DOMAINE PRADINES LE BAS

This real estate agent, who had never lived in the countryside, surprised more than one by becoming the happy owner of a magnificent mas near Béziers and his 10 ha of strawberries that she wanted to turn into olive groves 18 years ago. Francine Buesa, totally foreign to the world of agriculture, returned to the school benches to pass his professional patent as a farm manager. Once her diploma was in her pocket, she quickly confronted the reality of the profession. " The first three years have been very hard. " I used to occupy the first 5 ha of olive trees planted. They were between 30 and 50 cm tall and the grasses around that I had to grub up grew faster than my trees. And when finally the trees come into production after five years and taste its first olive oil: This is fabulous! '. With its 9 varieties, which it chose to enter into the future AOC, distributed today over 20 ha (thanks to mitoyous lands purchased later), it produces monovarietal oils (olive trees, agstele, bouteillan and picholine) and two green fruity assemblages (cayon, menudal, cornicabra, amellau and verdale) and ripe fruit (lucholine and picholine), in its own mill installed in 2004 on the estate.