Breakfast in Burgundy by Raymond Blake

Author:Raymond Blake [Blake, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2014-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

9

LUCKY MAN, SAINT VINCENT

Saint Vincent, still celebrated today across Burgundy, struck gold when the patron saint-ships were being handed out. Where others got hopeless causes (go, Jude), bomb technicians (tread softly, Barbara), or used clothes dealers (that’ll be Anne), Vincent drew the winning ticket of wine and winemakers. Word on the street is that he has been celebrating ever since, but what about his donkey?

According to legend the saint was out for a stroll and stopped at a vineyard to chat with some workers. His donkey, not finding the conversation riveting, started to eat some of the shoots on the vines. The subsequent harvest was a cracker, thanks to the donkey’s unwitting invention of pruning, and Vincent got the plum patron-ship, to the envy of Jude, Barbara, Anne, and dozens of others. There’s no record of a reward for the donkey.

Wooden effigies of Saint Vincent are to be found everywhere in Burgundy, most of them niche-sized for handy display in a cramped cellar, while others are larger, and there’s an enormous roadside one in Savigny-lès-Beaune. It’s not a thing of beauty, and the last time I saw it the wood at its base was rotting; here’s hoping the mayor will commission a more modest replacement.

The most public celebration of the saint’s association with wine, the annual Saint Vincent Tournante, takes place on the final weekend of January, and its timing gives rise to another theory about Vincent’s good fortune in the patronage lottery. Spring is around the corner and the dormant vines are about to come to life again. As they do we must suspend disbelief and buy the line that Vincent is a corruption of vin sang or blood of the vine. The sap is rising and . . . donkey pruning seems as plausible.

The Tournante traces its origins back to medieval times, though the modern incarnation dates from the 1930s. Burgundy was in a sorry state and from the prosperous vantage point of the early 21st century, it is impossible to grasp how bad things were. The glory days were all in the past; the dukes were long gone, as were most of the monks. The depredations of phylloxera and other vineyard maladies, allied to world war and economic depression, had Burgundy on its knees. Today, inheriting a choice vineyard is akin to winning the lottery, inheritance taxes notwithstanding; back then it had little more than nuisance value: it had to be tended, it had to be harvested, the wine had to be made. And then sold. Burgundy was down.

Not out. There were still some enterprising souls who knew the quality of their product, even if its value was in the gutter, and they made it their mission to spread the word to a largely ignorant world. Save for the odd pocket of connoisseurship, burgundy was not a well-known wine, a state of affairs that the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, founded in 1934, has been rectifying ever since. They have had great fun in the process and

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