St-Vincent: the Patron Saint of Winegrowers

Every year on the last weekend of January, the winegrowers of Burgundy celebrate and give thanks to Saint Vincent, the patron saint of winegrowers.  There are various legends of how this celebration started but the most popular is that one day St Vincent stopped at a vineyard in Burgundy to talk to one of the wine growers. His donkey started nibbling at the young grape vine with the result that the following year, the crop was extremely productive.  The belief is that Saint Vincen’ts donkey helped to create a more plentiful crop for the winegrower.  This tradition of honoring Saint Vincent dates back to the middle ages and only takes place in Burgundy.

The venue for the festival rotates each year throughout Burgundy and being chosen as host is a highly prestigious honor.  Usually only one city or town hosts the festival but this year tradition was broken and there were three host venues: Dijon, Beaune, and Nuits-St-Georges.  This was to honor Burgundy’s application for the 'climats' (specific vineyards to the Burgundy region) to be included as a UNESCO World Heritage site. (Info on the ‘climats’ can be found here: climats of Burgundy)  The host venues each had different events planned, but the main event was a large wine tasting.

Dijon had spent the last few weeks decorating the city for the festival so as colorful flags and banners rose, so did my excitement!

Saturday:

"St Vincent: Weekend celebration in Dijon"

On Saturday Dijon was packed- I’ve never seen it so crowded. I opted out of wine tasting in order to take in some other festivities that were planned.  I spent some of the morning taking pictures of the city (one of the few weekends you don’t stick out by having a camera!) and then met up with some friends later in the afternoon.  We went to the Fine Arts museum for a few hours because the museum had highlighted special pieces that related to Saint Vincent which was cool.  While I had been briefly once before, it’s a large museum and I still have yet to explore all of it so I'll have to go back and really spend a full afternoon there!  After our time in the museum we needed some coffee to re-energize for the parade that was to start at 5.  After our java-fix we lined up on Rue de la Liberté eager to see what was in store. 

The parade consisted of two groups of drummers and 3 giant, singing ladies: 

We quickly found out that the French do not neatly line up and wait for the parade to pass by- they stand in the street without a care! At first we stayed on the sidewalk but after a bit we decided we may as well join everyone in the street!  Boy did we get an experience by joining in: one group of drummers completely surrounded my friends and I- drumming loudly and pushing us back and forth.  It was hilarious!  I can only imagine the ridiculous photos strangers have us being engulfed by drummers!  A moment I’ll never forget!

The parade finished with a show at Place de la Liberation where the giant ladies sang some more, sparklers went off, and the drummers hung from a crane.  No, really:

Yes, those are drummers!

Saturday was such a lovely day that I went to bed even more excited to continue celebrating the festival again the next day!

Sunday:

"St-Vincent: Another day to celebrate"

Sunday my friends and I met at noon to take part in the famous wine tasting.  How could we honor St Vincent and not drink wine!?  There was a “wine set” for 15 euros which included a wine glass, a pouch, and seven glasses of wine (one glass per tasting station). Pretty great, in my opinion.

Me and my set:

On Rue de la Liberté- aren't all the flags great?!
The tan pouch has my wine glass in it :)

It was so cold out that there were constant snow flurries throughout the afternoon but the wine was delicious!  Each tasting stop represented a different region/climat which was a nice way to get to know the different wines of Burgundy. I even got an extra glass for free from the cremant de Bourgogne (a sparkling white wine similar to champagne) when my pourer found out I was American!  The best part was that all the wine stations were set up throughout the city center so you could just sip on your wine as you walked the streets to the next station.  St Vincent had truly taken over Dijon and I was all for it:

Just loving life, wandering the streets of Dijon, wine in hand...

This weekend was the coldest it has been so far but I was more than happy to have been out and about in the 30 degree weather.  It was one of those weekends where I truly felt alive- simply living in the moment and the only thing of importance was having a good time.  I’m so thrilled to have experienced Dijon’s first time as a host venue for St-Vincent and highly recommend a trip to Burgundy for this festival to any and all lovers of wine!

Word of the Post: le vin -- wine