The ultimate drinking experience in Paris : the Farm Fair

Thirsty cow mooing The ultimate place to go for an unlimited drink
This is the season for the Salon de l'Agriculture, the once-a-year event where the farm country set up camp at the door of Paris. This Paris Farm Fair is a not-to-miss event, not only because of all these farm animals that you can see from so close and even touch (even if it's better not to for their psychic health). It is a place where the mood is lighter than it uses to in Paris, because all these farmers and their families, plus many of the visitors who are farmers themselves bring the authenticity of their way of life with themselves. It's moving to see these families wandering along the exposed cows, bulls and other animals and learning about the work of their fellow farmers.
This year, B. and I went at the Salon for the nocturne, the day with a late-evening opening. This was B.'s idea, as I usually visit the agriculture fair or farm fair whatever you call it in the day time. Whilst the entry ticket costs 13 € for a whole day, it's only 6 € for the nocturne, which starts at 7pm on friday to 11pm. We were surprised to see so many young people in groups in the thick crowd waiting at the ticket booths at 7pm, but we were to discover later why these young folks (who seemed to come from the best neighborhoods of Paris) had this crush for the farm life...
But read first about what the Farm Fair is officially known for...

Farm-horse show The Salon de L'Agriculture which goes through its 50th anniversary this year, is a huge event and the extra-large fair-center site outside the Porte de Versailles at the southern edge of Paris suits it well. The exhibition center is a collection of huge buildings (6 oth them), sometimes with several stories, and the Agriculture Fair uses them all, so you have to know where you want to go because even a whole day won't be enough to get a look at everything, not to say enjoy everything. So, the map of the fair in hand, we first headed for building #3, where the cows and bulls were exposed. B. was happy to feel the flavors and ambiance of her early years in the Burgundy back country, the sight of these different breeds was refreshing, and we watched with a same delight how the visitors interacted with the animals, for many children it was a dream world of strange, huge animals and weird smells. The farmers or their young aides were often at reach to overlook the animals, bring them food or refresh their straw litter. The animals seemed often bored and in some cases like with these huge bulls which are usually unruly when approached by a single unknown person, we wondered if they were administered a tranquilizer of some sort, because they were so calm and sleepy, especially considering the agitation and crowd all around them.
Again, just for this animal part, don't miss the Salon de L'Agriculture, it's a healthy reconnect with down-to-earth reality. Tempting products The second interest of this farm fair (before the ultimate one that you will find at the bottom of this page) is the artisanal products and charcuterie. The choice is large and wide, and although you must beware of semi-industrial companies trying to look like wholly artisan, much of the products there are trustful. The prices are not always cheap but in certain cases it's dirt cheap, like this cheese on the left that for some reason I took the picture of but didn't buy.
In this regard, the Salon de L'Agriculture is, like the Foire de Paris, a window on the products of the French provinces, even if only the exhibitors who can afford the cost of the whole thing (including accomodation and the rest) take part.
I usually also check the honey because I bought an excellent one a couple years ago and regretted not having bought more. B. looks at the bread and local confectionaries. While I was checking something at a stand, she found figs stuffed with foie gras and brought me back a tasting sample, it was indeed delicious.
Many of these stands offer bits of their products for you to taste, hoping that you will be convinced by the taste and buy some.
For sure you don't risk to starve to death at the Agri fair, only that you better like meat or pork because there will be a lot of it. Blood sausage from the farm After a while all this food got me tempted to eat something, and I bought a small sandwich of boudin noir or blood sausage for 3 €. It was not that small and was fine to keep me quiet. The stand was managed by a pig farm named la Ferme des 3 Petits Cochons. We had headed for the agriculture fair without dining and expected to find something in the building # 7, at least in the two upper stories housing the French regions (the street level having all the pigs and sheep). The "French regions" is a code word at the fair for all the food and drink you can find in the given regions, and everyone ends up in this section of the fair sooner or later. B. skipped the blood sausage as she was looking for something lighter, and we later stopped at one of these temporary restaurants. Waiting for the choucroute So we sat in one of these restaurants, there are quite a number of them to feed all these visitors. This one is serving Alsace food like choucroute, but the one we stopped at was supposed to represent Lille or the Pas-de-Calais region with plates of French fries and mussels. Don't expect gastronomy in these restaurants, it's mostly a quick and cheap (or not so cheap) meal with a regional excuse, but the light-hearted ambiance of the whole thing helps swallow the food (and the wines) : the tables are a mix of country people and suburban or city dwellers, and there's a brotherly feel not always easy to find in Paris. Salesman at Henri Maire's stand (Jura) Comes the wine part of the Salon de L'Agriculture : there is plenty of wine here, dozens of winery stands where you can taste for free, although it's not clear if there's a strategy to give a window to every French region. On the ground, it looks more like the wine stands are mostly rented by négoces or wineries with big volumes of wine, with a majority of estates from the Bordeaux region. It doesn't spoil the thing, you still have pleasant finds around hee, although I'm wondering sometimes if the wine you'll be delivered will taste as good as the samples you taste here.
Henri Maire is the Jura heavy weight which can be credited for having brought Jura wines on the map for the French public. Their salesmen are very good from what I witnessed and I am sure that they make a terrific job at this fair, like at the Foire de Paris and other regional fairs.

