How winemakers in the south of France are turning rosé into a year-round wine

Summary

The Entrepreneurs – How Winemakers in the South of France are Turning Rosé into a Year-Round Wine

Monocle Radio | October 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Entrepreneurs delves into how rosé, traditionally viewed as a summer drink, is being transformed into a wine enjoyed throughout the year. The centerpiece of the show is an interview with Jeanne and Stephen Kronk, founders of Maison Mirabeau, who share their journey from London professionals to leading figures in the Provence wine scene. The episode also explores culinary innovation on Vancouver Island with truffle farming, and features a discussion on the business of 'best of' hospitality rankings.

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Maison Mirabeau: Reinventing Provence Rosé

Interview with Jeanne and Stephen Kronk
[01:09–16:13]

From London Life to Provençal Dream

• Stephen and Jeanne Kronk, once settled in corporate London, made a bold move to Provence to start Maison Mirabeau, now an award-winning global wine brand.

• The couple candidly discuss their lack of wine-making and French language experience at the outset, as well as the pressures of raising three children amid such a risk.

  “We risked everything… we’d never made wine, we didn’t speak French, we had three children – it was a lot of pressure and couldn’t get it wrong.”
  — Stephen Kronk [00:32]

• Stephen's background in the wine trade rekindled his passion, leading him to propose the life-changing idea after leaving a successful telecoms career.

Building a Brand (Not Just a Winery)

• Their initial plan to buy a vineyard was altered by advice from wine industry contacts; instead, they built a brand first, focusing on sourcing quality grapes from trusted growers.

• Being Brits in Provence made them stand out and sometimes elicited sympathy (and support) from locals.

  “I didn’t speak a word of French, so… I think they gave us the sympathy vote and they were amazing, really supportive.”
  — Stephen Kronk [04:40]

The Name “Mirabeau”

• “Mirabeau” was chosen for its beauty, meaning (“beautiful view”), regional evocativeness, and historical resonance. Uniquely, the name was not trademarked.

  “We just thought, oh, this is a beautiful name. This works. People can pronounce it. And let's build our sort of brand universe around that name.”
  — Jeanne Kronk [05:24]

Growth, Diversity & The Signature Style

• Maison Mirabeau is now in over 40 countries, with the UK their largest market and a presence in both retail and hospitality.

• Products range from the flagship “Pure” rosé — ideal for light, daytime enjoyment — to more gastronomic styles for food pairing.

• There’s a focus on consistency over dramatic vintage differences, similar to Champagne, allowing customers to trust in a recognizable house style.

  “You have a signature that's always recognizable… a bit like in champagne.”
  — Jeanne Kronk [07:15]

Breaking the Seasonal Mold: Rosé For All Year

• Despite the enduring association of rosé with summer, the Kronks advocate for year-round consumption. Sales still spike in warmer months, but perceptions are shifting.

  “You drink white wine all year round. Why not rosé?... The reality is... people are drinking it all year round. There is a spike in the summer, but it is Four Seasons wine.”
  — Stephen Kronk [08:59]

• Jeanne highlights a new trend: rosé as a festive food wine, pairing it with turkey at Christmas or Thanksgiving, and with white meats and even spiced dishes.

  “Christmas is becoming a bit of a thing for rosé... it is a great turkey pairing.”
  — Jeanne Kronk [09:37]

Brand Collaborations & B Corp Certification

• Partnerships with hotels and other hospitality brands (e.g., 108 Brasserie at the Marylebone Hotel) help expand their reach, especially when values align—Maison Mirabeau is B Corp certified.

• Achieving B Corp status was a rigorous process requiring significant resource and introspection.

  “It gives you a sort of lens, you know, it gives you a monocle to kind of look at your business through and just to reframe how you work.”
  — Jeanne Kronk [12:06]

  “Anybody setting out with a new business, if they want to have any kind of purpose... they should look at building a business around that B Corp framework and to certify early.”
  — Stephen Kronk [13:05]

What’s Next: Regeneration and Global Ambitions

• Jeanne has authored a book, "At Home in Recipes and Stories from Life in the South of France," and the company continues to innovate with projects like a collaboration with Fever Tree.

• Stephen is championing regenerative viticulture, founding a nonprofit (The Regenerative Viticulture Foundation) and aiming to persuade the wider wine industry of its value.

