American Wine Tasting

Wine tasting is an activity I find quite pleasant, anytime. And this time it went along with a really tasty dinner. It also was a gift my husband received, which made the experience even nicer. You eat great food, you taste nice wines and at the end, you don't have to pay... Thanks guys!

This particular wine tasting dinner took part in a place called Ô Chateau, in the very centre of Paris, very close to Les Halles, that part that Zola used to call "le Ventre de Paris" ("the Belly of Paris"). It was French wine and French food but it had one specificity. It took place in english. Which was fine with us, we understand english, you know. It just meant that we were the only non-Americans in the room. And all the other guests were quite excited about our chance to live in this amazing city. I should have probably put this as a quote.

We were quite happy we decided to dress up. Americans always dress up for dinner and this one was definitely not an exception. French people don't do that at all. Unless maybe when invited for a dinner at the Ritz or somewhere. That's one thing I really don't get here in France, people's ability to wear jeans everywhere, even to the Opera...

Everyone in the room was very friendly and had excellent art of conversation. No one was left out of the discussions. That would probably never have happened with French people, either. Because nobody would have thought about presenting himself in the first place (me included, I have to admit). It was a nice change and a very pleasant evening.

But back to the dinner. We had champagne for apéritif, a very nice Blanc de Blanc. Then, with entrée we had a light Sancerre. With the main course (a very tender pavé de Salers), the sommelier went for Haut-Médoc (Bordeaux). We were very lucky on that one. They used to do the wine tasting with the 2008 vintage but ran out of it about a week before we came over for dinner. Which meant we had the 2009 vintage (the best year for red Bordeaux wines in the past decade along with 2005). This one was my favourite. The Malbec from Cahors we had with dessert was not bad either, though.

For a "wine tasting" it was more of a real dinner with a lot of good wine. No spitting, no small amounts. Real big glasses of all of them. At the end, I had to refuse the sommelier's offer to pour me another glass of my favourite wine of the evening, because I still had two unfinished glasses in front of me (none of them contained water...).

What an evening!