Paris: Harvesting the grapes of Charonne
PAPER PLATES are piled with bread and fromage de tete and rillettes and Bleu d’Auvergne. Half barrels stand ready for trampling the grapes, plucked this very morning by ‘young ladies on ladders’. Any woman under 50 automatically qualifies as a ‘young lady’ to Jacques Mélac, a thoroughgoing gallant.
Mélac is the man responsible for bringing la France Profonde to the 11th arrondissement for one day a year.
Around two hundred punters and a Zouave with a mike have turned up to share the moment. Genial under his handlebar moustache, Mélac hovers behind the scenes to ensure all goes well.
30 years of Château Charonne
No surprise to learn that it all started out as a bit of a lark.
Mélac originally planted the vine (a cutting from his native Aveyron) out of frustration with the arcane civic rules governing Parisian shop signs.
To everyone’s surprise, it thrived and kept on growing. When, 30 years ago, a passing journalist asked jokingly when the vendange was, Mélac rose to the challenge.
Since then, the event, like the vine, has gone from strength to strength. Traffic is turned away. Out come the trestle tables, the band strikes up, and last year’s Château Charonne is raffled off in a tombola.
The time according to Bacchus
Other prizes are decidedly offbeat, designed to present the winner with a headache unless he or she is prepared to share it around. The formula keeps people coming, all the way from metro Wagram to the Windy City. “It’s really an excuse for a knees-up,” says Mélac.
He has a point. For one day in September, conviviality is guaranteed in the 11th arrondissement.
Replete and contented, I pocket my ticket and slope off before the big draw. What if I won? Here’s hoping they give the hog a good home and donate my gross of socks to a sanctuary for footsore donkeys…
- Bistrot Mélac, 42, rue Léon-Frot, 11th arrondissement.
- Annual vendange in September from 11.30 am to around 4pm. Assiettes de charcuterie or fromage at 8 euros apiece, wine from 2 euros the glass.