  “I'm trying to persuade the whole wine industry to go regen... There's nothing to not like about it.”
  — Stephen Kronk [14:08]

• The US market presents unique challenges due to regulations and tariffs, but remains a major goal for expansion.

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Culinary Innovation: Truffle Farming on Vancouver Island

Feature with Virginia Britzka, The Truffle Farm
[17:11–23:17]

Origins and Experimentation

• Virginia Britzka’s family farm is the first in Canada to cultivate the prized black Perigord truffle, using both traditional hunting pigs and dogs—though the pig, Clarence, proved difficult to manage.

  “Let's just say Clarence got to eat his truffle and we realized that mini pigs aren't the best for hunting truffles… Now I know why.”
  — Virginia Britzka [17:11]

The Science of Truffle Cultivation

• Years of experimentation led to the discovery that hazelnut and Garry oak trees are optimal truffle hosts; soil pH is carefully managed using a mix of animal grazing and manual techniques.

  “The hazelnut produces a sweeter truffle than the Garry oak, and the texture of it is a lot finer.”
  — Virginia Britzka [18:29]

• The symbiotic approach also includes chickens, turkeys, and sheep, benefiting both farm and truffles.

Culinary Impact

• Chefs, like Nick MacKay, prize the local proximity and freshness:

  “You have a tomato that smells like a tomato, you have a truffle that smells like a truffle… you get a better product for it.”
  — Nick MacKay [22:31]

• Britzka Farm’s truffles are now being paired with seafood, beef carpaccio, and even BlackBerry cheesecake – a milestone for Canadian terroir.

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The Business of “Best Of” Lists in Hospitality

Discussion with Fernando Augusto Pacheco ("Faye")
[24:00–28:43]

The Rise of Rankings

• The proliferation of hotel, restaurant, and bar ‘best of’ lists by media and prestigious guides (like Michelin and World’s 50 Best) is evaluated.

• Such lists provide powerful marketing for both big brands and small independents, but there’s skepticism about the transparency and selection criteria.

  “They are almost replacing some magazines in terms of the power, in terms of marketing… But there are concerns as well... is it perhaps PR driven?”
  — Faye [24:44]

The Impact on Boutique Brands

• Inclusion in these lists is a big deal for small hotels and brands—they widely publicize their rankings, regardless of position.

• The attention can help smaller operators break out and connect with larger audiences, though word-of-mouth and authenticity remain crucial.

  “You can be a Rosewood type, you can be… just a one-off hotel in the south of France. They're all posting that.”
  — Faye [26:32]

Personal Take

• Faye notes that, despite enjoying lists, they serve best as a guide rather than gospel:

  “There is a place for kind of a Listico article… But at the same time you shouldn't only trust the lists because sometimes there is a discreet owner of a chateau in France who perhaps doesn't want to advertise. And that's the good old word of mouth.”
  — Faye [28:43]

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Memorable Quotes & Key Timestamps

• “We risked everything… we’d never made wine, we didn’t speak French…” — Stephen Kronk [00:32]
• “Mirabeau… means beautiful view or seeing beauty.” — Jeanne Kronk [05:07]
• “Christmas is becoming a bit of a thing for rosé… it is a great turkey pairing.” — Jeanne Kronk [09:37]
• “It gives you a sort of lens, you know, it gives you a monocle to kind of look at your business through…” — Jeanne Kronk [12:06]
• “I'm trying to persuade the whole wine industry to go regen…” — Stephen Kronk [14:08]
• “Let's just say Clarence got to eat his truffle and we realized that mini pigs aren't the best...” — Virginia Britzka [17:11]
• “There is a place for… a Listico article… But… you shouldn't only trust the lists…” — Faye [28:43]

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Takeaways

• Rosé is poised to shed its “summer only” image, with winemakers and consumers embracing its versatility.
• Building a wine brand from scratch requires resilience, innovation, and the courage to defy expectations.
• Ethical certification (like B Corp), environmental stewardship, and creative partnerships are increasingly central in contemporary wine business.
• Culinary and agricultural entrepreneurship, such as Canadian truffle cultivation, is enriching local gastronomy and redefining global niches.
• Industry accolades and rankings matter, but ingenuity, authenticity, and word-of-mouth retain unique value.

