1938: First Saint-Vincent Tournante in Chambolle- Musigny

Memories, memories… It was on a chilly Saturday morning in January 1938, the 22nd to be exact, that the Saint-Vincent Tournante adventure began in Chambolle- Musigny , in Côte de Nuits , at the initiative of the Brotherhood of Knights of Tastevin ; a mass, followed by a parade of the 6 mutual aid societies present that day, some inductions of old winegrowers and a banquet (Chapter) organized by the Confrérie, at Château of Clos of Vougeot very close. A timid start, but the machine was up and running; it paused the following year a few kilometers south, in Vosne-Romanée, and resumed after the war, in 1947 in Gevrey-Chambertin. On January 28 and 29, Couchey, in Côte de Nuits will organize the 79th edition of a festival that has changed a lot since its beginnings.

In 1934, Burgundy wines were selling poorly.

The starting point dates back to November 16, 1934, the day the Brotherhood of Knights of the was created. Tastevin , in Nuits-Saint-Georges, by two Nuitons, Camille Rodier and Georges Faiveley accompanied by their winegrower and merchant friends from the Côte de Nuits Wine sales were poor at the time, but the founders of the brotherhood immediately understood that they mustn't give up and should talk, talk some more about Burgundy and its wines, based on a very simple initial idea: "since the wines aren't selling, let's drink them and invite our friends to share them with us." The 1930s were a whole era: the era of the creation of the Paulée de Meursault , from the beginnings of bottling at the estate, or even Gaston Gérard, the dynamic mayor of Dijon and the French Minister of Tourism.

The first Chapter of the Brotherhood took place on the day of its creation, in the Nuiton cellar (beneath the current cinema for those familiar with Nuits-Saint-Georges). The Brotherhood would begin organizing its Chapters at Château of Clos -of- Vougeot at the end of the 1930s (the Château was then loaned by Etienne Camuzet, the owner, mayor of Vosne-Romanée and deputy for Côte-d'Or) before settling permanently in Château since November 1944; all the chapters of the Brotherhood are organized there today.

First outside the Côte-d'Or in 1962, at Mercurey

A few years after its creation, the Confraternity therefore had the idea of ​​reviving this tradition of mutual aid societies (often called Saint Vincent societies* but not always…) which met in the villages Around a "pig roast," to make it a collective event: the Saint-Vincent festival, but "Tournante" was born. The word "Tournante" quickly took on a truly regional dimension, with its first stop in Côte Chalonnaise , outside of Côte-d'Or therefore, from 1962 onwards, to Mercurey , then to Chablis , in the Yonne , in 1976 and finally the Mâconnais in 2009.
The Saint-Vincent Tournante festival now welcomes tens of thousands of people, but the current festival is ultimately just the end result (to date…) of small changes that have “accumulated” over time. Saint-Romain (Coast of Beaune ), in 1964, the first cellars were opened for tasting the wines of village A few years later, in 1971, at Rully (Side Chalonnaise ) appears the first official poster, which marks the true starting point of a festival that goes beyond its local context to communicate more broadly outside… until reaching the excesses of the 90s.

“Since then, real groundwork has been done to restore the festival to its full traditional and educational significance. It is obviously a communication tool for a appellation But we want people to come to learn, to discover, to taste in moderation, but certainly not to drink. Furthermore, gigantism is definitely not what we're after; we hope that in the future there will be small villages "so that winegrowers can continue to host the Saint-Vincent Tournante," explains Arnaud Orsel, Honorary Advisor of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin .

Christophe Tupinier

Saint Vincent, as everyone knows, is the patron saint of winegrowers, and even today in the villages In the wine industry, mutual aid societies organize solidarity and mutual support among winegrowers; when one of them has a problem, his colleagues provide assistance.