After a visit to the ancient vineyards (pronounced wineyards with a heavy Teutonic accent) along the Moselle river this afternoon, the hundreds of international judges at the 18th Concours Mondial were treated to a barbecue at the Wine Museum in Ehnen on a picturesque bend in the river with green vistas of Germany across the slowly moving stream bombed by house martins implementing a Libya-style “no fly zone” for… flies.

Traditional cooking in Luxembourg

In South Africa, we would call such a meal a braai (WOSA, Wines of SA, the exporters’ association, prefer the spelling braii) and it’s something these central European winemakers have been doing for over a thousand years. With 80% of Luxembourg wine exported, it clearly works for them and perhaps it’s something WOSA could embrace to promote SA wine.

Spicy sausages on a giant toothpick, beef from the hairy white cows formerly chewing the cud in the grassy fields and succulent pork were well matched by zingy Auxerrois, the tropically fruited white grape some SA farmers smuggled into the country in their underwear a generation ago, under the misapprehension they were importing Chardonnay.

While the meal was historically authentic and made the point no New World wine producing country owns the culinary concept of the braai, I was sad the national dish of Luxembourg, judd de gaardebounen (pork neck with broad beans) was not on the menu. But perhaps it will feature at tomorrow night’s Gala dinner at the Mondorf-les-Bains spa complex.