Salon des Vins

I’m not sure why my wine education hasn’t merited a post before. Maybe it needed to age, but the time has come to uncork these experiences. Enough with the wine metaphors, let’s talk about my new wine tutor. A Midwestern raised, Oxford educated, American poet living in Paris, Susan makes spare cash educating wine novices like me in private or on champagne cruises. She is a complex person offering insight, knowledge, poise, and juicy gossip. Her intelligence and elegance suit Paris, but her stories of past loves and current struggles are very American. She is like a French Burgundy that has been “jammed” up a bit to appeal to U.S. markets. Susan has taught me the many regions of French wine while being a good friend to me while in Paris.

Both Italy and France categorize their wine by region and have government monitored grading systems. If a vineyard is within a certain area, practices certain winemaking techniques, and uses the correct varietals in the correct proportions, it is rewarded with a special designation, DOCG in Italy and AOC in France. For instance, a DOCG Chianti must come from around Sienna and use 85% Sangiovese grapes. In France, Burgundy is region that has over 300 appellations (the A in AOC) primarily growing Pinot Noir grapes. Each DOCG or AOC may or may not be a blend and that may or may not be noted on the label. In fact most wines, even in the US are blended. Cabernet Sauvignon wine is blended to cut the tannic nature of the grape and lower production costs. In both French and Italian wines, the terroir (climate, soil) is most important. The varietals (or grapes) are planted for their ability to grow in local climate. In contrast, American producers lead with the varietal and the location is secondary. There are many vineyards that are better suited to a zinfandel but plant cabernet sauvignon to accommodate current tastes in the American market.

French and Italian wines have very different profiles from their American counterparts. Self professed wine geeks speak of Old World wines and New World wines. For the most part, Old World wines are meant to accompany food. They are sharper and more complex, but less full bodied than New World wines. Most New World wines are created for mass market appeal and their flavors are developed for flexibility and drinkability. Old World wines are less laid back in the palate and reflect centuries of tradition. They force you to notice them, where New World wines are perfectly happy to chill out, in a delicious way. New World wines are like Meg Ryan (before Russell Crowe and plastic surgery), easy to like, while Old World wines are like Angelina Jolie, complex and difficult but worth the effort. Of course, these are generalities in both wine and actresses and I love both Old and New World wines.

While in Europe, I have expanded my palate and found some beautiful wines. The Italian education, like all things Italian, was haphazard and disjointed, which was both charming and frustrating. The French system is rigid and exact, like all things French. Susan, an American, gives an interesting perspective to the world of French wine, and I’m thoroughly enjoying my education.

Recently, we were able to attend a trade show of over 1000 independent wine producers from all the French wine regions. Housed in a convention facility with booths and color coded identification flags for each producer, the Salon de Vins was pretty unbelievable. First, it was free and you could taste as much as you wanted. As an American I can’t begin to describe the glory of a free all you can drink wine tasting. It was like 5 cent pitcher night at Biddy Mulligan’s, except with gorgeous wine rather than watered down Busch Lite. Each booth had a trash can for spitting. With this much wine, you can’t actually swallow without behaving like an idiot by the end of the day. The French have no tolerance for this so I spit, unless the wine was really good. We travelled through Bordeaux first tasting the difference between the Left and Right banks, and then went to Burgundy to experience the vast differences within each appellation, vineyard and year. We also strolled through the Loire and the Rhone, finishing with a few amazing wines from the Alsace. Susan provided information about the soil, varietals, and the typical experience of an appellation. It was an amazing experience and I had a tremendous time.

I must put in a disclaimer here. I am just starting to learn about wine, and some of the things I have said may be wildly incorrect and are definitely oversimplified. If anyone finds an error, glaring or otherwise, please let me know.

Palm groves and Cockatoos

I wake up early Sunday morning, which is unusual because I’ve never gotten used to the time change. Since I got to Europe in September, I frequently find myself awake in the middle of the night and then sleep until ten. I know you are wondering what 37 year old sleeps until ten? Well, it is one of the perks of a barren, childless existence envied by tired parents everywhere. However, today I’m strolling the isles of the bird market by 8:00AM. I find it suspect that the avian demand in Paris is so strong that an entire market is dedicated to birds and their accoutrements. For the most part, they are not even exotic birds, just parakeets and sparrows jumping around their little cages. Maybe it’s another example of Americans' love of showmanship, but if I’m going to make the effort to go to the bird market early Sunday morning, I want to see Toucan Sam making the moves on a coquettish Cockatoo. At the very least, one of them should request a cracker from me.

