♪ Chloe Elmore: France.

It sits at the crossroads of Northern and Southern Europe, mixing values of family and efficiency with creativity and passion.

♪ Elmore: With skilled hands and full hearts, these artisans produce objects, tastes... Mm.

[Fizz] Elmore: and sounds... [Clink] [Whisking rhythmically] that inspire and delight.

♪ [Whistling] Elmore: This proud nation is a cultural juggernaut steeped in history and using innovations in art, cuisine, and music to command the world stage.

♪ ♪ Paris-- the City of Love and Light, known for its world-class museums, its landmark buildings, and its delectable food.

It's also known as one of the fashion capitals of the world.

[Camera shutter clicking] Haute couture is the pinnacle of Paris style... [Camera shutter clicking] high-end, custom-made works of art as stunning to look at as they are to slip into.

Elmore: Thomasine Barnekow is not just making outerwear to keep your hands warm.

She's an artist and tastemaker.

Elmore: Thomasine's gloves are a must-have fashion accessory, winning A-list fans like Beyonce, who wore them to the 2021 Grammys.

Elmore: For Thomasine, her path to celebrated designer started when she was just a little girl.

Elmore: Although young Thomasine loved making things, she didn't know exactly where it would lead.

Elmore: Glove wearing became a status symbol in Europe in the Middle Ages.

They took off here, thanks in part to Caterina de Medici, who came to France in 1533 to marry King Henry II.

Eager to protect one of her most prized features, her hands, she started wearing and sharing stylish gloves.

They've been a fashion statement here in France ever since.

Elmore: Since her company launched in 2008, Thomasine has created several celebrated designs with unique features like this.

♪ Elmore: Today Thomasine is creating a special design, a one-of-a-kind glove she's been commissioned to create.

Elmore: With the design sketched out, she traces the pattern and cuts the leather.

Elmore: The piece will also incorporate a material not usually seen in gloves-- denim.

Elmore: When it's time to sew the glove together, she starts with the thumb.

Elmore: Once the glove is assembled, she adds the stripes for the pleating and a piping around them.

Elmore: With the details added, she pleats together the straps that wind out from the glove.

Elmore: After the pleating is done, so is her 5-fingered artwork.

♪ ♪ ♪ Elmore: Whether bought at a high-end Parisian cafe or from a street vendor, French desserts are beloved, and one of the most iconic is the macaron.

This delicate sandwich cookie with a creamy center is known for its elegance, vibrant color and, of course, its irresistible flavor.

Mm.

Elmore: The Paris macaron we know today was developed in the 1930s, and chefs all around the globe have been trying to master it ever since.

Creating the perfect macaron is a delicate art, one that demands precision, technique, and baking expertise.

Elmore: Jean-Paul Hevin is one of France's most revered chocolatiers.

He's won many prestigious awards, including Best Pastry Chocolatier in the World.

Elmore: Today Chef Hevin will be assisted by chocolatier Sylvain May.

Making macarons starts with the exterior cookie--the shell.

♪ It takes a blend of almond powder, icing sugar, and cocoa powder.

Elmore: Then egg whites are added to the mix.

♪ Elmore: Chef Hevin has prepared a meringue, a delicate confection made of whipped egg whites and sugar.

This is the base of the macaron biscuit.

♪ Elmore: Tasting helps them ensure they've got the right balance of flavors.

Elmore: The shells take up to 20 minutes to cook.

Elmore: People say the macaron was inspired by an Italian almond cookie made by Venetian monks as far back as the eighth century.

These early macarons had no filling.

They became a sandwich cookie in the 1830s, with the modern-day recipe likely perfected in the early 20th century.

As the macaron shells cool, a chocolate ganache filling is prepared-- a mix of cream, chocolate, and butter.

Elmore: Vegetable dye adds some vibrant colors... Elmore: and then the ganache is piped on.

Elmore: These finished macarons look like tiny Parisian gems.

As for the taste... ♪ ♪ Elmore: France is known for its fine wines, and if you're in Paris and want a bottle of the very best, there is only one person to ask-- the sommelier.

Elmore: Wan grew up in China, far from Paris, and has become head sommelier at one of the city's exclusive wine cellars.

♪ Today he's going to be tasting a special-edition champagne made just for the Hotel Lutetia.

Elmore: Every good sommelier has an expert palate... [Fizz] and a gentle touch.

♪ [Slurps] ♪ Elmore: Stained glass, a divine art form woven from tapestries of light and color.

These lavish windows evoke a sense of spiritual beauty and a tradition of artistic and technical mastery.

♪ Christiane and her husband Philippe started La Maison du Vitrail, a company that creates and restores stained-glass windows, more than 50 years ago.

