I am immensely grateful to Pamela J. O’Neill for her reporting and photographs of this event. Aups, the small Provence village renowned for its weekly truffle market (every Thursday morning from mid-November through February), was the place to be last Sunday—it was the site of the 21st annual “Journée de la Truffe Noire d’Aups.” Held the fourth Sunday of January each year, this truffle festival draws hundreds of people who come to eat, drink, and “root” for their favorite dog in the truffle hunting contest. This year, attendees also had the pleasure of meeting one of the Var’s last remaining truffle-hunting pigs. Fresh truffles are,…

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Every Thursday morning from mid-November through February, truffle vendors file into Aups for the region’s most popular retail market for “Tuber melanosporum,” otherwise known as the “black truffle.” And following close behind are chefs from local restaurants, agents working on behalf of culinary establishments in Paris, people like me who simply love truffles, tax inspectors, and more gendarmes than a village of 2000 should ever expect to see, even at the annual peak of tourism in August. This past Thursday morning, when torrential rains periodically doused the crowd, the cast of characters was in place. The market must go on—there’s black gold wrapped in dish…

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Château Roubine, from whence the rosé I am drinking comes, is built atop Knights Templar property. In the center of Provence, in the heart of the department of the Var, in the town of Lorgues, lie these vineyards on land once owned by the (in) famous medieval order of the Knights Templar. More on Château Roubine’s refreshing rosé to come, but right now I want to pursue the Knights Templar. This once powerful military order, formed in 1119 and sanctioned by the Catholic church in 1129, is back in the popular press with the recent release of Dan Brown’s new book, Inferno. Knights Templar lore…

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