The French town reviving its lemon heritage with zest 🍋

Plus giant citrus sculptures!

From the 2022 edition of the Fête du Citron in Menton, France.

If you ask me what my favorite month on the French Riviera is, I’ll tell you February – that fleeting moment when the winter clouds give way to bright, clear days, and the impending spring rain seems a far-off thought. Just today from my open window, I heard marching bands practicing for Nice’s Carnival parade – a cornerstone of the city’s heritage as a winter resort town, for which it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2021.

But long before tourism took hold as a primary driver of the French Riviera’s economy, the mild, sunny days of February lent themselves to another activity: harvesting lemons – specifically in the town of Menton, not far from the border with Italy, where the Alps rescind from the sea just enough to create slopes with an east-west alignment – the perfect conditions for cultivating citrus. 

Lemons first arrived in Menton from Spain in the 15th century. Over the following centuries, the area’s unique micro-climate and terraced growing method gave birth to the Menton lemon – a unique variety with bumpy, extra-oily skin and a mild flavor.

A Menton lemon ripens in the sun. All photos in this post are my own.

By the 18th century, Menton was Europe’s leading lemon-producing region, exporting one million lemons annually to consumers as far away as Russia and the United States. Then, as foreign tourists began to take notice of the French Riviera’s pleasant winters, the citrus terraces were cleared to make way for hotels and villas. 

Meanwhile, the French Revolution caused trade restrictions to ease and Menton faced growing competition from Spain and other lemon-growing regions. Finally, a cold snap in the 1950s killed the remaining lemon trees and the local workforce made its final transition from agriculture to hospitality.

Yet the Menton lemon never really went away. Since 1934, the city of Menton has organized the Fête du Citron, a festival celebrating the region’s lemon-growing heritage. Unlike in Nice and many other cities where professional event organizers plan and staff the carnival festivities, the same municipal workers who spend the majority of the year painting buildings and handling maintenance work also rubber band more than three tons of lemons and oranges to wire frames, creating impressive structures that can reach up to ten meters high. In 2022, when I created the video below and an accompanying article for BBC Travel, the festival’s theme was Operas and Dances. This year, the upcoming summer Olympics in Paris are in the spotlight.

While the sculptures are on display during the entirety of the two-week festival, the town really comes to life on the weekends. That’s when the parades take place, with giant floats lumbering through the streets, much to the delight of the 15,000 cheering spectators packed onto bleachers and every available inch of sidewalk space. Bands and dancers keep spirits high with performances hand-picked to match the year’s theme. 

From the look of the festivities, you’d hardly guess that today only about 15 Menton lemon producers remain perched on the peaceful slopes above the town. In fact, with a total output of around 100 tons per year, the entirety of the Menton lemon harvest wouldn’t be enough to meet the festival’s fruit consumption of about 150 tons. All the fruit for the Fête du Citron's sculptures and floats must be imported from Spain (and is sold at a discount at the festival close to avoid waste.)

A fruit-covered float makes its way through the streets of Menton.

But the Menton lemon may once again have its day in the sun. Originally from the Southwest of France, Laurent Gannac prides himself on being the first person in recent years to make a living entirely off of the Menton lemon. Together with his son, he maintains about 750 trees. A boutique in Nice’s old town and another in the airport sells products boasting the family name.

When he began to cultivate lemons in the 1990s, many locals couldn’t understand why a young person would be interested in reviving a bygone product. Today, he’s not the only one. Menton native Laetita Sepicacchi was working in Paris when, on a trip back home, she realized her family’s former vineyard would be the perfect place to grow lemons. In 2015, with the help of a city initiative, she planted 35 young trees.

While she waits for the trees to reach full maturity, she harvests about 100 kilos of fruit off of three older trees, which she sells to specialty grocers and perfume producers.

Even renowned chefs have caught onto the lemon’s potential. At Mirazur, the Menton restaurant ranked number one in the World's 50 Best in 2019, chef Marco Colgresco plants new lemon trees in the gardens behind the restaurant every year.

When Sepicacchi reflects on her ultimate goal to cultivate the Menton lemon, she imagines a day when lemon trees can once again define the local landscape and support the town's economy, maybe resembling French poet Stéphen Liégeard's 1887 description: "little valleys that leave to the breeze the care to shake passers-by, the heady smell of lemon trees."

This post is based on my 2022 article for BBC Travel. Read the full story here.