Wine by one

This is the posher end of the Paris wine bar scene, all shiny black tables and polished steel, there is none of the natural avant garde's rusticity here.

The idea (indeed it’s unique concept) will be familiar to anyone who’s visited the Sampler or Selfridges in London. Enomatic machines line the walls upon receipt of your euros, deposited via card, you can taste differing size measures of a selection of wines.

Oddly, the selection of wines on offer when I went seemed strangely outdated. Rather as if I was looking at a top restaurant list from four or five years ago. There were a couple of Mouton Rothschilds, Opus One, Ridge Montebello, a couple of top end (big and oaky) Chilean Carmeneres, Cloudy Bay Sauvignon (mind they had Clos Henri Sauvignon as well).

All very excellent wines, and particularly if you’re French and looking to taste some highly regarded new world wines then it’s not a bad place to stop by. However I couldn’t help but feel that the selection rather missed the changes that have taken place globally in the last five to ten years. There was no evidence of the trend towards lighter less oak influence new world styles. There was a token acknowledgement of the impact that natural wines have had on France, but it didn’t feel like anyone had their heart in that part of the selection.

Finally, we were there on a middling busy Sunday afternoon, and there were simply too many bottles that were empty (I counted 5) or on their last drops. Which for me isn’t good enough to be taken seriously as a wine bar.

Wine by one, 9 rue des capucines 1eme, Paris 

+33 1 42 60 85 76

Ca c'est bon

It was while trying to get some sleep in the deathly dry air-conditioned nightmare that was my Angers hotel room that I had a realisation.

I'd been trying to get a handle on how to explain the brinksmanship that that many of the more out there natural wines seem to pull of in their aromatics. Being simultaneously wrong and slightly unpleasant but also very moreish and right.

I'd recently been drinking Donati Camillo 2010 Lambrusco frizzante and had been at a loss as to what to write as a tasting note, other than that it'd been thrillingly interesting and very enlivening as a pre dinner drink.

I was reminded of an aromatic compound called Indole, at very low concentrations it smells floral, at higher concentrations it smells fecal. From shit to roses in only an extra 10 times dilution. It occurred to me that it may well just be lots of very low levels of problematic compounds. That the background tang of slightly pissy vinegariness that seemed to stalk the edge of my flavour perception, may well have been just that. There was certainly a not unsubstantial level of volatile acids. But yet, I really enjoyed the wine. Had my perception threshold of various volatile acids been so pummelled into submission that I just didn't notice/care any longer.

Anyway I was reminded of this yesterday evening as I was enjoying a glass go Laurent Lebled's Touraine Gamay 2011 Ca c'est bon. It had that lovely background tang of refreshing vinegariness that I know I'm not supposed to like, but dammit I'm quite happy with a decent robust vinaigrette on my salad, and the Roman empire pretty much thrived on Posca (a vinegar/water drink). So maybe it's not that odd that I find this extra tang, along with the decent acidity, crunchy tannins and verging on stalky herbaceous red fruit an appealing sort of drink.

Griottini

So this turned up after dinner a couple of nights ago - I was a trifle concerned as the word Absinthe was rather prominently displayed upon the label (I have previous with the green stuff).

However it was far from undrinkable and dangerous. Cherries and bitter herbal notes all blended quite happily, being a trifle picky it was a bit on the sweet side, much improved by an addition of an extra slug of absinthe or pastis (Henri Bourdain in this instance)..

weird ass basil seed drink

Descent into la dive

Dinner

Montescano Refugio Pinot Noir 2010

Made by Andre Ostertag in his Casablanca bolt hole of winery. In contrast to the much more conventional Pinot Noir (see previous post) this is the funky one. Vinified in concrete eggs (buy one here), which allow a better circulation of wine through the tank, as opposed to more traditional tanks. I'm guessing that the vinification is much closer to the French natural school than the fuller bodied Pinot.

On the nose it is a riot of wild brambly berries, floral notes and scented cherries, on the palette it has that zippy drinkable acidity and sinuous tannins that spell drinkability.

I would happily drink a case of this.

Available from via Vin du Monde in France and FMV in the UK (I didn't bother to check the price but I don't think it's that much)