As wine amateurs we in France should know more about the position of wine during the Salon de l'Agriculture, beginning with the fact that many of these honorific medals found on bottles are awarded during the Concours Général Agricole, a state-sponsored intitution which is 122-year old. According to the related Wikipedia page, 15 000 samples of wine are tasted through, with lots of gold, silver and bronze medals at the end. Practically, the selection begins in the regions and is finalzed in Paris. While I don't give much credence to these medals, it may help decide in a supermarket when you are hesitating between two cheap bottles (but I haven't bought much there lately).

Of course, farm animals get medals too, but somehow I'm more inclined to accept it for them, although some of them certainly get their share of fake food and additives steroids to be awarded... It must be because they're so cute, I can't suspect any foul play. Plowing demonstration Some viticulture schools are participating actively at the wine fair, like here the Lycée Viticole de la Champagne, with a demonstration of walk plows between two mini rows of vines. The students had even planted beforehand a few vines in the soft ground and attached the branches to the wires. I am not sure that the wine school in Champagne is the most involved in draft-horse training in the vineyard, but there begins to be a move in this direction elsewhere. Olivier Cousin for example trains regularly young students at the Montreuil-Bellay wine school in the Loire.
This picture was shot at this fair 2 years ago but I guess they had a similar exercise this year.
Jean-François Janoueix (superb Clos des Litanies Pomerol 2011) This isn't yet what I reffered to when I wrote about this ultimate drinking event where flocks of young people gather at the Agri Fair, but we're getting close.
We weren't thinking to taste a particular wine in spite of the many stands, all offering free tastings of their wines. But as we were walking through the wine stands, I spotted a label which I somehow liked and asked B. if she didn't want to taste some wine (I wanted to, of course). I didn't know the estate, or the estates in the matter, as we had happened to choose the stand of Jean-François Janoueix, a Bordeaux owner who manages 20 estates and makes a million bottles a year from a total surface of around 165 hectares. That's what I learned from the salesman after tasting the wines, and retrospectively, I think that it is amazing that a man with such assets still does the hard work on the wine stand in the Agriculture Fair. I admire that because it proves the man doesn't delegate the arduous tasks and he keeps his feet in the ground. Selling one million bottles is also a challenge I guess, but he sells wine at prestigious places like La Tour D'Argent, Le Crillon and Le Ritz.

I actually wanted to taste just one wine at this stand, the one with this label that I had spotted while walking by, but the salesman is good, and he had us taste 5 of the wines, beginning with an entry wine costin 11 € a bottle. The 4 following wines were great indeed, they were mostly 2009 and the last was a 2011. I was surprised how the color looked so matured already, almost tiled.
Wr liked particularly the Chateau Haut-Sarpe 2008 St Emilion Grand Cru, also a wine with a matured color if I remember, very elegant and long finish, very enjoyable wine. The cellartracker notes for a 2005 find something pretty young and astringent, which adds to the mystery of the color and well-matured character of these wines. I think it cost 25 € if I remember.
The top bottle was indeed the one I had spotted, the Clos des Litanies Pomerol 2011, this wine has a more redish color, but still it wasn't that red for a 2011, and it tasted divine. Here the cellartracker notes for a 2008 come closer from what I experienced, but again, for a 2011 it was a bit strange to drink such a perfectly matured wine. Anyway, I loved it, very refined and savoury wine to swallow... The salesman said it was billed 32 € if I remember, with a free delivery for at least a case.
The two other wines were very good too, the Chateau le Castelot Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2009 and the Chateau La Croix Pomerol 2009, two very enjoyable wines priced at around 17 €, both with this unusally tamed, tiled color.
The Domaine Janoueix is an atypical estate in Bordeaux in the sense that the owners managed to bypass the négociants, selling their wines directly to their customers, which is not easy in the business culture of the Bordeaux region, where négociants hold the reins. Thus, and because the wines were really so enjoyable, I was very happy that by pure chance we stopped at their stand that evening... The ultimate drinking event Now we're at it. Whathever the bad economic prospects in the country, what I witnessed this evening made me think that the French youth doesn't miss an opporrtunity to party and have fun, and yes, drink without restraint... I'm now more optimistic about the future of this country, and I'm happy to see that the hygienists who cry foul over what they pretend is binge-drinking-coming-over-France-to-spoil-our-youth didn't succeed to intimidate the young people here, including (from what it seems) the young Parisians of good upbringing who seemed so numerous that evening. I cross my fingers that the morality squads (whether the Greens or some obscure anti-alcohol lobby) don't spot these bursts of spontaneous, imbibed joy and maneuver to have some limitative rules of some sort stop these flash mobs for the next farm fairs.
The nice thing here was also the communion between the Paris youth and the country people, as some of the latter had also joined the fray. Never drank wine this way ? Now, that's one step further into the initiation of the Paris youth to the arcanes of the drinking culture of our most remote provinces. I had heard about drinking wine in a horn, but I had no idea that a clog would make it just the same. Be ready for a surprise, I think the young folks passed the test brightly, but do you think you would have yourself gone through your initial hesitation to drink wine from a wooden clog, especially after it's been wiped with a sock ? After second thoughts I think I would have...
Enjoy the video before I'm sued over it... We all need to drink...

Comments

[Olivier]

Thanks for this review of le Salon de l'Agriculture !
In the video, I love the face of the first girl drinking from the clog. And poor girl who got her shoe filled with wine... hahaha