It’s that time of year again. Every Friday evening in July and August there is a large outdoor wine festival in Montpellier's city centre. The principal is that you pay for a festival glass with three tickets which are each valid for a wine tasting at any one of the vintner's stands. Now there are also a lot of food stands which accept a certain number of tickets for their wares. In theory you take your little glass to the three vintner stands of your choice, tell them which one of their wines you would like to sample, swish your glass around and talk genteelly about varietals with a local wine grower. The reality now is that it has become a victim of its own success. Expect to wait in long lines and battle for the attention of somebody to half fill your glass. Still, there is a good general ambiance and it can be a good budget night out and if you are determined enough it should give you the opportunity to taste a number of different regional wines. Usually there are about 20 different domaines represented.
Les Estivals started off very quietly. I think I went to the first one a number of years ago when there were just over a hundred people who came out to taste wines in an open air environment along l'esplanade Charles De Gaulle in Montpellier. It has grown such that one must get there very early to find a patch of grass to sit down on. You must get there even earlier to get a seat at one of the long tables. I usually end up on the steps of the Mussée de Fabre art annex. It is a good place to take newcomers to Montpellier and allow them to bask in the good wine and weather of the region.
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I agree - the Estivales were much nicer a few years ago when they were on a smaller scale, without those horrid cabanes all the way up and down the Esplanade selling 37 kinds of crappy handicrafts, and a bunch of stallholders flogging candifloss, beignets, books and umpteen other, non-wine related things. It feels like the city has taken a neat idea and decided to milk it for all its worth. Shame...
ReplyDeleteWhen it started out it seemed too good to be true. It was. Now is frustrating waiting for service.
ReplyDeleteI just read, in the rag formerly known as Montpellier Plus, that Times café is doing an "off Estivals". They will bring in a feature vintner every week. The article did not say if they were doing this on premisis or if they had found some other space for this activity. I am a bit sceptical about the result if they do it in their own little bar since it is already more than packed out any given evening.