Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Yesterday I stopped in at Lafayette Gourmet, the gastronomic wing of the high-end Galeries Lafayette department store. Its gourmet floor is just nifty, finely presented, exquisite in its range of foies gras, caviars, smoked salmons of labeled origins, charcuterie, birds, ducks, fowl, stop me. In any event, across on the other side of that level is the wine wing, formerly presided over by Bruno Quenioux, brother of the Cheverny winemaker Michel Quenioux. But now it's not, I hear.
It was maybe 75F out in Paris at the time (put that in your pipe and smoke it, New York!). And inside the wine area of Lafayette Gourmet, oh, my. Not so good. So not so good. Hints of sauna. Let's simmer those natural wines, eh?
And I was reminded of my visit on the previous day to my local hole-in-the-wall, the Cave des Abbesses. That place, it ne paie pas de mine (i.e., it's a rundown hole-in-the-wall), but the wine choice is fresh and interesting. And as I stepped onto its grubby tiles I felt the cool of well-calibrated air conditioning hit me. As the shaved-headed and very kind owner started to talk to me, I nodded silent approval for the seemingly obvious but all-too-infrequent attention to temperature.
Yes, it never gets too, too hot in Paris. But still. Many stores that should know better simply don't. I opened a well-cooked NV Jacky Blot Triple-Zro from Lafayette. As John Lennon sang, "Iiiiiiii shoulda known better..."
Aug is the most rigorous in Paris. There are a few others. Le Verre Vol cooks its customers but stores its wines behind the scenes in a well-refrigerated zone.
Do you, other Disorder readers, find that American wine stores pay better attention to temperatures than most French?
It was maybe 75F out in Paris at the time (put that in your pipe and smoke it, New York!). And inside the wine area of Lafayette Gourmet, oh, my. Not so good. So not so good. Hints of sauna. Let's simmer those natural wines, eh?
And I was reminded of my visit on the previous day to my local hole-in-the-wall, the Cave des Abbesses. That place, it ne paie pas de mine (i.e., it's a rundown hole-in-the-wall), but the wine choice is fresh and interesting. And as I stepped onto its grubby tiles I felt the cool of well-calibrated air conditioning hit me. As the shaved-headed and very kind owner started to talk to me, I nodded silent approval for the seemingly obvious but all-too-infrequent attention to temperature.
Yes, it never gets too, too hot in Paris. But still. Many stores that should know better simply don't. I opened a well-cooked NV Jacky Blot Triple-Zro from Lafayette. As John Lennon sang, "Iiiiiiii shoulda known better..."
Aug is the most rigorous in Paris. There are a few others. Le Verre Vol cooks its customers but stores its wines behind the scenes in a well-refrigerated zone.
Do you, other Disorder readers, find that American wine stores pay better attention to temperatures than most French?
