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Popping a cork in Paris and London
The wine and food on offer in the French capital are cheaper and tastier than in London
IT'S the weekend, and Paris is relaxed. The restaurants in the 17th arrondisment – a working class area – are packed with Parisians, calmly, eating, drinking and chatting.
There is no sign of loutish behaviour.
The dishes on offer – coq au vin, boeuf bourguignon and bouillabaisse – a marvellous fish stew – once appeared exotic and the height of food sophistication, but this is no longer the case. A Londoner may easily find a mass produced version of these dishes on the ready meal shelves of their supermarket.
Outside his shop, one of two Parisians butchers in the local street market displays freshly made, prepared meals, including Choucroute, an elaborate dish containing sausage, ham, potatoes and cabbage.
Unlike supermarket-ready meals, these contain no unexpected ingredients or additives, and look extremely appetising.
Ordinary Parisians still have the culinary edge over their counterparts in London, it seems.
A few cafés will serve a glass of wine for around a pound, but they expect it to be consumed with food. Wine bars offer half a litre of AOC wine in a jug for a fiver, though many restaurants charge £12 to £15 for a bottle of similar quality.
“Why this huge discrepancy in price?” we ask Stefan, the manager of the Bistrot du Passage, a quaint atmospheric restaurant that he and the new owner intend to modernise.
The cheaper wines are served, “en vrac”, from a very large vacuum-sealed container, he explains.
The Cave du Chalet in Rue des Dames sells several different en vrac wines, including Petit Chablis, Medoc and Fluerie. The St Chinian AOC wine from the Languedoc region was perfectly acceptable and better than many of the house wines served in London.
As well as being cheaper, the customer has a greater choice and is able to buy a glass, 25cl, 50cl, 75cl or a litre jug of wine.
Wine served in this way is considered unsuitable for London, where wine drinking is still regarded as a sophisticated and even snobbish activity. In London, the presentation and uncorking of a bottle at the table is part of the romance.
In reality, however, wine drinking has become an everyday activity. For cheaper wines, corks are becoming a rarity. There is no romance in the sound of a snapping screw top.
Would London’s pub and restaurant patrons raise a glass, to cheaper wine, from a giant box?
meet the new faces of hungarian wine
Following on from last week’s account of Hungarian wines, we have to report a remarkable initiative by former diplomat Krisztina Andrassy and four Hungarian winemakers.
The star of Krisztina’s tasting in Clerkenwell was the Tornai Somlói Juhfark 2004 – an unusual, unobtrusive white wine with a complex and sustained taste from an indigenous grape variety. (Contact Pannon Wine on 01895 907770 for suppliers: it’s worth tracking down).
Those with longer memories of Bull’s Blood will welcome Éva Thummerer with open arms. Éva is reinventing this robust and inexpensive wine, which has been imported into England for at least 300 years.
Éva’s version, softer and less rustic than you will remember, can stand as a metaphor for Hungarian wines generally.
Like other regions of Europe, which up-to-now have produced cheap bulk wines, Hungary has started on a new and interesting journey. Hungarian wines have always commanded respect within Britain and, if successful, they will establish a new and deserved reputation.
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