La Fete de la Fleur, Bordeaux 1997

An UPDATE: tomorrow I am attending the Paul Bocuse memorial service in Lyon. More to follow. Sorry for the double posting !!

• A WINE WATERCOLOR from the huge international wine exposition takes place in Bordeaux

VINEXPO

The crowning event at the end of the expo is a grande soiree,
La Fete de la Fleur

Only the creme de la creme in the wine trade attend:

chateau owners, distributors, celebrities etc.

Each year it's held at a different grand chateau in the Medoc..
The year I went, it was at the lovely Chateau Cantenac-Brown.
I wrangled an invite by suggesting I should take photographs

for Wine Enthusiast magazine. A tradition at the Fete is the prestigious awarding of new memberships intoLe Commanderie du Bon temps du MedocNew and old members get to parade about in claret red velvet robes..

Hugh Grant was a recipient, but alas, I did not get his picture. Here are the St. Emilion Bon Temps members parading.After Champagne and hors d'oeuvre on the grounds

there's a grand dinner inside. In 1997 it was held inside a tent in case of rain. Between courses there was Cirque du Soleil-style entertainment. Performers on stilts dressed up as Bon temps members paraded.

Acrobats decked out as corks flew through the air to keep us amused.

I did this party doodle after the Fete.

The dinner menu served was quite simple - just 5 courses.
After all there were 1500 guests attending!
But I was amazed to see the cheese course/fromages served to each guest individually by special cheese servers, rather than 6 cheese chunks sitting on a plate.
The piece de resistance was of course, the wine menu shown here.
13 wines served to go with the 5 courses!
I noticed while sitting at the Wine Enthusiast table,

a bit of tipping the waiter to get very large glasses refilled

with some of the world's finest wines.

Hmmmm...
Here is the sad secret that has kept me from following in Ms. P. Hilton's footsteps. My alcoholic capacity is about 2 THIMBLES FULL.

THAT IS IT!

Anymore than my quota

and I am known to become dangerously flagrant or fall asleep à table.

Plus I suffer mild hangovers.

So I did not leave the soiree drunk and disorderly.

But I did get a very nice claret red umbrella (it started to rain)

with the insignia of Le Bon Temps Commanderie on it

And the truly amazing fact is

I still have this umbrella 10 years later!