Then their daughter Emmanuelle got interested, too.

Elmore: Emmanuelle joined the family business more than 20 years ago.

She's now a master glazier, or glass worker, in her own right.

Elmore: Paris is a city full of historic stained-glass windows, and this family has helped restore more than 100 of them, including Galeries Lafayette.

♪ Elmore: Rehabbing these windows takes an expert eye and the right materials.

Elmore: Stained glass has been prized since ancient Rome and became popular in Europe during the Renaissance.

Many churches used these quilts of colored glass to tell stories and share beliefs.

Today Christiane and Emanuelle are working on a new piece for a client.

It starts with the design, which they draw to scale, paint, and adjust.

Elmore: When creating a new work like this, they strive to fulfill their client's vision.

Elmore: With the design set, they cut the glass to match, and the process feels different every time.

Elmore: Paint can help add texture or color.

Elmore: The last step is putting it all together.

♪ Elmore: The end result is a colorful fusion of art and magic made with love for the craft and each other.

♪ Elmore: France is known worldwide for its high fashion, its exquisite food, and, of course, its wine.

The very names of its grape-growing regions are iconic-- Champagne, Burgundy, and perhaps the most celebrated--Bordeaux.

♪ Elmore: At Chateau Coutet, the winemaking tradition goes back to the Le Guerin family in 1643.

♪ They ran this estate until 1788.

At the time, one of America's founding fathers was the U.S.

minister in France and a regular visitor here.

Elmore: Since 1977, the vineyard has been owned and run by another family-- the Balys.

Elmore: Working side by side, Aline, Philippe, and their team produce an average of more than 40,000 bottles of wine a year.

Elmore: Their specialty is sweet white wines, which have attracted acclaim from all over the world.

Elmore: The first wine in France was likely made more than 2,000 years ago.

Later, the Romans helped spread the knowledge of grape growing here and brought vineyards to places like Bordeaux.

Since then, this has become France's largest fine-wine-producing region, with 6,000 wineries and nearly 300,000 acres of vineyards.

Elmore: Now Chateau Coutet is at the end of another grape-growing season and harvesting the last of this year's crop.

Elmore: This is not your average harvest.

They actually look for grapes with a fungus known as botrytis growing on them.

Elmore: This fungus dries out the grape, and one thing that's left behind is a high concentration of sugar.

♪ Mm.

Elmore: After the grapes are picked, they're crushed and pressed to release the juice.

♪ Then, as the wine ferments, new French oak barrels are prepped for aging and sterilized with sulfur.

Since they can't see inside the barrels as wine is poured into them, it takes a good year to know when they're full.

♪ Elmore: This wine will age for up to 18 months until finally, it's ready to taste.

Merci.

♪ ♪ Elmore: If there is one thing they know in Bordeaux, it's that you can't make great wine without some carefully crafted barrels.

These wooden containers help shape a wine's taste, flavor, aroma, and more.

Making them takes a skilled artisan known as a cooper.

[Hammering] Elmore: Master Cooper Dominique builds each barrel with great care, a skill he acquired more than 40 years ago.

Elmore: Wines can spend years inside these French oak barrels, making them a vital part of the aging process.

Elmore: Building a barrel starts with a piece of wood known as a stave.

Elmore: The staves are arranged in a cylinder shape known as a mise en rose because it looks like a flower.

♪ ♪ Elmore: The wood is heated to make it more malleable.

♪ Then the barrel gets heated again through a fiery process called bousinage.

♪ Elmore: Lower temperatures give the wine structure with little impact on aroma, allowing it to keep lots of fruit and freshness.

Higher temperatures add a hint of vanilla or caramel to the wine's scent.

Elmore: At last, the barrel is ready to be shipped, and the client can fill it with their beverage of choice.

Elmore: As much as Dominique loves wine, he loves barrel making even more.

Elmore: West of Paris lies the coastal region of Normandy... ♪ and just off its shoreline is a very special place-- ♪ Mont-Saint-Michel, long hailed as a holy site.

This stunning tidal island has been a destination for visiting pilgrims for more than a thousand years.

♪ It's also the home of a legendary French dish-- ♪ the La Mere Poulard souffle omelet.

♪ Elmore: Chef Franck Lamache has brought his passion for French cuisine to Michelin-star restaurants around the world.

Elmore: Making this special omelet starts with cleaning a pan with salt.

♪ Then butter is added... ♪ and the omelettiers, as they're called, choose some locally sourced fresh eggs collected from the same family for more than a century.

♪ Elmore: The recipe for the dish was created in the late 1800s by Annette Poulard, or Mother Poulard, also known as Mere, a title once given to France's top female chefs.

Mere Poulard needed a way to feed large groups of people who arrived on the island during low tide, so she whipped this up for her hungry guests.