Since I planned to attend 10:30 mass at my neighborhood church, Saint Severin, I have some time after the bird market. I wander over to Notre Dame and I must say that I’m in love with flying buttresses. They are so typically French. The style of the period demanded the church appear “thinner” than the materials and methods allowed so the supports were placed on the outside. They remind me of those life size cardboard cutouts of Marilyn Monroe you find at Spencer's. As I’m touring, the organ starts for 9:30 mass. I consider staying (the organ is that impressive), but decide against it with my heart set on Saint Severin.
And it is amazing. Saint Severin is small with crazy architectural elements that create a sense of grandeur. The columns that delineate the aisles from the nave are in the flamboyant gothic style and have been dubbed the palm grove. Saint Severin is beautiful, austere, and a little goofy, just my kind of church, and mass was packed. I love a well used church. There were no benches for kneeling, as in Italy, but there was a great deal of smoke. I don’t really know the significance, since the mass was in French, but they were constantly waving around a gold goblet of incense. If you close your eyes, you might think you were at a spa or Dead show. I guess they are sacred institutions in their own right. The church is also delightfully close to Shakespeare and Company, an English language bookstore famous for such patrons as Hemmingway, Stein, etc. Books are stacked everywhere, and it has a whole floor filled with books that aren’t for sale. Very French. There is nothing worse than being easy. Where is the fun in just going to a store, finding a book, and purchasing it? This place has got some serious mojo. I buy A Moveable Feast by Hemmingway in celebration. When I’m checking out, the sales woman asks if I want my book stamped with the store logo, a Mecca for bibliophilic tourists.

Wine, apple tart, and white marble

Frequently, you create a picture in your mind of a place, a food, or an ex boyfriend where all the negative qualities has disappeared, leaving only the gorgeous moment and the pedestal you put it on. I am acutely aware of this innately human tendency and I can’t decide if I think we are better or worse for it. This remaking of an experience provides solace in your memory, but can often lead to disappointment if you have the good fortune to revisit it. I remember my first love as funny, kind, entertaining and engaging. I wonder if he actually was. In some ways, I wish I knew him now because he was so important to me then, but I doubt the reality would live up the fantasy that I have created.

It is with this trepidation that I go to the Rodin museum, and I find myself utterly shocked and delighted to say the my current reality was on par with my past. It was not the same as I had expectations which always color one’s experience of space and art, but my soul rested in this place. I wandered the formal garden, lined with trees and dotted with sculpture. Despite the chill, I sat outside and had a glass of white wine and rustic apple tart from the cafe. Inside, the mansion was warm and embraced its visitors. The sculpture was primarily of nudes in white marble. What I love about Rodin is his concentration on the emotion. The positions and characters come from the piece of marble, but emotion is the guiding principle. Rodin’s expression of emotion is so dynamic that it evokes personal memories of it. When I see the sculpture of Adam and Eve, I am transported to my own experiences of regrettable sex. The Kiss arouses a warm glow of love and passion. It may be trite. My reaction is undeniably so expected that it reveals the bourgeois nature of my existence, but I love it and you must go.

Adam and Eve

The Kiss

The Thinker

The Battle of Cubism

Sometimes I feel like I’m at war with Paris, and today was another one of those days. I decided to go to the Picasso museum before my French lesson at 4:00. I think the collection was donated by Picasso’s wife and daughter, and I like the idea of seeing what Picasso kept for himself. Plus, the collection is housed in an old mansion in the Marsais district, and I have a soft spot for museums in residences. It seems so much more romantic and really, that’s where it was meant to be.

I found the Picasso museum easily on a sunny morning among the up and coming designer shops and falafel stands. It was closed, like the Griswolds at Walley World closed. Apparently, it closed this summer and won’t reopen until 2012. I found this information on another small sign posted to the door. There was so little information that I questioned its authenticity, but the doors were definitely locked. I had mentioned that I was headed there to a shop keeper on my way, she just smiled. Advantage – Paris.

But I wasn’t going to let Paris win the battle for my Tuesday that easily so I went to Geraldine’s for my French lesson with a can do attitude. My ridiculously limited French is my biggest liability in this war, but I will eventually conquer. Geraldine believes in positive reinforcement. She says I have great pronunciation, but I don’t understand a word. I’m like a parrot. All day, it’s “bonjour” and “merci”.

Afterwards, I went to the Musee National d'Art Moderne in the Centre Georges Pompidou. It’s open late on Tuesdays so I had the time. Despite my morning mishap, I still saw around 20 Picasso’s, plus Matisse, and Gris, and Braque, and Mondrian. The collection was enormous, impressive, and at times bizarre. So much of modern art is in the process. The expression should be viewed through the lens of the experience. Knowing this, it is significant, and slightly demented, that I still refused the audio guide. Generally, I’m against any sort of tour. Those audio tours tend to distract me, diminishing my experience of the art and pissing me off. It’s like a sermon in church. You can only tell me to think so much before I reject everything out of principle. You can see my dilemma. I wandered through the museum viewing the art with ignorance, or innocence depending on your point of view. Some of it seemed silly and arrogant, others profound and groundbreaking.

