the international language of wine

Montparnasse cafe, 1931

On Wednesday night in Paris, I lost my friends. My mobile was out of credit. I called, left a message, I emailed. No luck. I didn’t even know the name of the hotel they were staying in.

Unfortunately, it was dinner time and I was hungry after shopping for lingerie all day at Galeries Lafayette. (Hard life, I know, but so many stairs in Paris) I decided not to waste my night any longer.

Across the road from the hotel were a row of restaurants featuring Breton crepes. My friends were vegetarian, so here was my chance – sausages, mince and cheese, here I come!

The waiter thought I was Italian, and that was just fine with me. Although, perhaps, an autistic Italian with a bad stammer. Ah well - he was still flirtatious (the cliché holds true!) and looked great in his rugby jersey (the World Cup is on at the moment in France). Anyway, I seem to have perfected a dopey smile that works every time language fails.

He took me to a table squished along a wall with eight other tables so close together he had to pull the table out so I could get in to the booth seat along the wall. Next to me sat two American women.

I’m glad he thought I was Italian. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to middle-class Americans in Paris. They fussed so much over their menu, I nearly reached across and yelled – "Who cares, for godsake, just shut up and eat – it’s all good here in France! Do you even know what food is??"

Perhaps, I was a little tired and emotional after shopping all day.

I thought I ordered only a glass of Bordeaux; he brought over a bottle. My Italian is worse than my French. But I got this far with my dodgy Italian, so I had to keep up the charade and pretend that's what I had ordered. And anyway, the place was now packed full of local Parisians getting their Wednesday night fix of provincial authenticity; perhaps he did not hear me. Or, he did hear me, and decided I needed a whole bottle of wine to blot out the American women’s inane conversation.

Fine, I’ll have a whole bottle of Bordeaux - tutto il vino è buono! (All wine is good!) Instant friends, me and the waiter.

Nothing like a single woman in a restaurant ordering a whole bottle of the finest red in a restaurant by herself – classy! I felt like Holly Golighty without the sunglasses.

Ten minutes later they’re still discussing “what a green salad” really meant. Was it just lettuce? Could they share a crepe? Can they order the chocolate crepe first and then a salad, but no wine, just tap water… Honestly, I’ve never heard a worse order at a restaurant.

The waiter pulled out the small table next to me. In came two characters straight out ofTais Toi (the slapstick French film starring Daniel Auteil and Gerard Depardieu).


Next to me sat a serious middle-aged man in a beige trench coat and the other, his joker friend, who sat opposite in a pink polo. This guy had more one-liners than an episode of Friends. Everytime he jibed his friend, he raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say – "You know how it is." Sure, I do, I have no idea what you are talking about. But it felt good to smile along. I didn’t want to disappoint this obviously very funny guy.

His friend was pointedly ignoring him and making great flourishes of his arms while peering down through his glasses over the menu. He looked up now and again and scolded his friend like a child. Each time, the joker frowned mock-seriously at me as if to say, "Oh yes, very serious meal we’ll have here – but just try to make me take it seriously with someone as serious as you!"

I don't know what they were talking about but I do know I love being part of an in-joke. Even if I have no idea what it is. Any minute now I expected the joker guy to place a whoopy cushion under his seat when he stood up. Not that he’d have a chance; the tables were so squished together, our elbows practically knocked each other while we ate.

All this silliness was certainly more fun than the American women next to me.

The Americans were not happy. Their salad had tomatoes in it. Was it any wonder the waiter got their order wrong when they ordered one dessert and a salad between them at the same time, I wondered.

The wine was the typical standard Bordeaux you find in a Parisian restaurant. The French guys next to me had a pitcher of Rosé and a whiskey Américain. But then, all of a sudden, they both stopped to stare at my bottle of wine.

Now here’s where the conversation gets sketchy. The serious guy pointed to the proprieter’s name on the bottle. He became pale. “You know, this is Sarkozy – and it’s right.” The joker laughed and said in English, "Right! Right! Right!" And nearly fell off his chair trying to show me how off-the-scale right wing it was to be Sarkozy.

Apparently the wine I was drinking was owned by a cohort of Sarkozy. I said, "Ah well, I have plenty, you have some." They rejoined, "non, non, non!" I insisted, "S'il vous plait". They looked over at the bottle as if it was a bitter lemon.

Instead, they gave me some of their Rosé, which they weren’t particularly impressed by, either. I said, "But I like Rosé, it felt like régénération!" That impressed them, they filled up my glass.

Okay, they’ll try a glass of my wine. They’ll take the nasty right-wing Bordeaux off my hands for me. I said, "you’ll be doing me a favour if it’s that politically corrupt."

And so on. We talked about Burgundy and Domaine Le Romanée Conti, which this Bordeaux clearly was not. About the river in Bordeaux. The National Assembly in Paris. I’m not quite sure what else they were talking about but we seemed to have a discussion about how the first vines in Australia arrived the same time as the French Revolution.

By now, the Americans clicked on I was Australian. They tried to pull me away from the good time I was having. Thankfully, they left early (of course they did). Even though the Americans and I spoke the same language – English – I spoke more in common with the French guys sitting next to me even though we had no idea how to explain these complex ideas to each other in French. Let alone Italian.

The rest of the evening, through dessert, we had a rollicking time talking in disjointed French about politics, wine and our favourite desserts.

All three of us decided to order flambé crepes just so we could watch the flames burning up in front of us on the table.

The joker guy started to sing everything the serious guy said. I didn’t know the songs, but I sang along, too, and clapped. The serious guy tried to get back to the conversation about politics. Unfortunately for him... more songs!

At the end we agreed, pointing to the bottle, there’s so much in one bottle of wine than just wine: there’s politics, history, geography.