[Rhythmic whisking] ♪ Elmore: Mere Poulard also had the idea of creating a spectacle to entertain guests as the omelettiers prepped their meal.

[Whisking continues] Elmore: This is more than just a show.

With every beat, they're following a strict recipe from Mere Poulard.

Elmore: They make up to 300 omelets a day here, and over the years, they've served millions of them.

Mm.

Ha ha ha!

♪ Elmore: Heading south into the heart of France, there is a small village with creativity in its soil and with an unusual claim to fame.

It's believed to have more ceramics artists and sculptors per capita than almost anywhere in the world.

Elmore: A native of Denmark, Mia makes pottery that exists at the crossroads of beauty and utility.

Elmore: After studying both pottery and design in Denmark, she came to the tiny arts enclave of La Borne more than a decade ago.

The population here numbers around 200 people, and more than a third of local residents make ceramics.

[Birds chirping] Elmore: The history of pottery in La Borne goes back more than 700 years, and by the 19th century, this town had become a hub for French ceramic artists.

Elmore: While Mia makes traditional pottery, she also elevates her craft, creating stunning artwork designed for practical use, like a ceramic armchair.

She shapes the seat in two pieces, working from the bottom up.

Elmore: She throws the second piece... ♪ gives the clay time to dry and stiffen, and joins the top and bottom together.

Elmore: She works on the combined piece, cutting away bits of clay and using a paddle to smooth out the surface.

♪ ♪ Elmore: To make the arms, she throws what looks like a giant donut.

♪ Elmore: As the pieces of clay start to dry, she makes sure they're joined together so they don't crack.

♪ Elmore: At last, she cuts and puts on the arms.

♪ After firing and glazing, the chair is ready.

♪ ♪ ♪ Elmore: France has one of the most celebrated food cultures in the world.

Its cuisine relies on simple, quality ingredients, even as it pushes culinary boundaries, especially here in the Aubrac plateau.

Elmore: This natural paradise lies in France's southernmost region, known as Occitanie.

[Birds chirping] ♪ [Buzz] Elmore: Shaped by ancient volcanic eruptions, the Aubrac plateau offers fertile ground for growing fresh vegetables.

It's also the place that Sebastian Bras, one of France's most acclaimed chefs, and his father Michel, also a world-class chef, call home.

Elmore: Sebastian is a third-generation chef.

Michel's mother, Grandma Bras, ran a local restaurant, and so did Michel, who launched the legendary Le Suquet.

For years, he and Sebastian worked there side by side until the father turned over the kitchen to his son.

Elmore: The offerings at Le Suquet include a dish Michele invented called gargouillou.

It's a stunning assembly of vegetables, herbs, leaves and flowers, most gathered from the family garden.

Elmore: With their fresh ingredients chosen, Chef Sebastian heads to the kitchen to prep the day's gargouillou.

♪ Elmore: For Chef Sebastian, cooking is a way to connect with his family and his roots.

Elmore: Once the gargouillou is prepped, everything is sorted into 60 trays for those lucky enough to dine there.

Elmore: It's all cooked just before serving to keep it as fresh as possible.

♪ Elmore: As the plates are put together, they start by painting them with small seasoning elements and sauces.

♪ ♪ Elmore: The finished dish is Chef Sebastian's masterpiece, a work of art on a plate.

Ha ha ha!

Elmore: He hopes to share that sense of delight and love in every bite his guests take.

♪ Elmore: France is home to some of the most stunning stone monuments in the world, from Notre Dame to the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe.

Extraordinary structures like these are priceless, and it takes a group of highly trained artisans to preserve them.

♪ Elmore: This is one of the most imposing houses of worship in the South of France-- the Rodez Cathedral.

Construction started on this Gothic-style structure in the 13th century and kept going until the 16th century.

In many ways, the cathedral has been a work in progress ever since.

♪ [Tapping] Elmore: For Quentin and his team, this restoration is about more than saving old buildings.

It's about laying a foundation for the future.

Elmore: For much of that time, this has been a male-dominated field, but now it's being embraced by women, too.

♪ Elmore: These stonemasons can't turn back the hands of time, but they can honor the cathedral's history with precision and passion.

Elmore: That sense of lineage is what drives this new generation of masons.

♪ Elmore: With its gentle valleys and lush plateaus, the Occitanie landscape is breathtaking.

Featuring some of the most exquisite vistas in all of France, this region helps form a bridge between the distant past and the modern world.

[Man whistling] Thousands of years after the first shepherds led their flocks across these open plains, a dedicated group of people still carry on this ancient trade.

♪ Marc is a second-generation sheepherder and helps survey a flock of more than 500 animals.