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For more:

• Maison Mirabeau: maisonmirabeau.com
• The Truffle Farm: thetrufflefarm.ca
• Jeanne's book: “At Home in Recipes and Stories from Life in the South of France”

Transcript

[Narrator]

Foreign.

[Tom Edwards]

Hello and welcome to the Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio. The show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. Today's program is a gastronomic and hospitality adventure. First, we'll meet a married couple who left their well established lives in southwest London to start over with a winery in Provence.

[Stephen Kronk]

We risked everything so we'd never made wine, we didn't speak French, we had three children into a lot of pressure and couldn't get it wrong.

[Tom Edwards]

Later, we'll head to Vancouver island to hunt for a treasured culinary ingredient with the help of some furry friends.

[Narrator]

It doesn't take long for Caesar's nose to jab at the ground just above the truffle as he and his tail points out a black perigord that he's been trained to sniff out since he was a puppy.

[Tom Edwards]

And I'll be joined by Monocle's Fernando Augusto Pacheco with some hospitality news. Faye, what's on your radar?

[Faye]

Hello, Tom. We'll be talking here about the rise and rise of the best of lists and is that good business?

[Tom Edwards]

More from Fei coming up later on the Entrepreneurs. With me, Tom Edwards. You're listening to the entrepreneurs. Jeanne and Stephen Kronk are the husband and wife co founders of Maison Mirabeau, the award winning brand they built after leaving corporate life in London behind for the vineyards of Provence. Since launching 15 years ago, they've turned that big move into a global success with their wines now sold in more than 40 countries and a range that includes everything from their signature roses to a Riviera inspired gin. Jeannie and Stephen stopped by Midori House on a recent trip back to London to chat with our Laura Kramer about the journey they've been on together. Stephen began by telling Laura how a career detour eventually led him back to where it all began, with wine.

[Stephen Kronk]

I mean, I started my career in the wine trade, so I was obsessed about wine from quite an early age and started doing delivery, driving delivery trucks in London and did wine exams and then started selling. And so I was in the wine trade for the first 10 years of my career, then went into telecoms for 15 years and really missed the wine business. And the wine trade is special and the whole world of wine is special. Everything's built around conviviality, drinking, eating, having fun. So it never feels like you're working, really. And I really missed it. And I met Jeannie when I was in one of my telecoms companies. She was the marketing lady and I was the sales guy. And yeah, three months after meeting her, I Proposed. And then soon after I got married, I said, I want to give up my career and go make wine.

[Jeanne Kronk]

What a dream. Received with great joy, of course.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

What did you say to. Not the actual proposal, we know how that went, but the wider proposal about the wine.

[Jeanne Kronk]

Well, listen, it did take quite a few years of socializing it with me because we had three kids as well, so there were a few other life events, and Stephen had a really nice career. It took some time to actually persuade me to make the move, the compromise in inverted commas. But it wasn't a compromise at all. It was really, you know, the bit that amazing about our story is that we agreed we will move to Provence. So fulfilling my love for Provence and Stephen's love for wine. So that was perfect.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

When that happened, how quickly did you feel like you're getting up and running? What was the first step, besides the move?

[Stephen Kronk]

The first step was finding growers to work with, because plan A was we would pay off the mortgage and go buy vineyard, which sounds very romantic, but I was persuaded out of it by friends of mine in the wine trade. And it really helped that I had been in the wine business before. I had contacts with people who was going to sort of burst my bubble and just make it more real and wanted to help me not make mistakes. So the idea was a little bit changed to rather than buy a vineyard and become a farmer, actually just build a brand first, because there are hundreds and hundreds of producers in Provence, and we wanted to make sure we could stand out. I mean, we risked everything. I was 45, basically turned my back on my career and couldn't get it wrong. So we thought, let's build a brand first and then try and separate ourselves from the rest of the pack and also focus on great liquid. So the first big challenge was finding the right growers to work with.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

And you say it was all about brand building. I imagine you did have these connections. You had worked in the wine industry before, but were people kind of thinking, who are these Brits coming over to France to do this wine?

