A thousand-year-old fame and ancestral gestures

"Sel de l'île de Ré" and "Fleur de sel de l'Île de Ré" are at the heart of the Ré identity, in Charente-Maritime. For almost a thousand years, the saunières and sauniers have shaped the Île de Ré landscape. Thanks to their ancestral know-how and unchanged methods, they continue to produce quality sea salt to the rhythm of the seasons.

A demanding process

The salt marshes, whose bottoms are naturally made of clay, have been slowly shaped to naturally capture water from the Atlantic and regulate its gravitational circulation. In spring, the salt-marsh worker carries out maintenance work on the marshes. He cleans the salt marshes by removing the silt deposited during the winter. In summer, the salt-marsh worker continuously regulates the circulation of salt water. It concentrates in the various basins until it reaches saturation in the salt pans, where the products crystallize.

The "Sel de l'Île de Ré" forms at the bottom of the salt pans, where cubic crystals develop. It is regularly harvested by hand using a simoussi.

The "Fleur de sel de l'Île de Ré" forms at the surface of the water in the saunante area, where evaporation occurs, and where fragile crystallization develops, mostly in the shape of a hollow, inverted pyramid. It is harvested daily. It is hand-picked by lightly skimming the surface of the water with a flowering lousse.