Olivier Poussier, best sommelier in the world

Duck prepared with orange is one of the great classics of French gastronomy. For the legendary restaurant owner and chef René Lasserre, roast duck à l’orange was the emblematic dish in his post-war Parisian restaurant.
This gorgeous dish combines sweetness from the sauce, bitterness that comes from the Seville orange, and the caramelized skin of the duck. It requires some clear thinking to come up with the vintage that will pair with the sweet sauce yet stand up to the bitterness of the orange… Not an easy task.

The great whites from Provence are a proud addition to any table and yet they are all too often overlooked. It’s true their production is much smaller than the red and rosé wines. And certainly not all the terroirs in the vast region of Provence have the capacity to produce white wines displaying true personality, balance and real potential for cellaring. Recently however, in a brief jaunt I took around Aix-en-Provence, I had the opportunity to ascertain the top-notch class of certain wines by going back in time.

Boudin noir – known in English as black pudding or blood sausage – is a charcuterie dish that brings great delight to Epicureans. Boudin noir can be served warm or cold and is simply delicious when prepared in the good old-fashioned way. Different chefs bring their own flair to the taste and texture of their own blood sausage preparations, which at the base is made of pork blood and pork fat seasoned with onion, chervil, thyme, parsley, nutmeg.