#36 - French wine – history, traditions and etiquette

Today we’re going to be talking about something very French, wine.

France is of course one of the best wine making countries in the world and beyond, according to one of us on this podcast! Though extra-terrestrials probably won’t be sipping the famous red wine of Chateauneuf-du-Pape in Provence because the town has a law that states that UFOs cannot land there.

Discover the history, fascinating anecdotes and fun facts about French wine and Champagne.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:51 French wine history, traditions and etiquette
• 25:15 Q&A Section
• 27:39 Where to find us

Transcript

Podcast 36: French wine – history, traditions and etiquette           

Janine: Bonjour and a very warm welcome to the Good Life France podcast. I’m Janine Marsh, your host, and though I’m from London UK, I now live in France - in the far north, a place called the Seven Valleys in Pas-de-Calais. I have seven cats, 4 dogs, several hedgehogs that live under the decking in the back garden and come to the back door for food from spring to early winter, and I have chickens, ducks and geese. I write books about France, I am the editor of The Good Life France Magazine and website and I travel round France throughout the year. And I love to chat to you on this podcast alongside my podcast partner Olivier Jauffrit. 

Oli: Bonjour everyone, and yes, a very warm welcome indeed to the podcast – and thank you so much for all your lovely emails and comments on social media about the podcast, it’s so nice to read them! I am French and now live in Lyon in the south of France after spending 20 years living in the UK.  So – that’s us but now, let’s talk about today’s topic, Janine – tell us what’s coming up in this episode.

Janine: Today we’re going to be talking about something very French, wine. France is of course one of the best wine making countries in the world

Oli: And beyond.

Janine: You are probably right Oli – if there is a beyond and aliens are out there thinking what wine to have with their meal today, it’s likely to be French (according to Oli at least). 

Oli: But it won’t be the famous wine of Chateauneuf-du-Pape in Provence because the town has a law that states that UFOs cannot land there. 

Janine: Absolutely true, bizarre, bonkers and a brilliant bit of marketing, but true! 

Oli: Anyway, that sounds like a great topic, lets pop some corks and talk wine… 

Oli: Wine has been made in France for thousands of years – it’s said that the first vines were planted by Greek settlers in the south as long ago as 600 years BC. The Romans planted vines too when they arrived in France some 550 years later. They established such excellent vineyards in Bordeaux that they wine was exported to Roman troops stationed in what is now Britain. Wine though is much older than that, some historians say the earliest wines go back 8000 years, where, in what is now Georgia, people buried grapes underground to keep them through winter. And voila wine was born. Or – you can listen to other historians who say wine was made even longer ago than that – based on 10,000-year-old grape pips found near Lake Geneva.

Janine: Well whoever first invented it, we owe them a debt of gratitude and I will happily say a toast to them with my next glass of wine! I have a soft spot for French wine – it’s partly responsible for me living in France! It was on a cold and sleety February day that I went with my dad and my husband by ferry from the south coast of the UK to Calais in France to buy French wine. And it was when I first saw the old French farmhouse I now call home. It’s a long story, you’ll need to listen to episode one of this podcast to find out more!

Oli: I think most, if not all, French people have a very soft spot for the wine grown in France – we do of course consider it to be the best in the world – and beyond. When we drink wine, we treat it with respect. We don’t just fill a glass to the top and glug. The wine is poured so that there’s enough room for it to breathe. Then is it is swirled in the glass to release the vapour, all the better to sniff it. And we talk about what it tastes like – a lot. 

Janine: I once went to a dinner with French friends in a cosy little restaurant in Burgundy which started with a wine tasting at which we played a game involving choosing from a bundle of cards describing the taste of the wine we had and it included the expressions ‘leather’, ‘flesh’, and ‘barnyard’. They took it seriously. 

Oli: Wine is very serious for us French! Apparently around 16% of the French drink wine every day. But we drink a lot less than we used to. In 1975 your average Frenchie drank 100 litres of wine a year, by2016 it was 42 litres and it’s still dropping. And France is also the world’s top exporter of wine. 