[Stephen Kronk]

Yeah, they were. I think they felt sorry for us for having done what we did and speaking such a terrible French. I mean, I didn't speak a word of French, so we'd never made wine, we didn't speak French. We had three children into a lot of pressure and one chance to get this right. So I think they gave us the sympathy vote and they were amazing, really supportive, and we wouldn't be here without them.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

What about the name? We always wonder, like, what is the Name. This is such an important, crucial part of a business, isn't it? How did you come up with that?

[Jeanne Kronk]

Yeah, that is such a tough one. And I must say, we went through many names before we kind of settled on Mirabeau. Mirabeau was, you know, firstly, such a beautiful sounding name. We thought it also has meaning. It means beautiful view or seeing beauty.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

Provence.

[Jeanne Kronk]

You know, there is so much natural beauty, but also the wines are pink, you know, this wonderful pale pink. So we felt like it really was a name that was evocative, not just of the region, because obviously it's a historical name as well. There was the Comte de Mirabeau, who was this very famous historical figure. So, yeah, so we were quite. Actually quite bold and daring because nobody had trademarked the name. And so we just did it and people afterwards went like, oh, my God, you guys, how did you trademark the name of such a famous, you know, sort of formerly noble family in France? And to be honest, yeah, we just. We'd obviously been. Not being French, I think we were a little bit more. We just thought, oh, this is a beautiful name. This works. You know, people can. It looks beautiful, people can pronounce it. And let's build our sort of brand universe around that name.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

And you've just celebrated a anniversary, haven't you, for the brand?

[Stephen Kronk]

Yeah. So we've just made our 15th vintage. Yeah, it's gone so fast. My gosh. But it's. Yeah, it was 15 and a half years ago. I took my first bottle of wine in to meet the Waitrose buyer and I was terrified. I mean, he didn't know how much was at stake, but this was our career, our lives potentially at stake here. So, yeah, when he said, okay, I'll steal, I'll try the wine, I'll think about it. I had two weeks of not sleeping, basically, but they good. And, yeah, so we have 15 years on those shelves at Waitrose. And, you know, I am still very grateful they gave us that first big break. We're in about 40 countries now. The UK is still our biggest market. We're doing about 250,000 cases. So it's quite a big business now. And we're the number two Provence brand in the uk. We're the number one in the on trade, which is hotels and restaurants. And, yeah, it's been quite quiet adventure.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

And in terms of the product, you have a few variations now, a few vintages. Tell me a little bit about those.

[Jeanne Kronk]

You know, we've got a number of products, I guess, pointing at different preferences, consumer preferences. So you've got our flagship product, which is Pure. That's the one that's sort of, you know, really widely available and much loved. And that is just a great wine for, you know, light drinking, daytime drinking, aperitifs, lovely light food. And then we make some other wines that are a little bit more gastronomic, which is interesting because the consumer's now ready. You know, we've all been drinking here, especially in the UK and the US obviously, you know, for good 10 years now. And we're quite often ready to explore different styles. So we also make some styles that are much more complex and actually more wines that you would have at the table. And in terms of vintages, I mean, we don't have huge vintage variation because we're not in that kind of wine business. And that's not really what the consumer wants. You know, they want a very natural product and a very well executed product, but they don't want one that tastes completely different from one year to the next. So we make sure that, you know, with our sort of, I guess, with our suppliers and with our technical processes, that people have a really great product every year. A little different year on year, but not sort of, you know, you have a signature that's always recognizable and a bit like in champagne, I think, you know, people have their favorite champagnes and then Provence people have their favorite.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

I was telling somebody about this interview, I was very excited about it and they said to me, oh, but it should have been maybe at the start of summer because it's just rounding up season. Does that frustrate you that there is kind of this seasonality about what people imagine when they can drink? Because I would imagine if I was a grower, if I was a winemaker, I'd be like, oh, come on, guys, you can have it in different ways. How do you take that?

[Stephen Kronk]

Yeah, I mean, I agree. I'm a bit like, you drink it all year round. You drink white wine all year round. Why not? But again, it's something that it is very summery. And as much as I try and defend the fact that it should be 12 months a year consumed, it's that kind of April, May time when you're dusting off the barbecue, you have your first venture into the garden, you go and buy a case of, and summer starts and it's the same in the States. So it is still very much perceived as being a summery wine, but the reality is it's on the shelves all year round. People are drinking it all year round. There is a spike in the summer, but it is Four Seasons wine.

