Google Earth Aix En Provence
Arnaud Richardson
Les Baux-de-Provence is located within the Bouches du Rhne department of Provence. Although the appellation is small and relatively new, the twelve winemaking estates have earned well-deserved praise for their predominantly organic and biodynamic practices. Not yet a legislative mandate, the men and women who make wine here employ earth-friendly practices as a matter of tradition and principle. As much as 85% of the area is devoted to an organic or biodynamic approach.
I was having lunch with a friend recently at Le Caire, in the country near Aix-en-Provence. It was a warm afternoon and we were served outside on a shady veranda, enjoying a view of Montagne Sainte-Victoire and its surrounding white cliffs and limestone foothills.
The restaurant is built with stones quarried in the 12th century, and its character is medieval, quiet and appealing, as is the traditional rustic cuisine that is served, such as soupe au pistou, with eggplant, garlic, tomatoes, and olives on toast; short ribs with horseradish on butter noodles tossed in olive oil, parsley and blue cheese; and stewed rabbit with turnips and carrots.
We have been hiking on the trail to Sainte-Victoire since early morning, and stumbled onto this distinctive old place. I choose a 1987 Cairanne from a private label caveau. The slightly formal waiter sets out two glasses, opens the bottle, pours a small portion of an incredibly dark liquid into one of them, and the air fills with plum blossoms, ripe currants, licorice, and black figs.
The wine is stylish and graceful, and on the tongue feels like supple dark petals fallen off an ancient tree. From the veranda we watch a man plowing a field of black earth with a tractor, and up on the white chalky clifts toward Sainte-Victoire, scattered pink and yellow asphodels, wild white roses, gray cork oaks, and layers of red clay.
I slip off my walking shoes under the table, lean back, and watch the afternoon creep up some stone walls. Some children run down the street, then a girl on a scooter, a minibus with a few Sainte-Victoire sightseers, and a boy herding goats. From the kitchen there is a small bell ringing. The waiter brings goat cheese, olives, and hazelnuts. The half-filled glasses give the wine room to breathe.
A hundred years ago Cezanne walked up the steep path near the chemin de la Marguerite and set his easel at the high point of the cliffs to view Saint-Victoire and the yellow wheat fields, blue stone paths, pink, lavender, and red roofed villas and bastides below. The light and color of this place filled Cezanne with an intense vision, which inspired him, so that nothing seemed to bother him, not the cold morning wind, the buttons missing from his coat, nor the fact that very few understood what he was working on.
My friend and I enjoy talking to each other. The waiter asks just once if the wine is good, and does not intrude, even during long periods of silence; and for a while we lose track of time the way one loses the lyrics of an old familiar song. They just slip away.
On the path back toward the village, Saint-Victoire is lit up in the dying light as a breeze that seems unearthed from the fields evokes a complex weave of ancient minerals, sea corals, obsidians, slates, and dark clays. Through the umbrella pines, a slow wave of yellow moonlight rises above the hills, and hangs there, unmoving, against a canvas of emerald, buttercup, and fuschia.
The moon wraps Sainte-Victoire in wheatstraw and I feel wrapped in the love of all that is earthly, as if it were my own skin. Walking up the hill, we watch the sky turn completely red and the smoke of Aix rising over blossoming pear orchards, Roman ruins, farmyards, little Arabic courtyards with bright tiles and fine carpets.
In the shadow of a stone wall, the dark contour of a horse tosses its mane in the moonlight, and walks away on a path that never ends. This fiery moment in the transparency of dusk vanishes into the ruins of the earth, and in Provence, it never ends. And, perhaps better than in most places, it is understood.
Here on these chalky clifts, Cezanne put his brush to canvas and made the sun new again, bathed it in smoky emeralds, mineral blues, and harvest reds. Not far away, with the earth folded into his arms, Cezanne rests now in the mercy of time.
And not far from there, in the village of Vauvenargues, Picasso is buried in his garden, on a hill outside the remote stone villa where he spent his last years, surrounded by stone cottages that are furnished with handworked Flemish tapestries, photos of great-grandparents starched and unsmiling, silver candelabra, linens ironed and folded into lavender-perfumed drawers, and wine glasses that have kissed dark petals of eternity. Whatever time it may be, from the first moment on, here in Provence, time never ends, which is the secret of life.
