Producer stories

In a village at the heart of the Grande Champagne cru of Cognac, a house turns the region’s grape into vinegars and a balsamic-style condiment, all aged in barrels that once held Cognac.

Near Narbonne, a vinegar maker turns Languedoc wines into slow-fermented, oak-aged vinegars, then infuses some of them with Menton lemons, honey or wild peppercorns.

Founded as a cooperative of Norman farmers in 1860, destroyed in the bombing of Caen in 1944 and rebuilt, the workshop behind the French cotton string bag is still making it in Normandy.

For around forty years, a family workshop has cast miniature Eiffel Towers in France, from molds carved by hand. It is the one object on our shelves you cannot eat.

At the foot of the Mondarrain, in Itxassou, three partners grow organic Piment d’Espelette, then grind it, press it and set it into jelly themselves, on a farm that also raises Basque pigs and poultry.

In the Vallée des Baux, one of France’s oldest olive-growing regions, a skincare house takes the olive tree as its starting point and uses all of it: the oil, the leaf, the flower and the stone.

In the Var, a family confectioner candies its chestnuts the slow way, over six to seven days in a vanilla syrup, from a recipe handed down by a grandmother.

A family workshop in Carlux, in the Périgord Noir, that has spent more than fifty years on one idea: the local walnut, toasted, lightly caramelized and coated in chocolate.

In the hills around Nyons grows an olive found nowhere else, the Tanche. A family mill presses it into a sweet, buttery oil under France’s first olive oil appellation. The story of Moulin de Haute Provence.

Parents who started at the kitchen table, a son who took over and a workshop in a village south of Paris: the story of Comptoir du Cacao and its thick, generous chocolate bars.

Founded in Paris in 2009 by a third-generation roaster, Terres de Café helped bring specialty coffee to France. How it sources, how it roasts, and the three Ethiopian-rooted coffees we carry.

In a small workshop in Drap, just inland from Nice, two partners select organic spices from growers around the world and grind them only when an order comes in. The story of Place des Épices and its passion for pepper.