[Jeanne Kronk]

And may I say that Christmas is becoming a bit of a thing for. So that's really nice because it is a great turkey pairing. So, you know, especially in the UK and the us, people are now sort of thinking, oh, that's a nice wine to put on the table for Christmas.

[Stephen Kronk]

Lunch, Thanksgiving, Christmas, wintertime. Yes.

[Jeanne Kronk]

Kind of a thing.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

Yes. I was just gonna. I always love to ask winemakers about their unusual pairings for their products. So you'd say it's not unusual, but you'd say turkey.

[Jeanne Kronk]

Yeah, it definitely works really well. I mean, it works really well with all white meats. You know, seafood's the obvious one, but actually some of the. I wanna say the slightly stronger roses we make also work super well with spice, you know, and slightly more aromatic food too. So I think, you know, I'd encourage everyone to sort of venture out and just try and do away a little bit with their preconceived. Because, you know, today's are just so well made as well. That's such a huge difference in quality even compared to sort of 15 years ago. So, you know, we've really all worked super hard to make really great wines.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

I did try one of your other products at the Marylebone Hotel recently because I went for the 108 Brasserie. You had that collaboration there. Tell me a little bit about the importance of these partnerships for the brand, especially going forward.

[Jeanne Kronk]

Yeah, so that's a lovely partnership we have in place with that hotel group. We try and collaborate on, you know, on lots of levels. It's just so great for any brand, really, because especially if the person you collaborate with, and we will select them fairly carefully, has, you know, similar values to you. We're B Corp certified, so we tend to kind of look for people who are also certified. We collaborate also with lots of, you know, other consumer brands to kind of enrich our audience and help each other out, which is lovely. But, yeah, the 108, you know, there's sort of these activations, little terraces, you know, menus that just works so well when a restaurant sort of goes, yeah, I can tweak my. What I'm serving a little bit to your wines. And I think you would have heard a toile which is a slightly more gastronomic. So it's still a beautiful terrace, but it has a little bit extra oomph. So it works really well with food.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

It was delicious, I have to say. It was with this massive seafood platter too. So really well. I was really enjoying myself. You mentioned being B Corp certified. How difficult was it for you to achieve? Because everybody says the process is actually so tough you don't anticipate it when you go into it. Did you have that experience?

[Jeanne Kronk]

Definitely. It's very tough. And I mean we've had, you know, one person basically working full time on it. So we've had as a business, we've had to dedicate resource to certifying. First time we're now just recertifying and they've changed the process quite substantially. So we actually have to now adapt and learn, you know, how the new process is going to work. But you know, it's been a great certification because it gives you a sort of lens, you know, it gives you a monocle to kind of look at your business through and just to reframe how you work. And a lot of things are, you know, you realize you're on a journey, you haven't done everything perfectly because you just, you know, you didn't used to think like that. So that's what's great about B Corp is that it gives you lots of sort of matrixes and ways to look at the world through the B Corp lens and to kind of give you a stop think is this the right thing to do? You know, we've really tried to sort of make that universal within our business processes and all our sort of management team and people who work for us.

[Stephen Kronk]

And it was tougher to retrofit it to a business that was quite mature, I mean, well worth doing and gave us, as Jeanne said, a very good framework. But anybody setting out with a new business, if they want to have any kind of purpose behind what they're doing, then they should look at building a business around that B Corp framework and to certify early, from the start, from.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

The very beginning, what's next for you then? What can we look forward to? What are you most excited about?

[Jeanne Kronk]

There's lots going on. It's the good news. So we are a really sort of, you know, I guess quite a vibrant and innovative business. And yeah, so we're working on some really. We've done a really nice collaboration with Fever Tree last year. So that was our first foray into upper mid strength alcohol, which is something that, you know, was really exciting and also to work with such an amazing British brand. So we're going to develop some other things for them. I can't tell you exactly what, but that's a really nice project. And then we want to do lots of creative things. So I will double down on this and I've written a book this year, so I'll be doing a whole load of sort of also book publicity next year. And Stephen. Yeah, Stephen's got lots of projects.

[Stephen Kronk]

Yes. So my big thing is regenerative farming. We're the first Provence rose brand to be certified regenerative. And I want to take this to the rest of our range over time and to the rest of the wine trade too. So I started a nonprofit four years ago called the Regenerative Viticulture foundation. And I'm trying to persuade the whole wine industry to go regen. It's just such a powerful way of farming, bringing nature back into your vineyard, moving away from this monoculture mindset and actually focusing on soil health, encouraging biodiversity, carbon sequestration, water tables improving. There's nothing to not like about it. And this is going to be the big buzzword in the next five years. You're seeing a little bit on the shelves in the uk, some regenerative farming in the States. Whole Foods has really embraced it. California has just legally defined regenerative agriculture. So it's really kicking off in California. But it's so important. I think people care about how things are made.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

And you mentioned the US there. How much of a footprint have you made in America so far?

[Stephen Kronk]

I'm trying to crack the U.S. it's a tough market because it's basically. It's like 50 countries in one. And I don't even know this, but you have in the US a three tier system. So when you went through the Prohibition in the 30s and that was repealed, they said that nobody could go directly to the producer. You had to have an. So we have to have an importer, a distributor and a retailer, each taking a margin and making it more expensive. And so cracking the US is my big dream. Actually. I'm moving to LA for a couple of months because California is where it's happening on the regen side and I want to really push that.

[Interviewer (Laura Kramer)]

And I imagine all the tariff stuff isn't making it particularly easier.

[Stephen Kronk]

Yeah, that really doesn't help. 15% tariffs on all European products, not making it a lot easier, but actually still European wines compared with US wines, we're still coming in at a better price normally. So I think we can still make a difference. And Provence rose is a bit like Champagne, you know, yet there are other people making similar looking products. But you got to have the real thing. It's got to be from Provence. If it's.

[Tom Edwards]

That was Steven Kronk and Jeanne Kronk, the husband and wife co founders of Maison Mirabeau. You can find out more by heading to maisonmirabeau.com and do look out for Jeanne's book at Home in Recipes and Stories from Life in the south of France. You're listening to the entrepreneurs to Vancouver island now, where an experiment in farming is turning a culinary luxury into a thriving local enterprise. The highly prized Perigord truffle, more often found in southern Europe, is now thriving on Canadian soil. In this report, Lucy Hislop meets Virginia Britzka, whose forward thinking approach has made her family farm the first in Canada to cultivate the precious black truffles with a little help from her Lagotto Romagnolo dog, Caesar and mini pig, Clarence.

[Virginia Britzka]

We got Clarence as a mini pig about five years ago. And it was our son had always wanted this mini pig. And we thought, well, you know what, mini pig and truffle hunting, let's do this thing. So Clarence came to our farm. My husband and I decided we wanted to go on a truffle hunting date in the plantations. And right away, Clarence was the winner. He found the truffle instantly. And so Clarence and I are struggling because of course, Clarence is pigheaded and he wants to eat this truffle. And he's squealing. And Pete comes running and Caesar comes running to see what's happening. And here it is, me and this little mini pig having a wrestling match. And let's just say Clarence got to eat his truffle and we realized that mini pigs aren't the best for hunting truffles. I know in Italy you'll see a lot of farmers that have missing fingers, and now I know why. So he's no longer a fancy truffle hunter.

[Narrator]

With Clarence firmly retired, it's Caesar that's in charge of scouring the 40 acre forested farm in Parksville, with mounts Arrowsmith and Moriarty as its backdrop. The result of two decades working out just which tree would work best for the prize truffles here on the West Coast.

[Virginia Britzka]

So when we started, we tested hundreds of varieties of trees. So we inoculated them and then we had to wait a year to two years and look at the roots of these seeds that have been growing and see if they're actually hosting. And when you say hosting under a microscope, that looks like a little nodule on the root. And so if they hosted, they were a candidate for truffle production. We had a few trees, we had the paper birch, we had the hazelnut, and we had the Garry oak that hosted beautifully. We also had some of the evergreens that did two next step was to now put them in the ground and see if they would produce. We did a little trial project, and after a few years, we realized that the Garry oak and the hazelnut were the two producing trees, and that's what we grow on our property today. The hazelnut produces a sweeter truffle than the Garry oak, and the texture of it is a lot finer.

[Narrator]

Along with those trees and the farm's broad breasted turkeys, Rhode island red chickens, and Kutadin sheep. There's a symbiotic nature to creating the perfect conditions for the elusive truffle sought by the local chefs, some of whom have even helicoptered over from Vancouver to take them home for expectant diners.

[Virginia Britzka]

When we brought the black paracord truffle to the island, we realized that we needed to amend our soil, or ph. So we have a few things that we do to amend our soil. We have chickens and chicken tractors. And so a chicken tractor is like a frame that is, like, open from the bottom, and we pull them along, up and down the rows of the plantation. And as they eat the grass and bugs, they end up changing the ph and help amend our soil. And then on top of that, we need to lime our soil to get down to that. So 7 ph that we need somewhere between 6.5 to 7. The sheep, they help us with cutting grass, of course, because when a truffle is brooding, it burns the grass with its off gassing, which creates a little brown patch. And with the sheep cutting the grass, it gives us the opportunity to have the dogs smell the truffles and kind of hones us in on where the truffles are ripening. Fruiting hunt, Caesar. Come on. Let's hunt. Let's go. Come on.

[Narrator]

As we head out among the oaks and hazelnuts to inspect the wood wide web, it doesn't take long for Caesar's nose to jab at the ground just above the truffle as he and his tail points out a black perigord that he's been trained to sniff out since he was a puppy. At its height, the farm can scoop up a wheelbarrow load of the prized, expensive underground fungi in its British Columbian season. Some as big as a palm, others the top of a thumb in size.

[Virginia Britzka]

So a lot of people are surprised that the Vancouver island can host truffles. We have wild truffles here. I believe it's an Oregon white, but we don't know of a lot of people that have cultivated. And the black Perigord is so superior. Elba White is in our near future. We have planted some Elbas and we're into year three with Alba White. So it'll be a few more years to see if we'll be producing. They're still hosting. We do get little bits of the roots to see, however. Time is going to tell.

[Narrator]

Steps away in the Britsky's kitchen, local chef Nick MacKay, Finn of Pepper Custom Catering, cleans up the truffle before shaving and pairing it with Dungeness crab, beef carpaccio and even BlackBerry cheesecake. The fact it's only a couple of minutes out of the ground rather than days across the ocean is everything to him.

[Nick MacKay]

I heard the term the other day, jet fresh in, meaning that it's picked completely under, ripe, ripens on an airplane and then gets here. It's almost two completely different products. You have a tomato that smells like a tomato, you have a truffle that smells like a truffle. You have the ability to kind of support local and eat in season and in turn you get a better product for it. We have a really nice summer truffles. Beautiful, aromatic, almost buttery in smell, a little bit, I guess, lighter of a flavor, kind of, I guess the difference between a red wine and a white wine, you know, still very full bodied, delicious and almost creamy in smell. And the we have a couple winter truffles as well. Really pungent, really kind of forefront in flavor. I find those kind of pair a lot better with that beef carpaccio that we'll be doing today. More whereas the summer ones I kind of like to use more for seafood than the crab.

[Narrator]

Robust and sweet, every bite has more than a hint of the forest floor and pure tenacity. Even the nearby turkeys seem to applaud for Monocle in Parksville, Vancouver Island, I'm Lucy Hislop.

[Tom Edwards]

Thanks to Lucy Hislop for that report and you can find out more by heading to thetrufflefarm ca. Finally, on today's program, I'm joined by Monocle's Fernando Augusto Pecceca. Faye. Welcome back to the entrepreneurs.

[Faye]

It's a pleasure to be here.

[Tom Edwards]

Now, Faye, you trailed at the top of the show the importance or otherwise of these best of lists, particularly in the hospitality industry. I know Michelin guides people very familiar, of course, with their assessments of restaurants. Maybe slightly less so on the hotel front, but we've learned more about their key winners. One, two and three key winners. But before we get into the detail, is this a good idea generally that people are so interested in these ratings.

[Faye]

I am conflicted. And first of all, Tom, I have to say this is not a new thing. The best of lists, usually magazines used to do that. Newspapers, from Conde Nast Traveler to Travel and Leisure, I don't know, the Sunday.

