Definition: esprit de vin 2

Ah, it smells like the start of the holidays! Captain Stéphane Bern and his crew are delighted to welcome you aboard this Air Jaja supply plane. We are about to take off... Please keep your seatbelts fastened throughout the flight, especially when crossing areas of drowsiness... and at the slightest roll. In the event of a glitch or depressurisation, Mouton-Rothschild balloons will fall in front of you. Grab a balloon and place it over your face... Don't blow, inhale... We will reach our cruising altitude of 32 hectolitres per nectar at an altitude of 9,000 feet above the vineyards. The ground temperature is 12.5°C. We hope you have a pleasant journey and that we will have the pleasure of seeing you again in September at our vineyards... As long as there are vines, there is hope. So Bordeaux, let's celebrate! It's a return to the age of taverns! Bordeaux is uncorking its old Châteaux Margaux to give a drop to its drunken friends! Its enchanted Lafites, its Latours of Babel, please, Madame la Garonne Philippine, draw me a Mouton-Rothschild! And Bordeaux celebrates wine! Bordeaux and its plump grapes, which piss grape blood. You can't fool the Bordelais! They know their wine stewards! You can't judge a book by its cover, but in Bordeaux, boozing is part of the heritage! He who sows wine reaps tipsiness! In Bordeaux, there are as many palates as there are mouths... The Bordelais are all graduates of Bacchus plus wine! Directors of Cabernet! Born under the sign of salivation... Veni, vidi, viticultural! Bunch of cellars! You have the hickey chromosome! Yquem, even! Everything is round in you! It's not just your roads that are coated... Sorry! In this region, we don't say "coated", we say "skirted"... You have sea water and Merlot... a glass of wine and Verdot (in one word, Stéphane, it's a grape variety). Here, when a winegrower brings his wine into the world, he delivers it at the strong vine. On my left, the wine... water, iron, sugars, proteins, alcohol, vitamins, the scent of violets and marmot fur perfumed with chervil on a bed of red fruits... To my right, the car... steel, plastics, polystyrene, imitation leather, the scent of grease and waste oil scented with CO2 on a carpet of tar... Drinking or driving, you have to make an informed choice: VDQS! Er, sorry, CQFD!

VINCENT ROCA

Born in Bregenz, at the eastern end of Lake Constance (Germany) in 1950.

Let it be known, Vincent Roca is launching himself into the visual arts! A magician with words, a tamer of languages, a contortionist of phrases, he draws us into his labyrinth of mirror words and we happily lose ourselves in the top hat of this court jester.

In the spirit of his chronicles concocted for Stéphane Bern's programme on France-Inter, Vincent Roca has built an entire show around a few themes that are close to his heart: language, of course, which he puts through the wringer with his facetious and scratchy humour; childhood, a factory of dreams and thorns; the ravages of human breeding; and love in the form of grief... In short, God, life, death and a few other little joys.

Be warned, Vincent lets himself go, he's known for his delicate touch, but also for his satirical acidity, practising the art of the rising punchline, verbal avalanches, and even the art of passion thanks to the complicity of Pierre-Marie Braye-Weppe and his pedal violin, all in the spirit of Gaîté, as it should be.

Not to mention the cherry on top: Vincent also sings verses fresh from his workshop of phrases...

Put on your party hat and take your place at the end of the dance floor!

Visit Vincent Rocca's website at: