Viva la France!
It’s the eve of Bastille Day, the common name for the French holiday, la Fête Nationale, which is roughly equivalent to our Independence Day. And although one could criticize the actual significance of the storming of the Bastille (which was actually holding 7 prisoners at the time, none of notable political importance), the event presaged the legal abolition of feudalism and the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which were (are) very big deals.
Anyway, despite featuring mostly French wines, we owe no particular allegiance to France. Our name, ‘The French Paradox’, refers to the 1991 ‘60 Minutes’ news segment where the seeming paradox of the typical high fat diet of the French population delivering lower levels of heart disease than Americans was discussed. The offered answer, which has never been verified, was higher levels of wine consumption. As our view is that more wine consumption is a good thing, we thought the name appropriate, if slightly tongue-in-cheek.
Our decision to feature French wines primarily (we also carry wines from California, Oregon, Washington State, Maryland, Virginia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Corsica, Argentina, and Chile) reflects our view that the wines of France are diverse, interesting, easy to understand, often excellent and deliver significant value (also true of all the other wines that we carry). And since we’re a small store, we thought that having a well curated and in-depth representation of one country’s wines was better than a rather shallow representation of all countries’ wines.
Don’t get me wrong…we love French wines (but perhaps not more than we love Italian wines). But really, what we love is a style of wine, perhaps best represented by the French (and the Italians) that combines fruit flavors with earthy or minerally flavors, balanced by cleansing acidity. Wines of this type are typically not lauded by wine critics as ‘hedonistic’ or ‘overwhelming’. Rather, our prefered wines are elegant, subtle, lower in alcohol and food-friendly. Our viewpoint is rather classical and tilted towards wines and wine styles that are understated and complex and less loud and dramatic (dare I say less modern?). We tend to enjoy wines from grapes grown in cooler climates and made by producers’ who measure their experience in centuries.
Of course, that’s not to say modern wines don’t exist in France (yeah, I’m looking at you, Bordeaux). It’s a fact that no one country has a monopoly on bad wines, is just that on balance, we find fewer (what we would call) bad wines from France than from other wine producing countries (excluding Italy, of course). This perhaps implies that the wines that we don’t stock are ‘bad’…not true! We’re both limited by space and identity. We will say, without fear of contradiction, that the wines on our shelves, from France and elsewhere, are selected thoughtfully, and represent variety, quality and value.
Here’s the thing…wine, at its best, is a communal experience, that transcends what is actually in the glass. The day or evening spent with wine should be remembered for the guests and the conversation and the joy, not the ‘score’ or the lineage or scarcity of the wine. The French produce some great wines at absurdly high prices, as well as some great wines at impressively reasonable prices. They also produce some very, very good wines that are surprisingly cheap and surprisingly easy to enjoy. The labels and pronunciations may be challenging (by the way, my French is excretable), the rules varied and complex, but the wines are exactly what you like and want. Which is why the French are still among the world’s leaders in wine production (behind the Italians). So…
Viva La Vin! Viva la France!