Wild Boar

Wild boar is hunted all the time in this part of France; either you eat the sanglier or the pig eats your grapes.

So when Marcel Buhler of Domaine des Enfants throws a party to celebrate the end of harvest 2011, there’s boar and there’s wine.

Young people come from all over Europe to work the harvest making communication hit or miss, but wine creates a common language… up to a point. Early in the evening I was struggling through a conversation in French, trying to understand accents I couldn’t identify, when it suddenly took a turn that left me totally baffled. Now this is not unusual, especially here where the southern accent can mix in some Catalan and a bit of Occitane and will always add a syllable where you least expect it. Often I’ll hear a word I just don’t understand and in trying to figure it out, I lose the thread of the conversation, but this was different. I was totally lost, not a clue.  Finally, one of my friends turned to me and said: “That was funny, I started talking in Polish and he answered me in Czech”. Wine can only do so much.

 

The party started around 4, but the recently deceased entrée wasn’t ready until about 9, so we had about a five hour wine tasting. This is not an every day occurrence, nor should it be. You really can’t taste much after the first four hours.

The pig was a different story, spit roasted over grenache vines, absolutely delicious and quickly consumed.

The kids party easily, but the joy was in watching Marcel. He is a very intense man, whether pruning, picking or processing, but on this night with the crew paid, the pig cooked and the wine at rest, he was finally able to relax

Here are a few photos of the evening. Savor them with a nicely balanced, full bodied red wine preferably from the Roussillon.

4 thoughts on “Wild Boar”

  1. Five hours of wine drinking and you were still able to shoot pictures? That’s dedication! I like the fellow in the Alcatraz sweatshirt.

  2. Now that’s a party! Glad you’ve got great stamina to make it though 5 hours of wine tasting, that’s not for the faint of heart.

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