White stone, black wine - Amanda Lawrence

The Quercy Blanc - named for its white stone - is a wild and sparsely populated area of rural France, squeezed between the great wine trading port of Bordeaux and the fizzing city of the south, Toulouse. It's home to the goose and the grape, sumptuous foiegras, the mysterious black truffle and world famous Agen prunes. There are miles of walnut groves and, most important of all, acres of vines. The author introduces us to some colourful local characters, freezes from the kneecaps down whilst braving the famous winter truffle market in Lalbenque, throws herself with Gallic gusto into numerous fetes and uncovers traces of the luminaries who once called this place home. From Champollion, who translated the Rosetta stone, to the illustrious Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Henry Plantagenet brought the area to the English crown.