Out and about round Cormatin

Rallye des Vins at Cortambert

This weekend saw the 27^th Rallye des Vins  come to Cortambert. The Rally takes place in the Mâconnais  region, taking in well know wine villages such as Fuissé, Igé, Azé, Lugny and Viré.  The course consists of twelve special stages (actually six as each is run twice) over two days. Cortambert was the finish of stages 2 and 5 on the Saturday.

To make the most of this occasion the Foyer Rural was running a ‘buvette’ at one of the ‘Points Chauds’ (spectator hot spots) in the vineyards above the final sharp bend before the finish of the stage.

On the Friday afternoon the stall had to be set up, a heavy metal frame (borrowed from two of our neighbouring villages) was covered with a tarpaulin roof and the counter attached to the front. With everything secured in case of wind we headed home ready for an early start on Saturday.

Saturday morning 8am, we met again at the Foyer Rural to load chairs, benches, trestle tables, chip fryers and other cooking equipment into vans and onto pick-ups. Of course before we could start we had to have a breakfast of coffee and brioche. We loaded the refrigerated trailer with kegs of beer, coca cola, wine, sausages, chips and plenty of other food and drink to keep the rally fans happy and fed. Once all this had been taken to the buvette and unloaded and installed then back home for an hour or so until 11am when we had to start preparing the food. The fans were starting to assemble even though the first car wasn’t expected to arrive until about 12:30. There were sandwiches to be made, chips to be fried and sausages to be barbecued, as lunch time approached things got busier with orders for ‘cinq pressions’ and ‘deux barquette des frites’ going from one end of the bar to the other.

Late in the afternoon news came through that there had been a fatal crash on the twisty roads through the forest above Igé en route to Cortambert. The stage was closed and the fans began to drift away. We started the process of clearing up – in no time at all everything except the frame was dismantled packed up and taken back to the Foyer Rural then as usual at these things we sat down to eat and drink, even though most of us had been eating and drinking all day. After Pastis, quiche, left over sausages had been eaten we agreed a 9:30 am start to finish dismantling and returning the frame to our neighbouring communes.

It seems to have been a long weekend – but it nice to feel that we are now a useful part of the commune – in fact we are now referred to as ‘the French who come from England’.

Chris.