw) cost 1,2 Euro plus 0,3 Euro for what is labelled on the printed bill "adhérent ponctuel". B.'s café noisette cost 1,15 Euro plus 0,2 Euro for the same reason. In short, you don't even know it but you have a glass there on the terrace enjoying the good time and you're part of the Cercle Républicain. I find that great, even if I'm not sure that there are any high-flying debates about how to change the world anymore. That's also the perfect place to take shelter when a heavy storm floods the region [pic on left].The bridge over the ArgensNow, this picture may be misleading, but this bridge is in the middle of the village... On both sides, there's a street, the central part of Correns being on the left. You walk along a street and find yourself on this bridge overlooking the Argens river. Michaël Latz says that the quality of its water has much improved since the village turned 100% organic 15 years ago. He has also been pushing for the installation of large water tanks by the owners to recycle the rain water. Like all villages of Provence, there are plenty of fountains where you can refresh yourself (in my opinion one of the best move financed by public money ever), most dating from around 1900. There is even one of these rotating pumps that you could find all over France just a few years ago [pic on right]. This is what I call a really sustainable progress : here is a simple hand-powered water tap that uses no electricity, works virtually for ever without maintenance, and brought a real plus in the lives of the French villagers. There are few equivalents today in terms of simplicity/cost-effectiveness/service ratio.
Back to this narrow bridge : We saw from there children jumping in the river from a rock cliff (it's quite deep in some places) and I was tempted by a swim (B. preferred to abstain) with the hot temperature of the day. The water was cool, even a bit cold, very refreshing, and unsusual in the center of a village. The Argens river has been the object of several studies (see this Argens study in French) because of the particularity of its water and the high number of fish species. Water ir a rare commodity in Provence, but the inner Var with its many streams and lower population doesn't lack it. Winter ans spring see usually a rebound in the water-table levels due to important rains.a classroom in the Correns schoolThe mayor of Correns also targets the young generation of Correns to seed the love for natural chemical-free products. With 820 inhabitants, the village has enough children to justify a school with 84 pupils and 4 classes, and the mayor with the village administration have pushed for the serving of an organic dish per day in the menu of the school cafeteria (cantine). The children are also teached how to take care of the natural environment.
If you're into crowds, you can visit Correns on the third weekend of august : every year, that's when Correns holds its Fête de la Bio et du Naturel, a fair gathering about 120 stands across the village. It is organized by the Maitres Vignerons Bio de Correns.This a good way to meet some of the 80 growers and farmers, the people of the Coop and of the three other wineries, plus the chicken farm and the goat-cheese producer.
I couldn't finish this story without posting two pictures of that amazing plane tree which has incorporated a bench in its trunk. The metal bench was probably welded too tight around the tree long ago, disturbing its growth. Can't take some weight here ? no problem, the plane tree just overwhelmed the bench like a runny cheese [click on the pictures to enlarge]. Plane trees in Provence are incredible, they are deformed by scars, accidents and disease, but manage to survive and adapt to their ordeal, sometimes they're completely hollow on the inside and still stand who knows how...
Back to Michael Latz, the man behind the revival of Correns : this man who at 51 has already 6 grandchildren is born in Burundi and has worked in different fields as an entrepreneur, including on both sides of the organic/chemical rift. He was for a while the manager of a company making phytosanitary products. From this experience, he realized that small-size farmers have no weight when it comes to chemical-products companies who manipulate them. Creating an organic haven in Correns was a way to give the local farmers leverage and open the market to their products. He considers that most of Provence could follow the path of Correns and improve both its quality of life and the living standards of its inhabitants. See this interview of Michael Latz (in French) for more.The new organic crop in Correns...Yes, that's a scoop !
I shot this picture just outside Correns, and I picked this leaf in the field in the background, right along the road where unsuspecting drivers pass by. Well, this is maybe what mayor Latz meant when he said he wanted to develop the production of medicinal plants in Correns :-)... Now, cool down folks, that's just hemp, and even though I noticed many missing plants and cut heads on the side of the field near the road, this variety is (organically) grown for other uses than the one you had in mind...

Comments

[Vineyards]

Absolutely beautiful pictures. I would love to visit some of those vineyards.

[Jane]

I love your photos. It's a really great place to visit. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work. By the way, I found a fantastic Paris adventure that might interest you too. Thanks and have a wonderful day!