Toques et Clochers

Well, it is pretty well impossible to describe the local wine festival, but I shall give it a try.

Firstly, some history. The Sieur d’Arques winery in Limoux has been making a lot of wine for a very, very long time; sparkling wine has been around the region since 1531. Much of it wonderful, some exceptional; they also make a rather palatable blend sold by Gallo in the US and Canada called Red Bicyclette, although this has been subject to a recent scandal regarding a Grape Deception.

Enough of the sour grapes, though, the winery is a superb corporate citizen, and among their other community works, is the annual (this was the twenty-first, so for a region steeped in history, it is a rather modern event) Toques et Clochers.

One village is picked each year from the region that the winery sources their grapes, and a festival is held to celebrate wine, food and the general joie de vivre on the day before the annual professional wine auction. And this year, the festival was held in Coiza, the village next to ours.

Ours, of course, is Esperaza; a town of about 3,000 folks in the High Aude Valley, where a couple of years ago we bought an old butcher’s shop in a moment of rose wine induced lunacy, and has become a second home. It is a marvellous place, but more of the Languedoc another time.

The festival is a masterpiece of organisation; 30 – 35,000 people are drawn into the town which is completely sealed off to traffic. One parks in large areas in nearby towns and shuttled to and fro by bus from 2.00pm until midnight. Throughout the town there are wine cellars, food stalls, bands, wandering musicians, clowns and thousands and thousands of visitors laughing, drinking and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

And here’s the thing; when you arrive, you buy a glass for €3 which you carry with you all afternoon and evening, filling it up for €2 per glass of €10 per bottle, decanted into a rather (it has to be said) medical looking jug. Imaging if you will, 35,000 folks with more than a glass or two warming their senses of humour, wandering, eating, dancing and carrying actual glass! I only heard two break all evening, each to a rousing cheer. People from eight to eighty, every shape and size, laughing chatting and carrying glass; I loved it. How could one not?

And the food! Duck sandwiches, oysters, giant shrimp, moules frites, pastries and much else for only a few euro; plentiful and delicious.

“What of the proceeds of the festival”, I hear you ask? Well, the purpose is to raise money to mend and restore the local church; community wins, people have fun, the weather was brilliant and we all decided to come again next year when the festival is to be held in Limoux itself.