Jill will get back to you quickly.
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The ochre of the Luberon fascinates. From Roussillon to Gignac, by way of Villars, Gargas and Rustrel, the former ochre quarries of the Apt valley (Vaucluse) surge from the past, hiking trails have been blazed, panoramic viewpoints opened up, signs of bygone days brought up to date and car parks can be found.
Sculpted by storms, these former ochre deposits today present an enchanting scenery hybridized the intentions of Man and the wishes of Nature. Cliffs, earth pillars, ochre-coloured sand hillocks, after being dug out by shovels and picks, are henceforth shaped by the will of the winds and rain.
Proudly perched on a hilltop, Roussillon overlooks the first quarries carved out over two centuries ago. The red of the cliff faces, to which respond like an echo the red of the buildings' faades, certainly explains the attraction of this village which is the only one located in the heart itself of the ochre deposits.
These natural pigments have been used since prehistoric times and we can see evidence of that on the walls of caves. Then in 1780, Jean Etienne Astier from the village of Roussillon discovered that, after processing, ochre became an inalterable and non-toxic dye.
He became the first ochre extractor in France and in the 19th century the exploitation of the mineral deposits became industrial. In the Vaucluse, the open-pit quarries and the exceptional thickness of the lodes (up 15 metres) made extraction very easy and production reached impressive figures: a record of 40,000 tons was set in 1929.
The pigment is used in the making of stucco for the Provenal houses, because it is heat and sun resistant, but also as a component, sometimes unexpected, of certain products: cheese rinds, linoleum, kraft paper, cardboard, ceramic, rubber and cosmetics.
The old ochre factory, or Mathieu factory, lying for a long time in a state of a industrial wasteland, can today be visited. The Ochre Conservatory there will help you discover the ochre heritage in all its forms and through different means: exhibitions, resource centre, library, courses, guided tours and educational tours... something for everyone!
Georges Guende, who has studied the flora of the Luberon Natural Regional Park for nearly twenty years, has brought to light the specificity of the flora found in the ochre mountains.
If holm oak, white oak, Scotch pines, rosemary, thyme and boxwood grow indifferently in chalky or siliceous soil, there are other plants which are characteristic of ochre earth. Parasol pines have invaded these areas, following the deforestation that accompanied the opening of the quarries. More rare, the chestnut tree flourishes in the coolness at the bottom of the valleys. The undergrowth is made up of broom heather, which we used in olden days to make brooms, and the common heather produces, in Autumn, long, magnificent bunches of bright pink flowers in the form of small bells. In an open field, the heather takes over the soil, forming a dense tangle of shrub. Testifying to the air's purity but also the ambient humidity, the lichens attach themselves to the bark of trees on the most eastern hills. The aesthetes will particularly like the diversity of wild orchids; some twenty six varieties thrive here, some of them extremely rare. Nature lovers will be keen to admire and photograph them, without touching. The large number of visitors to these areas does, in effect, put these plants in danger of dying off.
WWD: How do you define beauty?
Olivier Baussan: For me, true beauty comes from the inside. It is generosity. Real beauty is the ability to be attentive to others, especially those who are less fortunate.
WWD: What have you learned from your charitable works?
OB: Love is not charity, since the notion is a true growing together. It is what brought me the most when I was in Burkina Faso 25 years ago. It was the ability to establish a common relationship of development. That is not charity. It is a veritable, fundamental work to be able to elevate each other. It may sound philosophical, but the idea is to carry mankind beyond itself.
WWD: What is your multitasking secret?
OB: My passion is to try to leave a trace before I disappear. I want to participate in the concrete construction of the world of tomorrow.
WWD: Who are your favorite poets?
OB: I adore the magnificent American poet Walt Whitman. I love, in a very faraway fashion, in France, Stphane Mallarm, for instance. I still love [Matsuo] Basho, who is a Japanese poet of the 17th century, who wrote extraordinary haikus. Poetry is really a worldwide language and that is what I find very, very beautiful.
WWD: What do you love most about provence?
OB: The simplicity that there is in Provence. It is a simplicity of the landscapes that provokes a harmony between man and his environment. This is for me the art de vivre, the harmony between man and the environment.