The Disappearance of the Transhumance (Patrick Rance)

        This brings us to the Vivarais, a beautiful mountain pays. On its eastern flank crags and cliff-crested shale slopes tower over therivage along the Rhone.  The south-east, between the Ardeche and theRhone, more like Provence, is called Ardeche a l’Huile. This was Helvie inRoman times, later ruled, like Velay, sovereign-bishops, and came to the Frenchcrown in 1229. It was represented in the Etats du Languedoc  from the fourteenth century, but I hope itsmodern inhabitants will excuse me for regarding it as a natural companion inits mountains and its cheeses to Velay, Forez, and Auvergne.

        This century has seen decline and depopulation, and latterlyeven the disappearance of the transhumance*.  The irregular charm of the old stonebuildings has too often been hidden behind the dirty battledress of cement, orthe hideous stark suburbanism of harl and rough-cast.  What remains of Vivarais’ past to delight theeye is the occasional handsome group of farm buildings, and nature itself,sometimes growing over the abandoned terraces of the mountain sides, where theexceptional tiny, high vineyard yet persists. Higher still, castles can be indistinguishable from crags, crags fromcastles.  Far below are the workingvineyards of today, producing wines which I have found pleasant with pasta andcheese.   On the Rhone south of Valence,La Voulte-sur-Rhone on N86 offers a Friday market before you turn west on D-20for Saint-Laurent-du-Pape, where there is an organic goat farm.  D120 provides one route up into Picodoncountry, with a farm at Gluiras by the way, before Pont de Chervil.  Further north and west are a farm atSaint-Basile, and Lamastre, where all kinds of chevres and some mi-chevres areavailable.

From:  Patrick Rance, The French Cheese Book.  London, Macmillan, 1989

* "Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock over relatively short distances, typically to higher pastures in summer and to lower valleys in winter. Herders have a permanent home, typically in valleys. Only the herds travel, with the people necessary to tend them."