from Vacquieres, France: fast running, heavy rains, slow snails and lively rosés

Sunday Morning

La Premiere Foulee des Vendanges! – reads the poster. A race to honor the wine stompers of the past.

I think the local jogging club simply wants to promote their sport, but that’s okay. Jogging is good. Grape stomping is (was) good. I am all for watching and supporting le local sport on a Sunday morning in the neighboring winemaking village of Corconne.

Only you have to feel sorry for the 47 who have chosen to participate in this thirteen kilometer mini-marathon through the vineyards. Sometime at night the rains came and their occasional pause hardly lasts the length of time needed to gulp down a café crème.

Still, it is a happening and so my host at the Chateau Lascaux, Jean-Benoit, takes time off from picking and pressing to drive me to the village where it all begins.

The race starts and ends outside the Wine Cooperative and the band is there to put some oomph into the day.








The runners are off. We follow their progress across rocky soils and paved paths. Volunteers wave road traffic to the side and provide sustenance. Are those real fruit pates I see? That would just throw me off, were I running. I’d get out of the race and concentrate on selecting the cassis over the kiwi, despite the encouraging cries of “courage!, courage!” from the sidelines.





Up village streets (they have run over to our village now!), past painted doors and Jean-Benoit’s caves…








Onto the finish line. I am a poor observer of the human condition when the rains come down. I worry about my camera. I go inside the Cooperative and sample rosés that are freely being poured. I miss who came in first or last. I taste, I purchase.





A farmer of snails has set up his table at the Cooperative as well. He sells escargots in jars or as a snack, roasted on the spot, served in a baguette. I buy those as well. Your guess as to which – the jars to take back, or roasted in a baguette?








Sunday morning in the Languedoc. No one appears to mind the pause in the vandange (grape harvest). They all have read the reports. The sun comes out tomorrow. Today’s wet skies means that you can take time off, guilt free. Sort of like a snow day back in Wisconsin.