February 4, 2008

Yellow Wine on a Sunny Sunday

This past Sunday, I finally attended my first wine festival, a long awaited experience that turned out to be picture perfect. Situated in the country side of the Franche-comte, specifically in the Jura region, this past Sunday celebrated the opening of the vin jaune (yellow wine), a wine very particular in aroma and taste and a speciality of the region I live in.  Vin Jaune, usually bottled in a wider shorter bottle marked with the word JURA on its front is actually prohibited in the U.S. due to the odd size of the bottle.  Once again, another great French product prohibited in the U.S.
     But back to the festival.  I caught a special train early Sunday morning along with what seemed to be all of Montbéliard.  On the train as well, were three Indian assistants, their host father, another American assistant and his Mexican friend, who studies in Montbeliard. I've honestly never been on a train so loud. Normally, even when packed, people don't talk much over a whisper and it's nearly impossible to hear the conversation of anyone sitting around you. Immediately, I knew the day was going to go off with a hit when people started opening up bottles of vin jaune almost immediately after departing. 
     This year the festival took place between two small villages within a 5 minute walking distance of each other.  Since the villages, Vincelle and Sainte Agnès aren't accessible by train, buses were lined up at the station to take us over to the festival.  We all loaded ourselves in and within 15 minutes we were in the middle of the countryside walking the road to enter the villages. Along the road and throughout the villages, speakers were set up playing anything from classic rock, to French pop and even some German punk rock music.  I knew the day would be more than memorable though, when I got off the train and ran into two guys playing the accordion.  Nothing like some good old accordion music to really make you feel like your in France.  
     As soon as we got into the village, we got our tasting glasses, which we excitedly wore around our necks, making sure to keep a special watch on our 10 tasting tickets. Luckily, we had Claude with us, the host father of the two Indian assistants who is more than knowledgeable in wine. He was our guide and connoisseur, giving us tid bits of interesting info about the wines and directing us to his personal favorites to taste. He definitely made the experience much richer, considering most of us swirl the wine in our glasses just to look somewhat cultured and end up spilling most of it half the time. 
     Getting lunch over early, we all grabbed a Franche-comtois sandwich consisting of Morteau sausage and cancoillotte, two great products of the region and then headed straight for our first tasting. We started with a crémant (a sparkling white) and slowly but surely made it to the vin jaune, then the reds, the macvin and back to vin jaune. My personal favorite was the first vin jaune that I tasted. When I say this wine is quite unique, I mean it with every taste bud in my mouth. Just the aroma of vin jaune is different from anything else and I have to say, it's probably one of the most robust white wines that has ever touched my lips. Even better, when paired with comté cheese, you get the true amazing tastes of these two specialties of the region.
     We leisurely walked around at first, but by the time my friend Max joined us, we found ourselves hoofing it trying to keep up with the Indian assistants, who with Claude knew exactly which stands they wanted to go to. Calling them stands though, doesn't quite do the atmosphere justice. Each place serving wine, was a cave or like a little garage within a rustic stone house. The entire town, which doesn't get much action besides this event, was decorated with paper flowers, papier maché chickens and large cardboard cut outs of grapes and wine bottles. 
     Walking around all day, we had great weather making it feel more like spring than winter. Periodically we stopped to munch on some tasty comté cheese or check out some of the largest truffles I've ever seen (about the size of two golf balls) and even though the crowds were a bit intolerable, the bands marching around the street comprised of young and old dressed like monks made the whole atmosphere oddly silly and festive.
     All I can say is, the French really know how to party. By the end of the day we herded ourselves back to the bus where people were chanting and singing some good old French songs from the time they got on the bus to the time we got off the train back in MontB. Did I mention most of these people were in their 50's by the way, demanding anyone who passed with an unopened bottle of vin jaune to pop the cork and give them a glass! What can I say this stuff is like liquid gold and I do hope I'll be able to share it's taste with some of you with whatever I can manage to bring back with me.
     I'll leave you with an image I found highly amusing. While leaving the second village, walking in the mud to get around the crowds we passed a huge band disguised as monks playing "La Bamba." I don't know about you, but the mix of song choice and the band dressed in brown hooded habits tied with rope gave me a good laugh. 

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