Janine: My first memories of drinking wine are aged 14, living with a French family in Antony, in the suburbs of Paris, where I was sent to improve my French language skills (I’m not sure it worked to be honest). I was shocked to be offered a small amount of wine, watered down, with the Sunday dinner. This would never have happened back at home in London. My parents insisted that there would be no alcohol before the legal age of 18. I remember feeling so grown up to taste wine in France though I didn’t like it at all then! 

Oli: in France it is customary to instil in young people a healthy respect and understanding of wine earlier, in the belief that it prevents children from wanting to binge drink. You might be surprised to learn it was only in 1956 that the French Government banned the serving of wine in school canteens! 

Janine: I’m sorry what? Kids were served wine with their meals at school? Sacre Bleue! But yes actually I have seen a newspaper article published in 1956 when the law banned the serving of wine to school children during school hours and it was suggested that cider and beer be served instead. Wow! 

Oli: In France it’s traditional to drink wine with food, to know how to pair wine properly is considered a skill, and it’s quite normal to go to a wine shop and ask the people who work there to help you to pick a wine to go with the food you’re serving. And it’s quite normal to have a different wine with each course. 

Janine: There are of course wine snobs in France as there are in all countries. But on the whole, I find the French have a sometimes academic and rather respectful attitude to wine that can seem snooty but has nothing to do with snobbery and everything to do with a true appreciation of the quality. 

Oli: French people drink different wines according to the season. Rosé in summer, fresh red wines in Autumn, robust reds in winter. And as you say, they drink different wines with different courses, a sweet white wine with foie gras, a crisp white wine with oysters, white wine with fish, red wine with meat, a floral red with creamy cheeses like Brie and Camembert, sweet wine with dessert. Though don’t go thinking this is an everyday thing, that much layering of wine is for special dinners or at a restaurant where a sommelier, a waiter who is trained as a wine expert, chooses wine to go with the courses. 

Janine: I’m always amazed at how wine tastes so different according to what you’re eating. I went to Beaujolais a couple of weeks ago and did 20 wine tastings including paired with chocolate, cheese, and various other foods and it really isn’t entirely about red with this and white with that, it goes much deeper. I love doing wine tasting tours in France, learning about how it’s made, the grape varieties that are used, the history of the vineyards, the history of the people making the wine – it’s a whole cultural thing, it’s not just grape juice in a glass. 

Oli: You’re right, it’s a whole lot of things, whether someone is new to wine making or their family have been doing it for centuries it makes the wine tastes better. Though it always tastes best when you drink it with friends.

Janine: And it’s about so much more than a glass of wine, it’s about knowing where the wine came from and absolutely a bit of provenance makes the wine taste better I always think. Wherever you go in France it’s always a good idea to stop off at a wine domaine, a winery, and hear their stories and taste the wines. I remember going to a place called Les Riceys in Champagne and I heard the story of how when the palace of Versailles was being built, King Louis XIV saw some workmen drinking wine from their local town and they were from Les Riceys, and he asked to try some – he loved it, and Les Riceys pink wine from Les Riceys became known as the pink wine of Kings! And he also loved red wine from Champagne especially from the aptly named village of Bouzy! 

Oli: We have a lot of legends about wine in France, in Saint-Emillion for instance they say that on a full moon night, fairies dance among the vineyards and pour a few drops of their magic wine on the vines. This fairy wine is said to have extraordinary properties and to be particularly prized.

Janine: I love the French saying "C'est le petit Jesus en culotte de velours" which my French neighbour Jean-Claude says when he really enjoys a good wine. Literally it means “It’s baby Jesus in velvet pants” – or – it’s really delicious! 

Oli: In France we refer to terroir a lot when we’re talking about wine, and food too actually, but especially wine. It’s a word you can’t really translate into English though it sounds a bit like territory. But it really means the environmental conditions where something is grown. The weather, how much sun reaches a vineyard, whether it’s on a hill, the soil condition and all sort of things affect the terroir which in turn gives wine its unique flavour and aroma. 

