Classic Spreads

Written by Duncan Holmes | 03 March 2009

There are three sensuous images that I recall from that blisteringly hot July day at the Girasols winery.

The first was the strident sound of sex-crazed cicadas belting out their messages from the well-disguised butt of an ancient olive tree in the winery’s courtyard. The second was a friendly old dog, asleep on the cool concrete winery floor, and who, I learned later, was the catalyst for the start of the harvest of Grenache grapes that were beginning to set on vines across the stony clay of the French hillside. The third thing about that day was that we began lunch with thick, rich and salty tapenade, spread black and delicious on toasted rounds of a baguette, baked that morning in the oven of Françoise Joyet-Larum, the owner’s equally delicious daughter.

Despite my exposure over the years to slatherings of all kinds of spreads — from peanut butter, to Vegemite, to chicken liver — until that day I had somehow missed out on tapenade, and the setting for my first taste of this amazing Provençal staple, a winery in northern Provence, could not have been more appropriate.

Domaine des Girasols is east of the village of Rasteau, and northeast — up highway D975 — of Orange. Some of the vines on the 17 hectares of southern-exposed property are newly-planted; others on gnarly, well-weathered stumps have been around for almost a hundred years. Wandering the countryside as holidaying tourists often do, we stumbled on Girasols and learned that not only could we get ourselves a country lunch, but we would also share in some pre-nuptial excitement; on the following weekend Françoise would be marrying Californian Jon Larum, a “cellar rat” she had met learning something of New World wine lore in the Napa Valley. The event, with a mingling of guests from Provence and California, would be held beneath an airy tent, already in place in the cicada-enhanced Girasols courtyard.

As we inhaled the platter of tapenade and drank Girasols wine, I asked Françoise, in fractured French, how it was made. First, she said, you “smash the ol-eeves.” I have never forgotten how sweetly she mouthed what sounded like a brutally physical beginning for such a delicate dish. She went on, telling of the additions that come together in a mortar — the diverse tastes of anchovies, capers, olive oil and lemon juice. But to this day, the smashing that appeared to be so essential to tapenade success has lingered.

Oh yes, and the dog? “How?” I asked, at one stage of the lunch, “do those who grow grapes for wine know when the time is exactly right to pick them?”

“See that old dog?” said Jon. “There comes a day at the end of summer when he gets up, heads off into the vineyard and takes a bite from a low-hanging bunch of grapes. When he does that, that’s the day we start the harvest.”

Over the years, with an occasional web cheat, I have watched the progress of the Girasols winery, the growth and ongoing maturity of a family that grew from that July day. And when I spread my own baguette rounds with smooth black tapenade, I sometimes think of sun-baked hillsides in Provence, cicadas looking for sex on summer afternoons and an old dog waiting in the shade for a harvest yet to come.

Tapenade

Chicken Liver Terrine

Hummus

Balsamic Onion Confit

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto