Abraham Lincoln had yet to be elected president when Mr. Morillon and Mr. Bechet founded a small animal-powered oil mill in the idyllic French town of Saumur. Over the next century and a half, La Tourangelle refined their production processes and adopted appropriate technologies without ever compromising the artisan tradition still employed today.

The production of gourmet oils is a time-honored tradition in France. Originally, each village had a mill which roasted and extracted the oil from nuts gathered by local farmers. These flavorful oils were used in hearty rustic fare but could also be found in the finest Parisian restaurants. La Tourangelle is one of just a handful of these remaining mills that keep this tradition alive.

Demand for gourmet oils in France has remained fairly constant but pressures to modernize distribution channels led to the gradual ownership by the Kohlmeyer family over a decade ago. A new goal was to enable a wider range of consumers to experience their uniquely flavorful nut oils. Then only 24 years old, Matthieu Kohlmeyer moved to California's Bay Area to recreate his family's French Artisan oil mill. The process involved custom fabricating century-old equipment and bringing an oil roasting artisan from France to train the American staff.

The new oil mill, located in Woodland, California, is currently producing oil from nuts picked on the orchard next door. The oil artisans painstakingly selects nuts of the highest quality and lets them sun dry to preserve their natural flavors. They then hand roast the nuts in cast iron pots, followed by a decantation process, cold-pressing and finally a light filtering. The result is an oil with elegant natural flavors, and a clearly discernable difference in quality from what is generally found in America.

A great deal has occurred in the world since the time La Tourangelle first began handcrafting oil but thankfully their traditional process has remained virtually the same, only now the oils can be enjoyed fresh from California.