Normandy Food and Culture Tours

We used HQCompanyTour.com for Normandy area in October of this year and it was fantastic.. We opted for a private tour for the two of us. I think they have groups of eight or more also. Our guide was Yanni and he was wonderful. Best money we spent. They are group of four guides who were working for another major tour company and went out on their own. Enjoy.

If you do it on your own, there are dozens of Calvados Distilleries that have tastings, and some will let you poke around the farm too. I believe there is also a cheese factory that does tours in Lisieux, but its name escapes me. The wonderful Join Us in France travel podcast also did an episode/trip-report about a tour of the cider route.

https://joinusinfrance.com/episode/normandy-cider-route/

If you rent a car and want to do a self-guided tour in Normandy, here is some information and addresses to help you:

Calvados:

https://en.normandie-tourisme.fr/secrets-of-the-distillery/

Camembert:

https://www.maisonducamembert.com/en/home/

Cider:

https://routeducidre.com/cider-route/?lang=en

General map of cider, cheese and calvados producing farms (PDF file):

https://www.authenticnormandy.fr/app/uploads/lisieux/2019/07/route-des-caves-en-authentic-normandy.pdf

Don't forget that tasting calvados or cider (especially calvados) and driving are not compatible activities.

Just a note that that pdf and map is produced by the Lisieux tourism organization, is a bit self-serving for them, and conveniently leaves out many, many cider, pommeau, and calvados producers located west of the area depicted on the map.

Probably just an innocent oversight.

It is true that the producer list is incomplete.
I don't think this exists in a form that is easily usable for a tourist trip

Regarding cider, Pommeau and Calvados there is a more complete description (with an official map) here (PDF file):

https://www.idac-aoc.fr/images/espace-presse/dossiers-presse/DP_IDAC_2019.pdf

Cider being a protected designation (AOP), more information, as well as the list of 3772 municipalities authorized to produce it, are available on the government website:

https://www.inao.gouv.fr/produit/14000

Regarding Camembert it's here:

https://www.inao.gouv.fr/produit/4204

Thank you for the replies. I will check out all this info!