As you can imagine, the morning fiasco left me feeling a tad negative about Picasso. But he is extraordinary. Many artists of the early 20th century practiced similar techniques, but Picasso’s vision was undeniable. When discussing other artists’ work, Picasso once said it is easy to make a thing pretty when someone else has already discovered it. You could see his struggle and the depth it created in his work. Others seemed aesthetic, while Picasso’s work had the emotional strength that only comes with meaning. Tuesday turned out to be a pretty bon jour indeed.

I don't know why I didn't take any pictures in the museum, but here are some of the Centre Georges Pompidou, where the museum is housed. It was designed by Renzo Piano in 1977 as a study of exoskeleton architecture (bones on the outside). All the systems are on the exterior and color coded. Of course, people love it and hate it in equal measure. I kind of love it.

Some pics from around town Saint Genevieve

I don't know the name of this church. I just came upon it one day.


Ile de la Cite


The 1st by the Louvre

Turn the page

I’ve been to Paris before. In 1993, I went for Spring Break with two girlfriends. We got a hotel so far outside Paris that it took an hour to get to the sites. They were good friends, but not great, and travelling with them was problematic. After days of togetherness, I took off for a day alone and went to Jim Morrison’s grave. Oddly enough, I became very territorial when some Germans were defacing his tombstone despite that fact that I really don’t care for the Doors.

Then, I went to the Rodin museum and loved it. It was one of those places that shaped me as a person. The sculpture, the building that housed it, everything was so monumental to me. It was the first time that I was genuinely and authentically awed by art. I had been in presence of great art before, but I was always expecting to be impressed. The Mona Lisa, Degas, Monet, Michelangelo. I was told before I arrived that I would be inspired by the greatness I was about to see. I think that knowledge can tamper the experience of art. You already know what you are going to think before you see it. Before going to the Rodin museum, I had never heard of Rodin. I knew of the Thinker, but didn’t have any thoughts on it in particular. When I went, his sculpture elicited a visceral response. I loved the way he captured a moment that was so poetic and emotional with nudes in white marble. With Rodin, it was about the moment, the emotion, The Kiss. The stuff moved me.

My Mother keeps asking if I have gone yet. To be honest, I am waiting until the perfect day to bask in the glory of his stuff and delaying the possibility that the connection will have disappeared. I’m like Grover, afraid to turn the page…

Layers of buttery delight

I have had the most wonderful day. OK, it didn’t start out great. I couldn’t sleep last night and finally took an Ambien (my personal savior) at 5 AM so I wasn’t out of bed until 10:30. Yes, I missed mass at St. Severin. Luckily, there is another one tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that…

I crawled out of bed and made myself a beautiful breakfast of poached eggs on a pile of prosciutto on a baguette. This is one of my favorite culinary indulgences. The velvety richness of the egg yolk streamed over the salty goodness of the prosciutto onto a fantastic piece of crusty, chewy bread. This meal is like a Renaissance depiction of heaven, rich with chubby cupids flying around it. Then, I took my first trip on the RER (public train) to Vitry Sur Seine. I know you are wondering how I have gone this long without using the metro. I’ve been walking everywhere. It gives me a chance to see the city, wondering through little known neighborhoods and working off the morning croissant.

Vitry Sur Seine is the home of Bong, a graduate of the Le Cordon Bleu pastry program, where I had my first pastry lesson. Bong is from Malaysia and sweet as all get out. She has the unbridled enthusiasm that is so stereotypical of people from Asian Pacific countries. She is shorter than me and so thin that I believe her when she says she doesn’t eat what she makes. She married a Frenchman, who she met in school, and they plan to return to Malaysia to open a French fast food restaurant as soon as they save enough money.

We spend 6 ½ hours together making puff pastry dough which morphs into croissants, palmiers (heart shaped sugary croissants), apple turnovers, and a mille-feuille (essentially a napoleon pastry cake). Puff pastry dough from scratch is not hard, but it is time consuming. We made the dough (croissants have yeast, the rest do not) and let it rest for an hour. Then, we rolled it out and lay a slab of butter in the center and wrapped the dough like a present, then back to the refrigerator for another hour. With the butter nestled in the dough, we rolled it out again, folded it, then back to the refrigerator for another hour. This step is called making turns and creates the layers 0f the puff pastry by repeating it four times. I’m so excited about it that I’m bursting. Although all the puff pastry I ate might have something to do with that feeling.

Bong, the pastry chef

Mille FeuillePalmiers and Financiers (egg whites and almond powder with cocoa)