[Saline de Kervalet · Batz-sur-Mer]
MULON is one saline at Kervalet, near Batz-sur-Mer. The sea comes in on the big tides, and from June to September we rake it out of 24 clay pans as fleur de sel and sel gris.
[Parts of the saline]
[47.278° N · 2.479° W]
[Harvest: mid-June to mid-September]
01The saline
A saline is a staircase of water. Seawater comes in at one end at 3.5% salt, moves from basin to basin as sun and wind take the water away, and reaches the pans at 26%, where it can hold no more and the salt comes out.
02Read the water
Each basin is saltier than the last, and the algae and brine shrimp that live in it change its colour. Follow the water from the channel to the pan.
The sea comes in on tides above coefficient 80, through a single 500 m gap between Le Croisic and Pen-Bron, and runs up the channels to each saline.
A deep reservoir where the mud carried in by the tide settles out. It is cleaned every winter and holds water in reserve all season.
Only a few centimetres deep. A second settling, and the start of evaporation proper.
Long, shallow basins where the salt climbs fastest. Green algae give way to an amber tint as carotene-rich algae and brine shrimp take over.
The strong pink brine waits here and refills the pans after each day of evaporation, through the narrow channels called sauniers.
About 5 mm of brine on a clay floor. At 26% the water holds all the salt it can, and crystals start to form as hollow, stepped cubes.
Nine tenths of the water has gone before the first crystal forms.
03Two salts, one pan
On warm afternoons with a breeze, a thin crust forms on the surface and drifts to the downwind edge. It is skimmed every evening with the lousse before rain can dissolve it, and it never touches the clay, so it stays white.
Grains that grow on the clay floor of the pan. The paludière pushes the water round with the las, rolls the grains into a ridge at the foot of the ladure and lifts them out to drain overnight.
04The year
Salt is made from mid-June to mid-September. The rest of the year goes on the banks and the mud, and in winter the pans sleep under seawater.
05The trade
The way a Guérande saline is worked has hardly changed since the fifteenth century. Postcards from Batz a hundred years ago show the same pans, the same rakes and the mulon growing on the trémet.
06Walk the saline
Ninety minutes on the banks with the paludière: the water from channel to pan, a prise de sel, and fleur de sel picked in front of you.