The red bricks around the openings (windows, doors…) are called ‘cayroux’ and they are specific from the Roussillon. Other specificities like the ‘exposed stones’, bull’s eyes, or ballusters are also from this region
Did you know?
Our shop is open from Wednesday to Saturday, in the morning from 10:00am til 12:30 and in the afternoon from 3:00pm to 6:30pm. We speak English
to find us, from Perpignan, take the first exit Ille sur Tet and at the round about turn left (toward Nefiach). We are 800 meters further, on the right. You can also enter ‘huile des orgues’ in Google maps. We are at 15 minutes from Perpignan and 20 minutes from the motorway (A9), exit Perpignan Sud (South).
In the past, the department 66 was a significant olive oil producer. After the terrible winter in 1956, olive trees were replaced by peach, abricot or cherry.
THere are seven local varieties of Roussillon olive: oliviere (the most known), poumal, glory, verdale de Millas, courbeil, argoudeil and redouneil. Other varieties exist in the department like arbequine from Spain, Lucques from Languedoc, Picholine from the Gard department
passionate producers of olive oil from Pyrenees Orientales gathered in a union to make possible a protecteed designation of origine ‘Roussillon Olive Oil’, with the help of INAO (national institute in charge of this label)
THis is for promoting local varieties of olive which give to the oil such a particular taste. ALso to encourage tradtional production, refusing intensive fruit hedges: according to the specifications, trees should be at 7 meters from each others to get all the sun. the Roussillon olive oil logo is a tree (oliviere, very specific) with the mont Canigou in the back ground
While our modern society promotes high productivity and profitability, the Mas Fabre de Laferriere prefers using traditional methods for producing a particularly elegant and subtle olive oil.
Three factors influence the productivity: the quantity of fruits per tree, the amount of trees per hectare and the quantity of oil produced per olive. Huile des Orgues has preferred quality to quantity. Here are the reasons why.
In the intensive production model, all these parameters are optimized, for instance planting the tree in hedges, using machines to harvest the fruits (like for wine production) and selecting varieties of olive producing a lot of oil. As a result, trees in this kind of intensive production get exhausted and have to be replaced every 10 years, while in a traditional culture, as you know, an olive tree can produce for thousands of years!
Noël and Lily Fabre have made the choice of traditional production, in harmony with nature, and with trees planted at 7 meters from each other to better get the sun. The Roussillon is backed by the Pyrenées (see on the photo the Canigou mountain), a very windy area (see the orientation of the trees) and very sunny.
The main variety of the property Laferrière, the Oliviere, requires 10 kg of olive to make a liter of oil, that is twice more than other varieties, but when we taste the Huile des Orgues, we understand the value of our agricultural choices![:]
Cooking with olive oil offers gastronomic perspectives that no other oil can offer. Here are some explanations.
As explains Christian Pinatel, world expert in this area, olive oil is an exception because it is made from fresh fruits and because the oil is contained in the pulp of the fruit, not in the seed. This is why we can find in olive oil many flavors that exist in other fruits.
Olive oil offers much more aromas than any other culinary oil which is extracted from seeds and is – most of the time – refined, which kills its organoleptic properties. When you’ll taste our single variety “Oliviere” from Huile des Orgues, you’ll discover delicate flavors of fresh tomato and raw artichoke. This fruity flavor, associated with a spicy taste due to polyphenols, makes the joy of gastronomes and offers unlimited culinary possibilities. It is very specific of the olive oil from Roussillon.
This is what motivated Lily and Noel Fabre, initially peach producers to convert to the production of olive oil.
From “Tasting Olive Oil Part II” by Christian Pinatel in “Le Nouvel Olivier” – November December 1999.