[Tom Edwards]

Times Travel Monocle has been known to throw a few best of lists out there.

[Faye]

Exactly.

[Tom Edwards]

So watch where you're walking with this.

[Faye]

And I have to say, as a reader, I love a good list. So that's why I'm conflicted. So at the moment we have world's 50 best, which again, they started with restaurants and bars, but now they have their own hotel list. So they recently announced, in fact this week the number 51 to 100. So the top 50 will be out, you know, later this month. And of course, Michelin, since last year, they are giving away keys to certain hotels around the world. 143 hotels, you know, got three keys, which is the maximum you can get it. So they, in my view, they are almost replacing some magazines in terms of the power, in terms of marketing, because people do look out for those lists, especially world's best 50. But there are concerns as well, in my view. I'm not saying of course, I'm sure they're very good at what they do and to analyze a hotel, but some people don't know, is it perhaps PR driven? What's the editorial content when they're making this list? So what are they thinking? So it makes me feel a bit conflicted because sometimes when you're a magazine, you can see that your editors perhaps have been to the hotel. So there's this conflicting view, in my opinion.

[Tom Edwards]

And Faye, it's interesting. Obviously there are some venerable hotels all around the world, stellar names, newer entrants. And of course it's interesting to see which markets are maybe thriving now by geography, according to the Michelin rankers. What about smaller players though? Independents, maybe aspiring brands? Look, listeners to this show may be sort of more in the SME size. Maybe they've got a fast growing but smaller brand, more in the boutique space. Is there value here in trying to seek this kind of recognition or in your view, actually is it better to focus your storytelling? I don't know, maybe there's some hoteliers listening to this program focusing that storytelling somewhere else.

[Faye]

There is a value, especially if you're a boutique hotel, to be in this list because as I said, it's big business and they are present everywhere. Tong, if you look online in terms of the number of followers, it's huge and it's getting more and more important and more coverage as well. So of course for the big hotel groups, it's also important to be in that list. But if you're a small hotel, for example, when the world's best 50s, not even the top 50, but most hotels, they already publish and say, listen, we got a key from Michelino, we are the 65th best hotel in the world. I mean, this is a big deal for them. And you can be a Rosewood type, you can be a very, you know, just a one off hotel in the south of France. They're all posting that. So clearly it means a lot to them to be part of those lists as well.

[Tom Edwards]

And Fae, just tell me what's your strategy when you get these lists? I tend to always immediately scroll through either to my own home market. You've got several home markets, so do you look straight away what is happening in Brazil? Is there a hotel near Sao Paulo for example? Or do you have to make do with the recommendation in Rio? Or do you like to look at your favorite hotel destination and see if your choice is recognized? What's the Fernando strategy?

[Faye]

You've guessed it, because with Michelin, for example, they announced the list very recently. So I said, let me see which hotels in Brazil got the. The three keys and let's see if they really got this right. So for example, they gave three keys to the Rosewood in Sao Paulo, which I visited. I haven't stayed at the hotel, but I've eaten there. I went to the bar and to the Belmont Hotel in the Iguazu Falls as well. I have to say they do have good taste because the Rosewood in Sao Paulo is a very. It's a very special construction. It has a lot of history. The place where they built that, they chose a lot of Brazilian art. You know, it is unique, it doesn't feel generic in any whatsoever. So you know, after I saw that, I was like, okay, I can trust whatever they picked for Asia for other regions as well. Tone, I love a good list. Monaco does the Quality of Life survey, the Soft Power survey and many others. I think there is a place for kind of a Listico article as well. But at the same time you shouldn't only trust the lists because sometimes there is a discreet owner of a chateau in France who perhaps doesn't want to advertise. And that's the good old word of mouth.

[Tom Edwards]

Exactly. So trust your own judgment first. But it's good fun while it's out there to enjoy. Faye, wise words as always. That's a take on the latest Michelin hospitality rankings from our own Fernando Augusto Pacheco here on the Entrepreneurs. And that is all for the program, which will be back at the same time next week. The show is produced by Laura Kramer with audio edited by Jack Dewars. If you want to get in touch with the show, do email Laura on LRK monocle.com head to the website to follow, to subscribe or keep in touch wherever you get your podcasts. My name's Tom Edwards. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to the Entrepreneurs.