Janine: I visited Burgundy last year to find out more about the wines of what is called Les Climats de Burgundy which basically refers to a group of vineyards which are UNESCO recognised as a cultural landscape. It doesn’t mean climate though it sounds like it should, but they’re specific plots of vines with a precisely defined border, each plot produces wine with a unique taste and each wine bears the name of the plot – every plot has a unique name too. And there are more than 1,200 Climats across the entire listed area which is around 60km long, so some of these plots are really small.  The “Climats” are the result of a combination of 2000 year old cultural heritage and savoire-faire, know-how of the growers. The plots were often worked by monks, and the area features stone walls which gives the vineyards the name clos, like Clos Bèze, which is a plot known to have been worked by monks 1500 years ago, and there are often little stone shelters in the vineyards. 

Oli: We have some interesting ways of testing wine. First you swish the glass around gently before smelling the wine and finally taking a sip. This swishing movement is to see if the wine will pleur (which means cry), dripping down the glass like teardrops with perfect consistency. If it doesn’t cry, it’s not considered very good wine. We also describe the wine according to its robe, which literally translates as to ‘dress’, it’s about the colour, but also the texture on the tongue. 

Janine: See that there is such a French thing, so art de vivre, you don’t just go ‘mmm smells nice, tastes good’ you go “its pleuring, it’s crying well, and the robe is divine… oh la la”… Making wine is an art, but also drinking wine is an art isn’t it… 

Oli: Absolutely. And you know the wines taste so different according to which region you’re in. The wines of Haute-Savoie are very different from Bordeaux. The wines of Alsace are different from the Loire Valley. And did you know that there is even a vineyard in the heart of Paris? Paris as we know it actually used to be covered in vineyards in the middle ages and you can still see and visit a vineyard in Paris – it’s in Montmatre, rather a secret place. And if you’re in Paris in October – they have a vendange, the harvest of the grapes with a big celebration.

There are more than 750 hectares of vineyards in France – more than 1 million rugby pitches worth. Wines are produced in every region of France – even Hauts-de-France, the northernmost tip of the country which is traditional beer country. 

Janine: You’re right, even Champagne is produced in Hauts-de-France which most people are completely unaware of.

Oli: And that leads us nicely to one of the most famous wines of France – Champagne! 

Oli: Champagne can only be produced in a designated area in Champagne but which spills just a little way over the border into neighbouring Picardy in Hauts de France, where the conditions for Champagne production are met. The name “Champagne” is protected, and only sparkling wine produced in this region of France can be called Champagne. The same goes for the process that assures those trademark bubbles, it’s called - the méthode champenoise and only Champagne-makers in Champagne can claim its use, other sparkling wines produced in France or elsewhere are produced by the méthode traditionnelle. The Champagne ‘Hilllsides, Houses and Cellars’ are UNESCO-listed under the "Organically evolved living cultural landscapes" category.

Janine: I am a definite Champagne fan and again, there are so many different types of Champagne. And talking of bubbles, scientists say there are around 49 million of them in a single bottle. But I can’t promise you that’s true because I have never personally counted them. In an average glass there are about 9,800,000 bubbles!

Oli: When you get bubble trains on the side of the glass we call it a collarette – it’s a sign of good Champagne. Smaller bubbles also mean that the Champagne is smoother and more refined. And did you know that Champagne is more bubbly in a flute than in a coupe - because the long, narrow shape of the glass helps to preserve the bubbles and keep them from escaping. All those bubbles create a lot of pressure. It’s about 90 pounds per square inch in a standard bottle of Champagne, three times the pressure in a car tyre - or roughly the same air pressure as the tyres of a double-decker bus. So, it's no wonder that opening a Champagne bottle results in such a bang. A Champagne cork can apparently reach up to 50 miles an hour when popped. The pressure pushes the cork out when the wire cage is removed. 