The bottle was soon empty between the three of us. I was genuinely sad to leave and we kissed each other goodbye on the cheeks like long lost friends.

Le Freak, c'est chic?

Thierry and Guy Le Freak Shiraz Viognier 2005 (£6.99 a bottle)

Le Freak

5 things Le Freak has learnt from Australian wine:

1. Unlike most French wines, the name of the varieties are right upfront: Shiraz Viognier.
2. No pretentious pictures on the label. No Chateaux, no rambling brooks, pencil sketches etc etc
   
3. Strongly branded with bold, modern text "Le Freak".
4. No blaring of region except in small print on back: Vin de Pays D'Oc. So de-emphasised, I nearly missed it.
5. Shiraz and Viognier, although traditionally French, is insanely popular in Australia. And when I mean insane, I mean - why?

5 things Australian wine can learn from Le Freak:

1. Easy to remember name based on song (prompting you to sing, Le Freak, C'est Chic! in the bottle shop. Or is that just me??)
2. The tasting notes asks you to "chill" the wine - this definitely should happen more in Australia. Especially red wine. Although I wouldn't have thought to chill a Shiraz Viognier, even on a hot summer evening.
3. The Viognier is not too heavy-handed.
4. Only 13 % alcohol - not a fruit bomb like most Australian Shiraz Viognier at 16% alcohol!
5. It looks kinda cool and not too try-hard. Although Australia is very good at making fun of itself! So maybe this is not a good point.
   

Overall, this red is a bit of a Freak in the traditional French wine market. But is this the future of French wine? To become more accessible, more Australian?

This has to be the most Australian tasting French wine I've ever had - full-frontal fruit, although it falls away very quickly on the palate.

But has it thrown the baby out with the bathwater? On the second glass (always a good test of new world wines), it blands out. Perhaps it needs the alcohol and more Viognier to give the fruit some oomph to carry on into the second glass. And that's a big thing for me to say, as I'm not one for big alcoholic wines.

I spy Foster's Eye Spy wines here - in marketing and flavour. Which in comparison, are not freakish enough.

Eye Spy wine

(Although, the idea of a table full of bottles with eyes does freak me out a little bit. Especially after a few glasses of wine!)

Cliché is a place in Paris?

You could say most of the things you do as a tourist are cliché. Visiting the Eiffel Tower – cliché. Lying on Jim Morrison’s grave, again, cliché. Having a croissant with a good cup of coffee, also cliché. But all this so-called cliché in Paris doesn’t seem to make any of it any less enjoyable.

What’s the definition of cliché? Something so overdone that it’s lost it’s meaning. But I could see the Eiffel Tower a million ways, or visit the Pere-Lachaise cemetery again and again, or enjoy a warm croissant every morning without any less thrill than when I experienced these things the first time I went to Paris.

Anyway, perhaps I’ve been guilty of perpetuating my own clichés. Too often I’ve sold Rosé by saying – "Well, you do know, that’s what they drink in Paris!" It must tap into a dream for women about living the life of la Parisienne. Because it never fails to sell Rosé.

Is it true or just cliché?

As soon as I put my bags down in my hotel room in Montparnasse I was keen to find out immediately - do Parisians drink as much Rosé as I had made people believe?

I ventured out onto the streets of Montparnasse to find something to eat and just stare at what everyone else around me to find out what Parisians really drank and ate.

It was late afternoon and the sun was just about to set. If I was going to be cliché about it, I could say, the sunset was blushing pink like a Rosé. But then that really would be a cliché because it wasn't true. Plain yellow sunlight fading into the usual same-old black night.

But wait! Looking around on the cafés in the street, very intellectual looking people discussing over wine glasses, were pitchers of... Rosé.

I took a seat at a bistro on a busy street in Montparnasse, full of cafe tables along the pavement. I chose a foie gras salad – slices of foie gras, slices of duck, toasted croutons on a bed of lettuce and tomato sprinkled with parmesan and a vineagrette. Probably the most simple, yet satisfying meal I’ve ever had. (Hyperbolic, but true). Then like silent clockwork, along came a wicker basket of sliced French bread on my table.

I pretended to read the menu and ordered a pitcher of the Côte du Provence Rosé, about two and a half glasses.

Côte du Provence Rosé

Côte du Provence Rosé is not something I have had a chance to try a lot of in Australia. Mainly because, like Guinness, it does not seem to travel well. Just as there’s nothing like a freshly poured Guinness in Temple Bar in Dublin, or a Budvar in Czesky Budejovice – the Côte du Provence seems to taste better in Paris; and I'll hazard to say, it probably tastes even better in Provence. Anyway, it just made sense in Paris.

Looking around me, I saw three men in heated discussion over a pitcher of Rosé. A woman sitting alone on a street table with a glass of Rosé being chatted up by a man at the next table. Three students drinking a Rosé (ok, one had a beer).

Côte du Provence featured on every wine menu. I found it to be even more refreshing with a meal than water, and with it’s natural acidity it’s a very good palate cleanser. Obviously, there’s no tannins because there is no oak used when making Rosé. It’s more fun than a white wine, and less to think about than a Red.

As they say, simple wines with sophisticated food and simple food with sophisticated wine.

Cliché, c'est moi?

The waiter was very kind as I sat for dinner by myself on the first night. Not always a pleasant experience as a woman. But, I have to say: the waiters are amazing in Paris. I know, I know, another cliché.

I’d even go so far as to say as the waiters in Paris are quite flirty. But that’s one cliché I don’t mind indulging in, over and over again.

Montparnasse at night. (From my balcony, because I'm too shy to take photos of people enjoying dinner - me, tourist?!)