CHINON — Serge Desazars' bodyguards are very hairy. Hip-Hop, a two-year-old Springer, jumps whenever a new visitor arrives. Serge lets out a smile, surreptitiously materializing on the unemotional farmer's face. Hip-Hop is clearly too playful for this former international director for the clothing brands Petit Bateau, Céline and Holland & Holland. Desazars, who abandoned carpeted offices for the clay-limestone soils of the wine-rich Chinon region, prefers the efficiency of his two frizzy-haired Italian Lagotti Romagnoli, dogs that are experts in the art of unearthing the Tuber melanosporum — or "black truffle."
The exchanges between master and animal are rather distant. Being a "boss and a friend" isn't the most efficient strategy in the quest for the black diamond, and Desazars plans to have a total of 12 dogs to generate enough revenue. The truffle farm, which he created in 2011, now boasts close to 125 acres. "The goal is to reach 500 acres by 2020. The company will be profitable from the moment we reach 170 acres," the businessman calculated.
We ask him why he put an end to his career in 2012, when he was the right-hand man of the CEO of German clothing company Strenesse. Was it to escape the company of men and the "triviality" of fashion, to seek shelter in the homeland of French Renaissance author Rabelais? Yes and no. "I'm still in the luxury business and I'm building a brand, Baron de la Truffe," he starts. "I grew annoyed at the fact that we had to reverse strategies whenever there was a new boss. I needed a clear line, a long-term vision and I wanted to have my own business."
The amateur truffle farmer had already begun selling truffles to those around him, but he didn't think of leaving his old job behind, at least not at first. "It was a friend of mine, Timothée Sautereau, a former account director at Carat who became a butcher in Paris 18th arrondissement, who showed me it was possible." It was a return to his roots rather than an escape, after a life of international flights, openings and negotiations.
As a child, he used to spend his holidays in this region where his father, Jean Desazars, a former director at Lafarge, had bought a second home. "He came here because we'd just missed out on a house in Normandy. A friend of his invited him here, and he stayed." Serge himself acquired a farmhouse in tuffeau stones, the type of limestone that gives the villages of the Loire valley their charm. One of Serge's brothers. Louis, CEO of Shiseido Europe, lives just around the corner.
Serge Desazars admits it bluntly: He's "addicted" to truffles. In 1996, aged 26, he planted truffle oaks on 1.5 acres next to the family house. "He used to train his dog in Paris' public gardens by hiding truffles in the soil," says Adrienne, his wife, laughing as she remembers her husband down on all fours, his hands in the soil to feel the precious mushrooms. "People would look at him as if he was a freak. Many thought he was a crackpot."
When the Parisian launched agricultural production in a land more renowned for its vineyards than its truffles, many were dubious — even his father. "Not many people believed in the project at first, but I didn't care one bit about what other people thought," he says. But he still had to convince a few people to be able to acquire the land.
Thankfully, Chinon is no stranger to truffle production. There are about a hundred people who, like Serge Desazars, are reviving the trade in the area. "The region used to be the biggest truffle producer in France in the 19th century, at a time when the country as a whole would produce about 1,500 tons a year," explains Louis Houette, vice-president of the Syndicat de la Truffe Rabelaisienne ("Rabelaisian Truffle Union").
France's current production of just 50 tons isn't even enough for national demand, let alone exporting. "A global market is out there waiting for us," says Serge. Soon, he hopes to board international flights again, this time with boxes of truffles in the baggage hold.
