Domaine de Béquignol: Walnuts and Chocolate, from Father to Daughter

The Périgord Noir is walnut country, and Domaine de Béquignol has spent more than fifty years on what the walnut can become in a chocolatier’s hands. In its workshop at Carlux, in the Dordogne, each kernel is toasted, lightly caramelized and coated in chocolate, and everything the house sells is made on the premises.

From spirits to chocolate

Claude Ginèbre founded the domaine in 1972 on his family’s land at Carlux. The first products were not chocolates but spirits, built around the ingredient that defines the region: the walnut. Chocolate followed in 1979, and with it the confection that made the house’s name, a walnut kernel toasted, caramelized and coated in chocolate. In 1984 the domaine’s Nogaillou was named best chocolate in France, and in 1997 its Petite Périgord Gold won the Intersuc Blue Ribbon.

From father to daughter

In 2016 Claude’s daughter, Marion Ginèbre, took over the running of the business, and the house now describes itself simply as chocolatiers from father to daughter. In 2024 it received a special mention from the jury of the Saveurs Nouvelle-Aquitaine competition, and it has passed its fiftieth anniversary still in the family and on the same land.

The method is the point. Each kernel is toasted and lightly caramelized before it meets the chocolate, a step the house considers essential to bring out the nut’s full aroma, and the chocolate is made with pure cocoa butter, without palm oil. Nothing is bought in finished: from the raw kernel to the box, the work happens at Carlux, and the finished pieces are still sorted by hand.

What we carry

The signature is the Chocolate Covered Walnuts: caramelized walnuts in dark chocolate, dusted with cocoa, in an 80 g box. The Truffinoix Walnut Truffles hide a soft center of walnut, caramel and chocolate under a coat of dark chocolate and cocoa, and the Caramelized Walnuts keep it simple, with roasted kernels making up 81% of the recipe. The same treatment suits other nuts: the Chocolate Covered Almonds and Chocolate Covered Hazelnuts are roasted, caramelized and coated in dark chocolate in the same way.

How we use them

• Chocolate walnuts with an espresso at the end of a meal.
• Beside a glass of walnut wine, port or Armagnac.
• Caramelized walnuts over an endive, pear and Roquefort salad.
• Chocolate hazelnuts chopped over a vanilla ice cream.

Read the full story on our Domaine de Béquignol page, see the Domaine de Béquignol collection, and for the wider picture, our guide to French and American chocolate.