Espelette is a Basque village whose house fronts are hung each autumn with strings of drying red peppers — the image is on every tourism poster of the Pays Basque. The piment d'Espelette has held an AOP since 2000, covering ten communes, and is the seasoning that replaced black pepper in Basque cooking after the plant arrived from the New World.
The fête, held on the last weekend of October once the strings have dried, includes a blessing of the peppers, a confrérie ceremony in red robes, Basque dance and pelota, a market of producers, and a great deal of cooking.
No attendance figure is published.
The village is small and the roads into it are narrow; the weekend produces queues from Cambo-les-Bains. Bayonne and Saint-Jean-de-Luz are each about half an hour away and are the sensible bases.
PlanningAnchored to the last weekend of October, after the strings have dried on the house fronts.