John Talbott's Paris

Monoprix's Beaujolais: Pas Mal; I swear I was just getting some mouthwash. The devil made me buy it.

I swear, I was in Monoprix to pick up some mouthwash and a few chocolates but the display of B.N. dazzled me and I was forced to buy a bottle of it for 3.50 E - the HBS marketing guys will tell you it's all in the display case, and they're correct.   Smack in the eyeballs, irresistible.

And yawannaknow, it's drinkable, from Monoprix, argggh.  3.50 E.   Hummm.  Maybe the experts in Allston should come here and see how it's done so they can pep or prop up the US market.

Beaujolais Nouveau: the latest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, the four of us have sampled two more Beaujolais's; one a "Tradition" albeit unfiltered Primeur and the other a Nouveau Beaujolais Villages, both rather alright.

Beaujolais Nouveau Chapter 2: from DTF 69460. Not bad at all.

Well, this is indeed interesting.

After trying/testing the BN purchased from my wine-merchant at Cavavin, from the Chateau de Pizay, never heard of them?, me neither, but hold on.

Today I went out and bought three bottles to see if they were as good as the first.

Tonight, we three sampled a bottle from Le sanglier aux bottes de cuir that has a mysterious label, no name, no nuttin, except Sans sucre ajoute made by DTF69460 for P-U-R sarl.  Hummmm.

Algerian plonk, Corsican throw-away, Southwestern overplanted stuff?

A little Google sleuthing reveals it comes from St Etienne des Oullières, now why would they be embarassed to say this?  Maybe because it's two clicks from Beaujolais.  Maybe because the website listed on the label www.p-u-r.eu doesn't exit.  Maybe because, because, because.

In any case it's made from grapes, is not overly-Gamay-esque and was pleasant enough with our lomo, herring, Abondance and goat cheese.

Beaujolais Nouveau 2010

 
Now let's get a few things out of the way.

Beaujolais nouveau is not a serious wine, it's not even an unserious one.  It's a wine to be made fun of, to snicker about and pretend you've never had, unless paid to taste for a review for some lowbrow publication. 

It's the wine for the Dinners with Cons and the one that is 99% marketing and 1% grape (and a lowly funny-tasting gamay at that).  And most of all, like Rachel Ray, it's the wine we love to hate and cannot stop talking about.  Some years it has hints of banana, some years blackberries, other years Nascar rubber tires, and everyone falls all over him or herself coming up with a new descriptor.

But the dirty little secret is that we all come back to it every year like the swallows to Capistrano.

Bernard Pivot, one of my few heros, described it thusly (he speaks fine English and my clumsy translation of his precise French is given because I don't think he's ever said this Anglophonically): "it's gay, hardy.....with a taste of springtime....[and it's] like an elixir of youth and good cheer."

So what's this year's like: We three thought it was not bad at all, no burning garbage, no fruity-essences, and not even Gamayish.  I will actually buy some more.

My life as a wine contrarian and the Salon des Vignerons Independents 2009.

A lively friend of mine from another journalistic life calls herself a contrarian or libertarian not a Republican or conservative, despite her ties to the most illustrious conservative operation in America (outside of Fox News) there is. As I was thinking about my life and wine it occurred to me I should probably define myself this way as well.

I’ve previously published essays on my ambivalent relationship with wine, such as “Holding down wine costs,” “Wine snobbery,” “Wine, whining and me: liked or worshipped, war stories and facts” and “Ordering the cheapest wine on the menu” that have as a common theme my skepticism that most people, including the experts, know what they’re talking about. (You can Google or Search for them by title if so desired).

Now, wouldn’tcha know, that most conservative of all American newspapers, at least on its Editorial and Op-Ed pages, the Wall Street Journal, comes out with an article entitled “A Hint of Hype, A Taste of Illusion: They pour, sip and, with passion and snobbery, glorify or doom wines. But studies say the wine-rating system is badly flawed. How the experts fare against a coin toss” and talk about reinforcing my stereotypes, its author, Leonard Mlodinow, does a fine job.

The title and subtitle give away the plot, denouement and ending and the fact that the author is a Professor of “Randomness” at Caltech tells you its spin as well. I love his finding out that some Languedoc in 1973 was marked “Salable as Beaujolais to Americans.” This being the time of Beaujolais Nouveau, I should give a brief nod to the wine we love to hate, saving longer diatribes for another day.

Because I want to move back to Professor Mlodinow’s article. He notes that another wine-obsessed Prof, from Humboldt, one Robert Hodgson, and others have found that:

- despite tasters’ claims of spotting 6 or 8 scents or flavors, homo sapiens cannot “identify more than three or four”
- raters give widely different descriptors to the same wine,
- experts agree on characteristics (tannins, sweetness, fruitiness) 25% of the time,
- color additives change raters’ opinions of what they’re drinking,
- the same expert drinking samples from the same bottle judged each sip differently,
- medals are “spread around at random,”
- flips of the coin are just as accurate, and
- while most wine experts dispute these findings as “hogwash,” vintners, editors and even Robert Parker, are not surprised.

 

So, back to the Salon des Vignerons Independents at the Porte de Versailles last weekend. I intended to go and as I always do, visit my favorite vintners Catherine and Pierre Breton as well as Rolet Pere et Fils, then drift around, regretting that I didn’t eat the great looking paella or cassoulet.

 

But, not wanting to schlep wine home (my car schlepped itself home years ago) or schmooze with the vintners or any stranger I might meet, I repaired instead to the Metro, and once again identified myself as a wine contrarian. No matter who said it, I fell into the “road to hell is paved with good intentions” crowd very easily.

Years ago, J. Russell Lynes, a word-ly writer and editor at Harpers (and coiner of the highbrow, middlebrow, lowbrow definitions) also teased out snobbism to its ultimate antipode – the anti-snob snob, a zone I’ll happily admit inhabiting.

Where we ate before my intended trip:
Thoumieux
79, rue St Dominique in the 7th, (Metro: Invalides)
T; 01.47.05.49.75
Open 7/7
Weekday lunch costs 20 € lunch, a la carte costing 40-50 €

Cavesteve - Wine great, food less so.

5.0-2.0 Cavesteve, 15, rue de Longchamp in the 16th, 01 47 04 01 45, closed Sundays, running one 30-50 € a la carte, with wines from the racks at price, plus 10 € corkage. I’d heard about this place from an inveterate wine maven and he, I and a chef about town had lunch (on a Monday mind you) at two adjacent tables.

The place (and its Bastille twin) are really sleek and trim and not named after an American named Steve but a French guy yclept Jean Christophe Esteve.

They only have about 10 covers upstairs, 8 downstairs at a common table and 4 outside, so go early (they open at 11). The firsts are wine bar usuals: Spanish ham and terrines but they had about five hot daily special mains.

We started with terrines of foie gras and lapereau that, with a tart salad, were really great. But I thought the mains of lievre a la royale and beef cheeks were made off the premises and underheated before serving. The bread was blah but the coffee superb.

Our first wine, the server-guy’s rec, was an OK Rully but when the wine guy arrived, he ordered a Pernand-Vergelesses that was supreme.

Our bill for two was 116 € but the wine poobah’s musta been much more.

Go? Sure. Why Not? At least to their dazzling website http://www.cavesteve.com/