Our Blog - Loop Trip - June, 2024

There is an Electronic music festival (called Les Siestes this year) that is held every year, this year is the 22nd edition. It is a free festival that takes place in the public park right behind our apartment building. While they sent out a flyer to all of the neighbors of the park saying that the music wouldn't go over 100 decibels, we decided this might be a good weekend to head into the countryside.

We headed out on Friday morning into the neighboring department, called the Gers. It is known for its rural scenery, bastide villages, and several food specialties (more on these in a minute). It is largely agricultural, including large fields of corn, colza, sunflowers, and various grains. There are also several local food specialties:

• Armagnac, which is a type of brandy that is distilled from local wines. Armagnac is the oldest brandy (and liquor) recorded to be still distilled in the world. In 1310, Prior Vital du Four, a cardinal, wrote of its 40 virtues. The two main differences between Armagnac and Cognac (which is produced just North of here) is that Cognac uses predominately the Ugni Blanc grape and is uses a pot still in the distillation process, while Armagnac uses a blend of 10 different types of grapes (including the Ugni Blanc) and is distilled using column stills. Most people outside of France know about Cognac but not that many know about Armagnac, partly because of the production volume being much smaller for Armagnac than Cognac. But also because there are huge Cognac brands, like Hennessy and Rémy Martin.
• Côtes de Gascogne wine - which is mostly white wine (91% white). This is pretty unique since the neighboring departments mainly produce red wine.
• Floc de Gascogne - this is a fortified wine apéritif. It was "invented" in the 16th century and the name comes from a local winemaker in 1954. The word "floc" means "bouquet of flowers" in the local Occitan language. It is made up of 1/3 Armagnac and 2/3 fresh grape juice from the Côtes de Gascogne area, and is aged a minimum of 10 months, giving it an alcohol percentage between 16% and 18%.
• Duck and foie gras - as you drive around, you see lots of little Duck farms around. And while duck from the Gers is well-known, it is probably the foie gras that is most well-known. Production world-wide of foie gras has fallen in recent years, France is still by far the largest producer (almost 75%)

This was a fairly low-key trip, but we did stop at a few small towns, some of them being "bastides".

Tillac

Marciac

Larressingle

Flaran Abbey near Valence-sur-Baïse

Valence-sur-Baïse

Aurignac

We stopped by Saint-Christaud specifically to see the church there, but it was not open. I decided to skip that on the blog since, while I had a picture of the outside, it wasn't worth a page :-).