Winemaker's sausage is part of a long culinary tradition in the Loire area. It's a cooking sausage with garlic, shallots, tomato concentrate, veal stock, sugar, flour, and red wine such as Côtes du Rhône. The garlic and shallot are browned in a pot before adding the red wine and sausage and covering it all with stock. Generally, it's all served with boiled potatoes. A great dish for sharing, it was often served at village fêtes and other events.
This typical dish used to be prepared during the Beaujolais grape harvest, and the sausage was cooked with leftover grape must. Even today, it's not rare to see winemakers offer it with tastings in the third weekend of November, when the Beaujolais arrives.
Every year in December, the town of Renaison honours this speciality during the winemaker's sausage festival.