gastronomy

An AUTHENTIC AND TASTY GASTRONOMY
Famous for the diversity of its products of the soil, Languedoc Roussillon is also an area where the chefs compete with talent to emphasize these products accompanied by the marvellous regional wines. From the highlands at the seaside, to taste the gastronomy u of Languedoc-Roussillon is one of the shortest ways to discover it truly. Based on olive oil, garlic, basil, this kitchen is decorated most of the time with grass of the scrubland thyme, rosemary, laurel, savory....

Many meats are used such the sheep, the lamb or the beef in the high cantons, or the meat of bull in the Camargue, without omitting the pork-butchery of High Languedoc or of Lozere which holds an important place. While the stew reigns in the country of Cathare, the littoral edge delights itself with oyster and moulds of the basin of Thau, fish of the Gulf of Lion, anchovy of Collioure...
In this generous area, one also finds succulent products of the ground, fruits of the orchards of Vallespir, goat's milk cheeses, mushrooms of Lozere, sweet chestnuts of the Cevennes. As for pastry makings and softnesses, they are often prepared containing almond paste, and they are scented with the anise or the flower of orange tree and are particularly at the honor at the time of the traditional festivals. Here, the kitchen and its quivering odors are venerated to the point of organizing festive appointments throughout the year. Some traditional receipts: the aligot and tripoux of Lozere, cassoulet of Castelnaudary, the gardiane of bull of the Camargue, "boles of Picolat", the brandade of Nimes, the rust and the tielle one of Sète, the Catalan burned cream, the "brasucade" of moulds, the "cargolade", the "bullinade", small pies of Pézenas, tapenades...
Ther are as many receipts to taste in the titular restaurants of the label "Restorers of France" whose chiefs commit to propose dishes and wines of Languedoc-Roussillon. Guide available at the Regional Committee of Tourism.

THE VINEYARD OF THE NEW HIGH-CLASS WINES
The vineyard of Languedoc-Roussillon is one of oldest and vastest of the world. The vine, of a prehistoric origin, cultivated by the Greeks, developed by the Romans, extends from right bank of the Rhone to the Pyrenees, in plain, in piedmont on the scrubland, the slopes and opens out to banks of the Mediterranean.
Noble type of vines and of a coloured mosaic of soils, are born here the new high-class wines, designed with the sun of the Mediterranean, raised patiently in the shade of the wine storehouses by impassioned vine growers. Occupying the second place of the producing areas of A.O.C. in France, Languedoc-Roussillon profits of more than 30 names offering a broad wine range: reds, rosy, white, effervescent and creaming, muscatels, sweet aperitif wines... Languedoc Roussillon also produces local wines with strong aromatic potential.
The vineyard of right bank of Valley of the Rhone gathers a part of the Coasts of the Rhone, Coasts of the Rhone Villages and the vintages of Lirac and Tavel. The wines of the Twyers-side of Nimes, produced on the rolled rollers, reveal the print of their remarkable soil. Leaned on the buttresses of Cevennes, and elsewhere nested on the feet of the Pyrenees, fixed on the massif of Corbières, coiled in a theater of the Black Mountain, stretched a soft slope towards the ponds. The Languedoc vineyard joins together ten names whose names evoke the turned russet sun slopes and the wild scents of the garrigues mixed with the spray of the Mediterranean. Between the Pyrenees in the south, Corbières in North, and the Mediterranean in the east, the wines of Roussillon profits since Antiquity from a great notoriety. Duality of the sea and the mountain, Roussillon offers to the vine an environment of dryness, heat and exceptional soils. Since a long time, these stony slopes, inclined or in terraces, give birth to a whole range of wines that are red, rosy or white and of course of sweet aperitif wines. These wines marvelously accompany the products by the soil of Languedoc-Roussillon where the olive oil, the vegetables, the fish, the cheeses and the bread offer a healthy, authentic and tasty kitchen. To know all the richnesses of the vineyard of Languedoc-Roussillon, it is necessary to leave to discover its 400 labellized cellars, listed in the guide "Relay of the High-class wines", published by the Regional Committee of Tourism.