West of Fontvielle, in Maussane-les-Alpilles is the Moulin Cooperatif Jean-Marie Cornille. This community mill is featured in Mort Rosenblum’s classic, ‘Olives - The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit’ (North Point Press 1996). The local growers bring their olives to this mill to be pressed using a mechanised stone and mat system.  A mill operator stacks the mats on the turntable as the olive paste is spread on the disc.
	When the stack is complete the oil and water are extracted from the paste. The turntable rotates, the operator scrapes off the spent paste and recommences the process. A centrifuge is used to separate the water from the oil. The oil is then bottled as an unfiltered product.

The village of Mouries is landscaped to promote its olive heritage. The local cooperative mill Moulin a Huile Cooperatif boasts a modern showroom overlooking the bottling area.  Although gold medal winners for their oil, their manner was unfriendly and unlike any other we had received in France, so we gathered little information here. Next stop is market day at St Remy de Provence. Here was the best display of table olives we had encountered – average price 44 francs ($AUD 12.00) per kilo. By far our favourite here is the small, black, and sweet to the taste, Nicoise olive.
A note from a reader
Mouries olive grove late afternoon, November 2007 Dear Editor of the article shown on this page. Your article caught my attention because of the negative portrayal of the olive oil cooperative in Mouries. I am writing to you as a future resident of Mouries, a village where I plan to retire in a couple of years. At the moment I still reside and work in Germany and rent out my Mouries village house as a self-catering holiday rental. So far, most of my guests have had favorable impressions of the village, with only a few exceptions. As a customer of the village Tourism Office I do prefer more positive comments from visitors. I am a great fan of olive oil and consume great quantities. My favorite is also the oil from the Jean-Marie Cornille mill in Maussane, however, the Mouries oil mills have made great strides in recent years and been winning gold and silver medals in recent years. The cooperative mentioned in your article won three gold medals in 2006 and I wonder how they will fare in 2007. It is unfortunate that you received such an unfriendly reception at the local cooperative. I assume the sales clerk did not understand your request or was totally disinterested. The language problem no doubt was also a factor. I will mention this to the cooperative's vice president whose wife is a friend of mine. For your information, there are a couple of other mills in the village, the Moulin Saint Michel and the Vaudoret (organic) Take a look at the following web sites to see what the Mouries mills have to offer: http://www.moulinsaintmichel.com/  English: http://www.moulinsaintmichel.com/8_•_English/  http://www.moulincoop.com/english/index.php  http://www.vaudoret.com (organic cultivation) Regards from Provence, Jutta Millas owner of la cheveche village house

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