You want to choose your wine, No Monsieur, we will choose it for you.

There is a new, actually an old revived, tradition that the stupid customer in French/Parisian wine bars/bars with food/restaurants doesn’t know crap (this is a family Blog so I won’t use the real word) about wines, so we paternalistically, will pick out your wine and if you can’t afford it, like JP Morgan asking the price of a yacht – the attitude is – if you don’t have the Euros, you shouldn’t be here.

Now 50 years ago, when there were honest sommeliers at places like the Tour d’Argent or even 15 years ago at the Elysees Vernet, the Sommelier-guy or gal was not out to fool or overprice you. He or she would accept your wish for something reasonably priced, but something has happened in Paris, and it may herald the end of the Great Recession – places again have no wine lists and thrust you onto the floor of wine-imbeciles.

And of course, a lot of places offer wine pairings to go with your food.

But the place where I recall the most intriguing forced choices (and no one goes unaware of it) was Enrico Bernardo’s Il Vino, where at least in the beginning you could either choose the wine and the meal would be shaped around it or vice-versa, where the waiter says this is what we’ve got today and they serve the wine around that.

I sensed forced choice was a trend, however, when the Racines gang opened Saturne in the 2nd and there was no list and you were told what to have. I went with a dear friend (French, but with me, a pinching-pennies type) and I warned her not to order the 150 E wine or I’d have a s***-attack, no matter that the owner/chefs were her pals. She held her council and miracle of miracles they produced a 20-page wine list, which I was able to go to the back and find a “Divers” wine that didn’t break the bank. But just the day this was written, another friend reported they had gone back to the “Trust me, I’ll choose the proper wine for your food” approach. Man! 

Then there has been the change at Spring, where in the 9th Daniel had some extremely good but reasonably priced wines. Now, not only are they no longer available, except at the Boutique, but the wine-guys seem driven to up the ante with an attitude like “at a high priced place in the 1st, customers expect higher priced wines.”

The day this was written as well, we ate at Le Verre Volé and like the first time I ate there three weeks ago, they wouldn’t let me choose the wine off the abundant shelves like other wine bars/bistrots a vin/ etc., but decided for us.

Now the wine guy there, as at Saturne, is very knowledgeable about wine and gave us a long spiel about two choices but certainly didn’t point us in a less pricey direction. It was only when Colette had serious objections to what he forced on us, that she ordered a glass of plain old Cotes du Rhone which was much better than the forced upon wine.

So folks – you are forewarned. Spring, Saturne and Le Verre Vole are super places but beware the silver-tongued sommelier. He will, like the waiter in Rome, push you toward the pricey stuff.

The places where there is absolutely great food but watch out for the wines are:
Saturne
17 rue Notre Dame des Victoires in the 2nd, (Metro: Bourse)
T: 01.42.60.31.90
Closed weekends
Lunch menu 35 €, dinner, 37 € for 4 courses, 59 € for 6 courses.

Le Verre Volé
67, rue de Lancry in th 10th (Metro: maybe the Gare de l’Est or Jacquese-Bonsergent)
T: 01.48.03.17.34
Open 7/7
A la carte anywhere from 20-50 E before drinks.

Spring
6, rue Bailleul in the 1st (Metro: Louvre-Rivoli)
T: 01.45.96.05.72
Open for dinner Tuesday-Saturday, lunch Wednesday-Saturday
Lunch bouillon 23 (chicken) or 32 € (pigeon) with “small plates” about 6-7, 6-course dinner menu 64 €.

Comments

[adrian]

Glad you broached this subject. I am completely agreed with you. Wine pretty much double to tripled my first meal at Spring.

[John Talbott]

Thanks Adrian. I hope the trend reverses itself.

[John Whiting]

As the Euro shivers in the face of an ill wind from the PIGS, I sense a desperation at the high end of the food and wine establishment. In Europe's financial centers, the fashionable eating places are riding on the coattails of the artificial and precarious prosperity of the stock market, as opposed to everybody else. When someone as ethical and unpretentious as Daniel starts traveling the route of hyper-inflation, it makes my antennae quiver.

[John Whiting]

P.S. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech of 1950, Bertrand Russell put his finger on the ultimate motivation behind all that high-minded vinous discrimination:

"When white men first effect contact with some unspoilt race of savages, they offer them all kinds of benefits, from the light of the gospel to pumpkin pie. These, however, much as we may regret it, most savages receive with indifference. What they really value among the gifts that we bring to them is intoxicating liquor which enables them, for the first time in their lives, to have the illusion for a few brief moments that it is better to be alive than dead."

[John Talbott]

Fabulous John - what a memory.
Cheers.

[John Talbott]

As I've said on another post though, if you look around the Great Recession sure looks to be over.

[fabrice]

oui, j'ai également trouvé l'attitude du sommelier de chez Saturnes pour proposer SON choix de vin un peu "cavalière" pour être poli...