Petanque!

WALLA WALLA - On a trip to the south of France in the late 1990s, Marvin Wood saw Petanque played for the first time.

In the late afternoon, the men would come out to the sun-splashed gravel courts under shade trees in the parks or along the boulevards in the villages near Marseille and toss their boules after a little pilot ball, or jack, then compete fiercely to make their steel balls cozy up to it.

The game seemed social and leisurely yet fascinating because of its demand on hand-eye coordination. But it never occurred to Wood to get into the sport himself until he was back home in the Seattle area and wandered into a store with French merchandise to check out a set of boules.

"That's when I discovered the Seattle Petanque Club," said Wood, a retired selfprofessed oenophile who has become an avid boules player. "When you get my age, contact sports are out of the question. This was right up my alley."

A wine lover, Wood discovered there was another benefit to the sport: sipping plonk while playing was permissible - no, make that desirable! Speaking French, though certainly recognized by some players, is not required, as long as you know a few of the basic terms, like boule (ball) and cochonnet (literally "small pig").

So much did he and his wife Sally enjoy the game that they were soon competing in Portland and further south in California.

When the couple moved to Walla Walla in 2006, they found a local enthusiast by the name of Dan Wolf and began playing in his backyard court, the only one in town at the time.

It didn't take long before Walla Walla had its own Petanque club - to this day one of only three in the state along with Seattle and Edmonds.

"The climate and viticulture are a lot like the south of France," Wood said. "It seems like a very fitting game to play here."

A year later, Petanque caught local attention from the winemaking community when the Walla Walla Community College team won against crews from other eastern Washington wine regions in the annual Petanque tournament sponsored by Radoux, the French wine barrel manufacturer.

Since then, interest in the sport has grown steadily with half a dozen Petanque pistes in Walla Walla and three courts in the Waitsburg area. On Sunday, July 10, Jill Noble's Couvillon winery in Spring Valley six miles south of Waitsburg will host its third annual summer tournament with trophies and prizes for the top three point getters.

The event, which cost $5 per person, is now known as the Jack Riehl Memorial Tournament after a local Petanque enthusiast and founding club member who passed away this spring.

"Everybody is welcome to come and play," said Wood, who explained the generous Provencal-style courtyard at the Nobles' winery can accommodate at least half a dozen games at once.

This summer, Petanque is getting another boost from the Woods' effort to link the Walla Walla club to the Federation of Petanque USA, the national organization which can sanction the local club's games and results so they are officially recognized.

Wood said the club has 19 dues-paying Walla Walla-area members with Federation cards, while some 30 more show up for games occasionally .

Petanque, played locally on Sundays at 3 pm at one of the backyard terrains, is an ideal summer pastime, said Al Roberts, a retired attorney who moved to Walla Walla with his wife Jane in 2002 and built his Petanque court after meeting Wood some six years ago.

"Everybody can play and beginners do quite well," said Roberts, who paid about $500 to have the court of 3/8" gravel and gravel dust put in. "There's the camaraderie, the wine and the pseudo arguments (and ribbing) on the court."

In case of doubt, the tape measure comes out. Some Petanque players note that disputes concerning the boules' distance from the cochonnet are mandatory.

At a recent game on the Roberts' court on Bryant Street, some 20 "competitors" showed, spending several hours playing, peeling off to the hors d'oeuvres table and sampling numerous choices of wine at the adjacent "station."

Sometimes, local vintners will bring fresh samples straight from the barrel, pairing them with potluck contributions of French cheeses, crackers, hummus and dips. There are seniors, singles, couples and families with kids .

Wood takes the novices aside to go over the rules and start them out with their first game.

Petanque dates back to Ciotat, a town east of Marseille, in 1907. A French boule lyonnaise player named Jules Lenoir, whom rheumatism prevented from running before he threw the boule as was customary, invented the stationary approach on a shorter court.

The word Petanque comes from la petanca, which means "feet together" in Provencal for the players' locked position in circle from which they throw.

In Walla Walla, teams are selected in the boule toss. The cochonnet is launched on to the court and an even number of players throw their single boules out after it. Players are numbered ones or twos based on their boules' distance from the cochonnet and two teams emerge. Existing teams toss a coin to see who starts first.

Team one throws out the cochonnet anew and one of its players makes the first attempt to get a boule close to it. Then the second team tries to get closer and tosses the boules (every player has two or three boules) until someone on the team does get closer than the opponents' closest boule.

As the boules start to bunch up around the cochonnet while the oohs and aaahs rise from around the piste, the stakes rise and the object changes from merely getting close to knocking away opponents' boules.

When all the boules are played and the dust settles, the Petanquers gather around the inanimate cluster of boules in the sun to take stock. The team with the closest boule gets a point. If two boules from the same team are closest, the team gets two points. The first team to get 13 points wins.

Players lob their boules underhand, estimating the force and ballistics needed to cover the distance. But the boule still rolls unpredictably from meeting gravel or irregularities in its path, thus rendering success a mixture of skill and luck.

To make things even more interesting as the afternoon unfolds, the balance between the two seems to shift with the consumption of wine, which is "required" in some Pentanque circles that follow the so-called Luberon rules. Those tongue-in-cheek guidelines became popular after the release of Peter Mayall's book "A Year In Provence," and disqualify adult players who don't have a boule in one hand and a wine glass in the other.

Wine seems to be such an integral part of the game that Petanque is the only sport where the substance's "use" is officially sanctioned. In October, 2007, the World Anti-Doping Agency took the rare step of allowing its use in the sport, lifting a previous ban.

An official from the French Petanque federation was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying he saw "no reason why its top competitors shouldn't enjoy a drink while they play, just as casual players do in countless Frencn villages."

Petanquers who enjoy the ancient sun-grown beverage are accepting of those who abstain. The whole point for Petanque lovers is the sport's social appeal.

"Everybody always has a great time," Roberts said. "The fact that anybody can play is a big draw."

2011 Jack Riehl Memorial Petanque Tournament

11:45 p.m., Sunday, July 10

Counvillion Winery

86 Corkrum Road

Off Middle Waitsburg Road