4,500 Liters of Wine Went Out on the Course at the World’s Drunkest Marathon

Florian Laplanche won the 40th Marathon des Châteaux du Médoc on Saturday in 2:26:45, 26 seconds faster than the run that won him last year’s race. He has gone considerably quicker than that on a road: the French federation’s database has him at 2:21:59 in Paris in April 2025. Paris does not stop you at 20 châteaux to pour you a glass of Pauillac.

This year’s field was capped at 8,500. Last year’s edition took 8,700 and the organizers have said they will not push it higher. Entrants also have to be in fancy dress, which the regulations state in capital letters, and the organizers say more than 90 percent of the field turns up in costume.

The course is one loop from the quays at Pauillac out through Saint-Julien, Haut-Médoc and Saint-Estèphe and back, 42.195K (26.2 miles) past about 50 châteaux, 24 percent of it on dust roads and barely 600 feet of climbing in the whole thing. There are 22 aid stations, and about 20 wine tastings on top of those. This year the entire race was dressed for the 1980s, the decade it started in.

The Médoc’s answer to a marathon fueling plan is oysters. The drinks business, whose wine editor Patrick Schmitt MW ran the anniversary edition and photographed it from inside the field, reported 18,000 of them going out at 37K, cheese at 41K, and 440 lb. (200kg) of rib-eye steak at the second-to-last stop. Grapes and ice cream turn up too, and by the same count there are more than 50 live bands playing between the vines. It takes around 3,000 volunteers to move all of it. One of the organizers gave Jogging International the wine arithmetic after last year’s race: a 225-litre barrel at every stop, 20 stops, so roughly 4,500 litres poured in a day.

Runners have 6:30:00 to get around, and the limit is enforced. Sweepers pick off anyone they pass, and missing a checkpoint leaves you unclassified whatever your finishing time. Set against a global average marathon finish of 4:32:49, that gives an ordinary runner a little under two hours of slack to spend on the tastings. In the end 7,849 runners were classified.

Céline Mérel won the women’s race in 2:54:38. She teaches PE, and her racing is mostly short trail events for a club in Brittany, with almost no marathon history behind her: the drinks business reported that this was her second, after one in Paris, while MARATHONS.FR called it her first at the distance. Either way, no woman has won the Médoc faster since 2015, on the race’s own list of champions, where the winning time has hovered either side of three hours for a decade. The name that dominates that list is Nathalie Vasseur, a Breton who had already won here 12 times by 2014 and won three more after that. Jennifer Mozuelos was second in 3:05:25, Charlotte Maurin third in 3:06:34.

Neither winner was paid in money. The race decided at its first edition in 1985 to hand out grands crus instead of cash and has never gone back on it, so the two winners take their own body weight in Médoc wine, with a case for whoever wins each age category.

The organizers are blunt about who the race is for. Their charter says that “if you believe sport is synonymous with health, fun and conviviality then this marathon is for you,” and then names the people who should stay at home: “Spoilsports, thugs and record seekers.” A bib costs 110 euros, the full package with the Friday pasta dinner at Château Beychevelle runs to 226, and entries for 2026 are closed.

Saturday was the 40th edition but the 42nd year. The first Médoc, in 1985, drew 500 entries and 396 finishers. The pandemic then cost the race two editions: the 36th was set for 2020, moved to Sept. 11, 2021, and lost again, and the winners list has nothing at all for either year.

There is less competition for the title of most fun marathon in the world than there used to be. The Marathon du Beaujolais in November is the bigger event, with a record 23,000 participants in 2023 and six races on its programme, though the marathon is the small part of it, and organizers put that field at 4,500 when they previewed last year’s edition. Bacchus, at the Denbies estate in Surrey, was still running a two-lap marathon in 2019 and has since dropped it for a half capped at 1,800 and a 10K. The Médoc puts nothing shorter than 42.195K on its own programme. The last time its organizers published a figure for how many people wanted in, back in 2006, they were filling 8,500 places out of 15,000 applications.

Results

Men

1. Florian Laplanche, 2:26:45
2. Nicolas Baudry, 2:32:30
3. Anthony Delaby, 2:33:38

Women

1. Céline Mérel, 2:54:38
2. Jennifer Mozuelos, 3:05:25
3. Charlotte Maurin, 3:06:34