With us, bread is an integral part of the menu; it is an essential gastronomic element.
As with everything we make, we give it a great deal of time and attention.
After tasting thousands of loaves of all kinds, we reached this conclusion:
What we love in bread is the open crumb, the crisp crust, and the taste of real wheat.
And this alchemy of quality flour, spring water, unrefined salt, and native yeasts produces a unique, ever-changing bread, different every day.
Ours is prepared with stone-ground flour from our truffle-grove wheat and crafted with a native sourdough starter, meaning:
flour from our own wheat, spring water from the Domaine, a little Noirmoutier salt, and only native yeasts.
Our sourdough starter is over 15 years old.
Each day, we "refresh" it, meaning we feed it.
It is a living thing and different every day.
Of course, sourdough can be made by adding "sugars"—apples, raisins…
these produce excellent starters that activate more quickly.
One can also use "starters", baker's yeast, and many other artificial aids.
But at the estate, we sought to extract the essence of our unique truffle-grove wheat, without any external additions.
This is why this sourdough starter is truly native.
More pragmatically, to make a sourdough starter, you need flour, spring water, and… patience.
On the first morning, mix the flour and spring water in equal quantities (equal parts).
In the evening, do the same, adding a little more flour and water in "equal parts" each time and mixing.
Normally, from the first day, a few bubbles form on the starter; these are the yeasts feeding on the flour.
By repeating this process twice a day for three weeks,
a living, "bubbling" starter develops, with which we can make an original bread that will have a taste unique in the world.
The history of our bread
Its history is closely linked to that of our truffle-grove wheat flour, which began thirty years ago, in 1994.
The first blend was composed of equal parts of three "pre-modern" wheat varieties:
Galibier, Soissons, Baroudeur.
They were first sown in 1994, then grown organically.
Since then, every year at harvest, the finest grains are selected to be sown again the following year,
this is our "Saint-Géry" selection.
For 15 years, we have been introducing to this selection a portion of heritage population wheats found through various encounters
(Rouge de Bordeaux, Touzelle, Barbu du Roussillon, …).
These introduced wheats are grown as a pure stand for a first year on a small plot.
We then select the finest grains to be blended with the "Saint-Géry" selection (maximum 10%)
to be sown as a mixture the following year.
In this way, we have a true population wheat adapted to our terroir.
This wheat is grown by direct drilling and grows in competition-symbiosis with the native flora
and a few dwarf legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen (dwarf clover, bird's-foot trefoil, black medic)
on very shallow limestone plateaus where we have planted truffle orchards (downy oak, holm and kermes oaks, Turkish hazel, …) and vines.
It receives no external inputs, fertilizers or otherwise; yields are around 5 quintals per hectare (in the Beauce region, conventional yields are around 80 quintals, or 15 times more).
Our bread has very distinctive flavors of gingerbread and honey.
This bread can be enjoyed in our restaurant during dinner or a Grand Breakfast at the estate.
But you can now buy it directly from our online shop to enjoy at home!
