nighthawks at the diner: the newly renovated verre volé, 75010

I have no hipster desire to say anything negative whatsoever about the newly-renovated incarnation of Le Verre Volé. I love the place, outsize popularity and all. My first meal there was the day after I arrived in Paris, and I remember feeling that the whole ethos of the restaurant - unfussy service of great wines, a market menu balanced between novelty and sausages, frank presentation of great things - validated my descision to move to France.

But it has to be said, if only for the sake of critical honesty*: the new wing feels sort of like a diner. The vibe is a little abbreviated. I'm hoping they'll immediately begin to festoon it with all the wine clutter that makes the main dining area so charming.

(Then, a related issue: the new room complicates wine service. This may or may not have been the idea. After all, the more a server can discuss wine selections with you, the more opportunity he or she has to sell you something more ambitious. But if a screamingly busy restaurant like Le Verre Volé has no official wine list, and if the bottles on the walls are mostly empty and bear little or no relation to actual stock, and if furthermore half the guests are seated in a side area where no bottles are visible without resorting to a tedious obtrusive ramble through the crowded front dining room, then I'm sorry but the dream of loquacious upselling has to go out the fenêtre.)

The unadulterated good news is: the kitchen still rocks.

how to survive fashion week: la bodeguita du IVème, 75004

I run into the same problem every fashion week. Friends and acquaintances arrive from New York, LA, Tokyo, all over, everyone stressed overworked and thirsty. When we all finish our respective jobs for the day, often quite late, I'm the only one who hopelessly advocates drinking someplace beyond the dead-obvious tourist-infested center of Paris. Since I'm the one living here, not staying in an overpriced hotel near Opera, I'm not really in a position to insist. We wind up at Irish pubs.

Which is why I'm straight-up ecstatic about the opening, just six months ago, of La Bodeguita du IVème, a particularly rock 'n' roll Spanish-themed natural wine bar right smack near the Centre Pompidou. From which my fashion friends can stagger home on foot, if it comes to it. The writing on the door proclaims "Wine's Not Dead!" and the same rebellious, joyous spirit pervades the whole place, from the unfinished walls to the mismatched chairs that have clearly been inherited from previous failure establishments.

The Spanish theme, too, is taken lightly. From what I saw the wine selection consists of nothing but top-notch natural French stuff. When I popped in with my friend P the other night my eye was drawn immediately to a 2005 Cour-Cheverny by Domaine des Huards, with which we rinsed down a plate of marinated anchovies and some simple hearty tortillas.

even the losers: pineau d'aunis

Image swiped from lastfm.com.

Even the most celebrated grapes of the Loire - Sauvignon by a mile, with an honorable mention to Chenin, although the latter is more interesting - tend to be considered runner-up or alternative wines by the drinking public. (C.f. the discouraging number of drinkers you meet who profess to love Sancerre primarily because it's not Chardonnay.) This is fine by me, since it keeps prices down. At least relative to white Burgundy, or (red) Bordeaux.*

But dig a little further and you find a whole other realm of obscurity in the Loire, bizarre little village grapes like Cot, Grolleau, Romorantin, Gros Plants, and the subject of this post, Pineau d'Aunis, the name of which grape seems to really beg for a good anagram**. 

Image swiped from lagrapperie.com.

Had you asked me a few months ago, I would have told you that many of the above loser grapes were, in my experience, straight from the Aligoté school of pleasureless oddity winemaking. I'm in the midst of revising this opinion, though, motivated largely by two terrific Pineau d'Aunis-based wines I've had lately.