Hey, yaeeh!

[Speaks French] [Bells clanging] [Oslo barks] Elmore: Usually, he relies on his partners to get the job done.

[Speaks French] Elmore: Another tool of the trade is his shepherd's bag.

He's had this one for about a decade.

[Whistling] Elmore: The bag is an essential tool.

It can carry food, water, medicine for the sheep, even a cell phone, anything a modern-day shepherd might want.

Shepherds bags have been used for thousands of years.

This modern version has been carried here in France since the 18th century.

Elmore: Jean-Pierre, a native of this sheepherding region, taught himself leatherworking and started making these bags in 1980.

The first step in creating one is choosing the leather.

10 separate pieces are cut out for each bag.

♪ ♪ Elmore: The edges of the bag are sewn... ♪ and the pieces assembled and cleaned up.

♪ Then the bag is flipped inside out and gets some final touches.

♪ Elmore: The end result is a bag that can last a lifetime and that always carries the passion it's made with.

Elmore: Leaving behind the wilds of Occitanie and heading back to bustling Paris, where the past still echoes in modern music culture.

♪ The viola da gamba, an old-fashioned instrument that creates an elegant symphony of sound, once a staple of Baroque music, it nearly vanished until some dedicated musicians and craftspeople made it sing again.

♪ Elmore: Building a viola da gamba can take two to 3 months, and it all starts with the right wood.

♪ Elmore: She traces the outline of the viola da gamba's back... ♪ then cuts it out.

Even at this early stage, Judith wants to ensure the wood will carry sound evenly.

[Thumping] ♪ Elmore: She also cuts out the neck, which allows a musician to balance the instrument while playing.

50 years ago, Judith was an amateur musician when she walked into an instrument makers workshop.

Elmore: She shapes the ribs, or sides, of the viola da gamba by using water and a hot iron.

[Sizzling] [Popping] [Sizzling] ♪ Elmore: The earliest surviving viola da gambas are from Italy in the early to mid 16th century.

Over the next hundred years, the instrument caught on throughout Western Europe.

It fell out of fashion by the latter half of the 18th century but has enjoyed a renaissance since the 1960s.

Today's viola da gambas are sometimes inspired by ones from the distant past.

Judith uses a centuries-old design for the pegbox, which holds the pegs and strings at the top of the fingerboard.

Elmore: The last big piece is the soundboard, which amplifies the sound of the strings.

♪ ♪ Elmore: She repeatedly shaves and tests the boards to see how they'll vibrate together when the instrument is done, but it's not an exact science.

♪ Elmore: Judith and her colleague Matthieu assemble the viola da gamba.

♪ Kraft: OK.

That's how the pegs work.

♪ Elmore: After the strings are added, there's one last thing to do.

[Strums chord] ♪ ♪ Elmore: On the outskirts of Paris sits another scenic oasis-- Fontainebleau, home to a magnificent palace and an abundance of natural inspiration.

♪ For one local artisan, these flowers are more than just her muse.

She's turned them into masterpieces in their own right.

♪ Elmore: Petalist is a job Claire herself created, one that aptly describes the art she makes.

Elmore: Claire didn't know flowers would be her primary inspiration until she took an artist's retreat to Australia, visiting a town devastated by fire.

Elmore: For years after, Claire went around Paris creating street art with live flowers.

Elmore: By design, Claire's artworks only lasted as long as the petals they were made of.

Elmore: That set her on a 10-year journey to figure out how to naturally preserve these petals.

Elmore: In 2016 after her breakthrough, Claire was approached by the jewelry maker Bouchon.

Elmore: Thanks to Claire, it was.

Now she is working with them on a collection, and the first step is choosing the right petals.

Ha ha ha!

Elmore: After the petals are washed, they are dried in a special kind of paper.

Elmore: Each petal is pressed for 5 days to remove any water.

This is where Claire starts to treat them, but the details of her process are top secret.

Ha ha ha!

I can't tell you more.

Elmore: When she's done, the petals often look even more vivid than before.

Elmore: So how long will these treated petals last?

Elmore: When the petals are turned into jewelry, the end results are stunning, a mix of natural beauty and human ingenuity.

Claire still can't believe how lucky she is to be part of this collaboration.

Elmore: Key to that perfection is Claire's own secret process, and if she ever decides to share it with anyone... she knows just who she'll turn to.

Kh kh kh!

Ha ha ha!

♪ Elmore: From its sophisticated cities to its quaint villages, France is a nation with an old soul and a modern sensibility.

[Tapping] Over many centuries, its artisans have inspired and influenced people around the world with elegant taste... Mm.

Elmore: bold innovation... Maman... "Oh, oh..." Elmore: and above all... with love.

♪ ♪