Street party? I'm there.

L'Esplanade

Imagine a cross between a wine festival and a street party and you’ll probably end up being intrigued as to what that would be like. So when I heard that there was an event going on in the centre of town where you could get cheap wine, listen to bands play, see some random street dancers and generally love life, then there was no way I was going to miss it. Wine + partying = good times.

‘Les Estivales’ lived up to the hype. Pretty much every inhabitant of Montpellier descended onto the streets of the city centre and the atmosphere was buzzing. People were casually wandering round with glasses in their hand, mooching around, chatting to friends, making new ones (an inevitability when you drink…) and having a damn good time. Music was being played everywhere, streetdancers performed all over and, my personal favourite, some random Jamaican guy playing an instrument that I’d never even knew existed.

As for the wine side of things…for 4 euros, you were given a glass (perfect souvenir!) and 3 ‘dégustations’. Then you wandered up to the stalls, asked to try one of the wines, and if you liked it they’d fill up your glass. Do this 3 times, and you’ll be pretty merry. I’d love to be able to give you an in depth explanation of each of the wines I tried and talk about the clever balance of flavours, the delicate undertones of strawberry or the crisp clean finish…but in all honesty, when it comes to wine, I only work in colours. I know that I tried 2 rosés and a white, so that’s good enough for me. They did the job, and it was impossible not to feel very content with life at that moment in time!

Now if this sort of thing happened in England, you know it’d all just descend into chaos, windows would probably get smashed and people (chavs) would decide that now would be the perfect time to get that plasma TV they’ve always wanted or the latest that Adidas has to offer. You also know that in Blighty planning any event outside is always going to be hit and miss, and most likely it’ll just rain and the whole thing will be a disaster. But not in France. The centre of town remained relatively intact and everyone managed to have fun without causing a riot. Even better, it was a warm evening…so that ticked that box. All in all, the 

whole thing just made me love Montpellier even more!

Les Estivales is on next week as well – on y va!!