Now This is a Parade!

Paris, France –

The men were angry and taking it out on the poor delivery driver. What was he thinking? He had tried to cross the wrong parade! Or at least, at the wrong time, right in front of the fish griller craft (or whatever they might be called). As a result, the men had grabbed several fish off their grill, and were rubbing them all over the windshield and side windows of the delivery van. Any spot of glass was soon completely covered with freshly grilled fish oil.

This would never have happened at any parade I’ve seen in the states-always large productions with barricades to prevent traffic, and the spectators kept separated from the participants.

This was a much more intimate parade, with the crowd of watchers actively interacting with the marchers, and nothing to prevent a delivery van from attempting to make its way across, other than the threat of having fish oil smeared all over their windscreen.

We were at the Montmartre Wine Festival, and this was one of the scheduled parades that wound up and over the hills of the arrondissement during the three days of the event. This was a parade to celebrate primarily French wine, but included numerous other crafts as well.

So why is there a wine festival in the Montmartre arrondissement every fall? Because there are still some vineyards in the arrondissement, and I would assume that a small amount of wine might be made from them. We looked but never found any.

But why let that stop anyone from having a festival to celebrate French wine? There were booths from all of the wine-producing regions in the country, as well as from French territories. Or at least it seemed that way. The area where the booths were set up was so crowded that Dore’s claustrophobia kicked in, so we didn’t spend too much time perusing.

And there were booths for various other consumables that go along with drinking wine. Cheese, cheese, more cheese, and some other things. Like I said, it was crowded, I mean sardine crowded, so we didn’t spend much time looking around to see what all was on offer.

We did enjoy a bit of mulled wine, however, in a less-crowded niche of the festival.

All of this, the main part of the festival, was in the neighborhood surrounding the Sacré Cœur Cathedral in the heart of Montmartre.

Anyway, we were on our way back down the hill when we heard the rhythmic pull of the drums and wondered what was happening. We hurried on down to the street.

There were no big floats. They wouldn’t have fit; this was a narrow, one-way street that is typical of Paris neighborhoods. Instead, we saw groups of people representing the various crafts; fishermen, garlic farmers, several we had no idea what they were, flower farmers, and so on. There were even groups handing out free wine samples from their particular region, or at least flyers telling us when and where to get them.

And there were small bands, all with dancers, from the various French regions and territories. A rather interesting sight was one group from a Caribbean Island. They were sporting Gorilla masks as they drummed and danced their way down the street. Those masks were something that would have caused people to have conniptions had it happened anywhere in the U.S.

The parade was small. It was intimate. There was continuous lively interaction between the participants and the spectators.

It was a party. A celebration of life, wine, and everything that goes along with it.

For more photos of the Montmartre Wine Festival, click here.