Village life is punctuated by the seasons and wine-growing activities ...
The harvest
La vine and wine support the inhabitants of Corbières and Minervois since the establishment of stumps, in Roman times and the development of a flourishing trade between the port of Narbonne and Rome. The great wine development took place in the middle of the 1907th century, breaking with a more diversified and self-sufficient production. The winegrowers replant after the ravages of phylloxera and mildew. The demonstrations of XNUMX, led by Marcelin Albert, winegrower-cafeteria in Argeliers, made it possible to set the rules for the production of natural wine. The mechanization a removed from the arduousness of the work, but also marked a break in human relationships.
Some winegrowers continue to harvest by hand. The colha, it is the group of grape pickers. There are cutters and cutters: the mossenha is responsible for setting the tempo. Beware of the one who will forget a bunch of grapes: it will be mostar (crush a bunch on the face)! The carriers collect the full buckets.
Le Dius-ac-vol will end with a festive and watered meal the work of the harvest. The festivals of early wines and castanhadas (las castanhas e lo vin novèl fan dançar las filhas) have replaced these moments at the end of the harvest.
Dins las petitas còlhasSe passa en familha, Lo cap de còlha es lo gorbejaire, Regardatz-lo anar come dins la vinhaÒm diriá un parpalhòl que butinaVa, ven de la còlha a la semalE los copaires vujan al senhal, Cantant va de la semal a la còlhaPara l'esquina, remena la mai mòlha By entornant pòrta la vendémia a good portCar de rasims gostoses li an fulfills lo gòrb.
In small groups of grape pickers / It happens as a family / The chef is the bearer of the hood / Watch him come and go in the vineyard / It looks like a butterfly foraging / He comes and goes from the group to the behaves / And the cutters empty on the signal / While singing, he goes from the behavior to the group / He presents his back, he shakes the less active / Coming back, he carries the harvest safely / because tasty grapes have filled his basket.
Extract from Las vendémias (C. Limouzy, in Vilatges al País-Canton de Durban TI, p. 123)
Bowls
Pétanque is a sport born in Occitanie and more precisely in Provence at the beginning of the years 1900. From 1945, it quickly replaced the game of Provençal bowls because it was addressed to all and did not require long fields given that 'he plays there without momentum (pétanque: weighing tancats, fixed feet).
Pétanque represents a moment of respite in the day's work. It is a seasonal game marking the return of the beautiful days. Any flat ground could serve as a playing area. But any slope, hole, gravel… also constitutes elements to be taken into account in order to successfully conduct the games.
Pétanque is a game before it is a sport. A game where we meet, in the shade of the plane trees, but which, beyond the technical gestures prepared for a long time, then commented and dissected, the art of throw lo let (throw the cork), difficult choices between to shoot and puntar, is above all a place of words where the latest information from the village is exchanged. From the aperitif involved, we move on to real competitions in doublets and triplets during local festivals and to real competitions.
Rugby
In the 1890s, Joseph Anglade, Félibre (author of amusing texts in the langue d'oc) and academic (specialist in medieval Occitan), brought back from Toulouse a bizarre and magical object, in leather and of oval shape: a rugby ball. After the friendly games on Sunday following the picnic, the game became sport and was born the Football-Club Lézignan in 1907 (because here “anar al fòbal”, it is to go to rugby!). Sport spread to the surrounding villages. FCL contested the final of the French championship against… Quillan in 1929 (and lost it). After the appearance of rugby union en 1934 (which was banned by Vichy) and its rebirth at the Liberation, the two rugby codes shared the territory: we are a Quinzist or we are a Treiziste and we discuss it to the point of losing our voice and until the end of the arguments every time we meet!
Le Football Club of Lézignan XIII had rich hours, winning 4 titles of champions of France successively from 2008 to 2011 and raising the Lord Derby Cup in 2010 and 2011. The surrounding villages also know the craze for the XIII: Ferrals, Ornaisons, Homps, Val de Dagne,…
The Quinzists, having as a reference the big neighboring clubs of AS Béziers and Racing Club de Narbonne, many compete in the Languedoc regional events and regularly win national titles: Bassin Sud Minervois, Névian-Canet, AOC (Ouveillan-Cuxac), St-André-Bizanet, Tauch-Corbières (Tuchan-Durban),…
Lo dimenge e los jorns de fèsta, Anam totis at the estadium, Anam véser aquelas bèstias, Que corrisson darrièr lo balon
Viva lo fòbal, es aquò que nos cal! Aquí almens tot lo monde remena Viva lo fòbal, es aquò que nos cal! Aquí almens ia un pauc de rambalh
On Sundays and public holidays, we all go to the stadium to watch these big guys run behind a ball. Rugby is what we need: there, at least, everyone is moving and there is entertainment.
Hunting
Association of hunters is a place of met but also a place of power for human relations and the management of the territory, the object of endless discussions, of eternal annoyances (which can be settled over a drink), of a secret hierarchy in the role of each one but also in the harmonious functioning of a group where everyone has their place for the good of all or for the objective.
Back in the village, the team meets in some shed where the pig " slaughtered will be skinned and cut up. It will then be to an equal sharing. The pieces are placed in "crates" or "butcher's paper" each bearing a number. The hunters who took part in the beaten take turns plunging one hand into the "bag" containing the same number of "lottery numbers" to remove that of the take-out box.
The head then goes to the one who killed the beast, the liver (choice piece) is shared between the biters and, if the hunt has been good, an additional part is reserved for the owner of the dogs. Glass in hand - whoever killed the beast pays for the bottle. We continue to cross over and over again the fragmentary testimonies of each other to recompose the whole of an action that no one has been able to follow in its entirety. »(Canton of Tuchan and Community of Communes of Hautes-Corbières, ed. Vilatges al País).
Be president or secretary of the local Hunting Association is a very important function within the village community.
