Richerenches and the famous truffle market

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Truffle market of Richerenches

Each winter, Richerenches hosts a market well known to food lovers : the truffle market. From November to March, each Saturday morning , the cars are parked under the plane trees of the "Cours Mistral", a hundred-metre-long avenue where the wholesale truffle market takes place. The bold and subtle scent of truffles fills air. Producers open their car boots, around which professionals and enthusiasts gather: prices and quantities are traded by mutual agreement.

The area (northern region of Vaucluse and Drôme Provençale) is the most suitable for the cultivation of truffles, and half of local production transits here in Richerenches. The truffle market in Richerenches is the largest in Europe.

For individuals, a retail truffle market takes place on the perpendicular street, with a traditional Provençal weekly market.

The truffle produced in the Richerenches region is the species Tuber melanosporum, which is usually traded around 1000 euros per kilo, more or less depending on the year. Some years we can find the much rarer white truffle, which can cost up to 3,000 euros.

Truffle market of Richerenches was established in 1922. At that time, vine cultivation had declined, affected by phylloxera, the market became the largest (and only) in the region. On the third Sunday in January, a truffle Mass is celebrated in the village church in honor of St. Anthony (patron of truffle growers), it is celebrated in Provençal language, truffles are used as offerings. The whole is weighed and sold at the end of the ceremony.

Richerenches, visit of the village

Richerenches is one of four towns of the "Enclave des Papes" a small part of the Vaucluse department isolated in the Drôme department. In the Middle Ages the largest Templar Commandery of Provence was in Richerenches. The Templars drained the marshy area - Richerenches is the only one of four villages in the Enclave to be located in the plain - and built a large farm where they grew vegetables, cereals and vines, and raised sheep and warhorses that they exported to the Holy Land. Beautiful buildings remain of the commandery : in particular the Templar House houses the tourist office and a small museum. The large belfry dates from the 18th century, when the church of the Commandery was rebuilt.