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FOOD AND DRINK

Everything you need to know about the Bordeaux wine festival

Bordeaux is a name synonymous with wine - and the city holds a four-day festival every summer celebrating all things grape-related.

Published: 28 June 2024 16:40 CEST
Everything you need to know about the Bordeaux wine festival
Workers set up for the Bordeaux wine festival - there's little danger of running out of wine during the four-day event. Photo by PATRICK BERNARD / AFP

You’ll find the four-day celebration of all things viticultural and oenological (yes, that is a word) in Bordeaux this weekend.

The festival runs from June 27th to June 30th and takes place on the left bank of the River Garonne, between Pont de Pierre and Hangar 14, in the shadow of the masts of a number of tall ships – including the Belem, which recently transported the Olympic Flame across the Mediterranean, from Greece to Marseille.

Along the quays of the Garonne, winegrowers and merchants welcome visitors to various pavilions for tasting stops taking in the gamut of white, red, rosé, claret and crémant… from the wines of Médoc, via Bordeaux whites, the various Côtes, reds (of course), Saint-Emilion, Pomerol and more.

You can even attend a class of the Bordeaux Wine School.

To help wash down all that wine, a number of food producers and artisan food trucks are also on site.

Go on Friday or Saturday evening and you could catch an epic drone show over the river, they do it every year (with a wine theme of course) and it’s pretty spectacular.

The good news is that the festival is free to enter – though if you want to sample a wine or two, or more, you’ll need a tasting pass.

That costs €23, and should be bought on site or online, here – but it comes with a free glass, which you may find useful for all that tasting.

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CULTURE

France’s renowned Arles photo fest goes ‘beneath the surface’

One of the world’s most renowned photo festivals, in the French town of Arles, returned this week with a timely ode to diversity at a moment France appears to be turning towards the far right.

Published: 3 July 2024 08:30 CEST
France’s renowned Arles photo fest goes ‘beneath the surface’

The Rencontres festival, which runs until September 29th, is spread across 27 venues in the ancient cobbled streets of the former Roman town in Provence and has been running since 1970.

This year’s theme is ‘Beneath the Surface’, seeking to delve into diversity without the usual caricatures around minorities.

The star exhibition is a world-first retrospective for US portrait artist Mary Ellen Mark (1940-2015), who worked for magazines like Life and Rolling Stone.

One of her celebrated images features an Icelandic child resting on the neck of a horse that focuses attention away from the boy’s disability.

Mark “devoted a lot of time and attention to her protagonists, in a few cases returning to photograph them again and again over the course of many years, forging close relationships with many,” said co-curator Sophia Greiff.

An example is Tiny, whom Mark followed from her years on the street falling into drug use, to tender moments with her children.

“What I’m trying to do is make photographs that are universally understood… that cross cultural lines,” Mark once said.

Elsewhere at the festival, Spanish photographer Cristina de Middel presents documentary and dreamlike work about migrants travelling from Mexico to the US.

She ignores the usual tropes around migration, presenting the crossing as a heroic epic of courageous men and women heading towards a new life.

By mixing documentary images with staged and poetic photos, “it gives each person back their personality and restores a level of humanity in their representation,” said festival director Christoph Wiesner.

He said the message was particularly vital given the rise of the far right in France, which came top in the recent first round of snap legislative elections.

“Just because the situation is complex, we cannot just give up,” said Wiesner, highlighting the festival’s regular work on issues around feminism and anti-racism, including presentations in local schools.

Other exhibitions this year include I’m So Happy You’re Here, featuring the work of 20 Japanese female photographers.

Another invites visitors into the ‘baroque of everyday life’ in the Indian state of Punjab with shots of bizarre roof sculptures that locals have brought back after working abroad, including footballs, tanks, planes and lions.

French artist Sophie Calle presents her images alongside responses from blind people about their understanding of visual beauty.

“Green is beautiful, because every time I like something I’m told it’s green,” reads one caption alongside a shot of vivid grass.

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