Janine: Here’s a strange fact, apparently an eye watering 20% of eye injuries in the US are due to champagne bottle cork accidents! I’m always really careful to aim the bottle into a safe space. When I open a bottle I loosen and then hold the metal cage down to control the cork and stop it zooming off as I twist the bottle holding the cork, and if I think it’s going to be a really big pop, I’ll put a cloth over the top to stop it jetting into space. 

Oli: The longest recorded Champagne cork flight is about 177 feet! This Guinness World Record was set by Emeritus Heinrich Medicus in June 1988 at the Woodbury Vineyards Winery, New York. 

Janine: Unlike with wine, we have a better idea of when Champagne began. Legend has it that Dom Perignon, a monk at the Abbey of Hautvillers in Champagne, accidentally invented a sparkling wine in the 1600s, and thrilled with the taste called out “Brothers, come quickly – I’m drinking the stars.” Well the true part is that there was a monk called Dom Perignon, and he did work as cellar-master at the Abbey of Hautvillers for most of his life. He was responsible for acquiring more vineyards and for improving the Abbey’s non-sparkling wines. However, his work was documented, and there was no mention of him ever making sparkling wine, either accidentally or on purpose. Even worse, some wine historians claim that the méthode champenoise was used in England more than a hundred years before the French.  

Oli: Non – it can’t be true. It’s French I tell you. 

Janine: That’s what they say - Champagne is English!

Oli: Stop saying that! Well, ok, yes it could be true. In fact, in Dom Perignon’s day, the bubbles were seen to be a fault, and early production methods made it very prone to accidents with bottles exploding a lot in the cellars. But Dom Perignon helped to standardise Champagne production methods and added two safety measures to his champagnes: a rope snare that kept corks in place and thicker glass bottles that could withstand more pressure.

Janine: Even if it was the English that first invented Champagne, knowing this doesn’t at all spoil the taste and the feeling you get when you sip a glass of Champagne. Some 300 million bottles are produced each year in Champagne. They’re left to mature for at least 15 months. And they ferment twice (that’s what gives it the bubbles) in hundreds of miles of underground cellars. It’s exported to around 190 countries. After the French, Americans are the biggest consumers of Champagne. They’re followed by the British – with Winston Churchill setting an example by drinking an estimated 42,000 bottles in his lifetime. He liked to be served champagne at 11am precisely – Pol Roger was his favourite. And it’s also the Champagne served at royal events including the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Oli: Lots of famous people have loved Champagne. James Bond drinks Champagne 65 times the books! It's not all about the martinis, shaken, not stirred. Bollinger is James Bond’s official Champagne apparently.

Janine: Marilyn Monroe was said to have poured 350 bottles into her bathtub for a bubble bath! Coco Chanel once said “I only drink Champagne on two occasions – when I’m in love, and when I’m not.” 

Oli: And Napoleon was a fan. He said “In victory you deserve Champagne; in defeat – you need it.”

Janine: I visited the Moet et Chandon cellars in Epernay in Champagne and they have one of his famous tricorne hats there, he left it behind when he visited! There are more than 160 miles of Champagne cellars underneath the towns of Epernay and Reims – or as the French say – Reims – with hundreds of millions of bottle fermenting ready to be popped! 

Oli : Did you know that tradition of sabrage, opening a Champagne bottle with a sword, is said to have been invented by Napoleon's troops. The story goes that they would open bottles of Champagne with their swords to celebrate their victories and they were pretty much showing off by lopping the tops of the bottles off with their swords. It takes a lot of practice to get it right, you have to strike just beneath the cork and chop so that the cork and the neck of the bottle fly off into the air leaving the bottle intact.

Janine: Don’t try this at home folks! If you’ve seen Emily in Paris you’ll probably remember Camille’s dad trying it and cutting his finger off in the process. Yuck. 

Oli: Ok let’s talk a little bit about drinking etiquette in France – you know we love our etiquette! But first did you know that a drink at the bar in France is cheaper than a drink at the table?

Janine: And In France it’s customary to wait until everyone has arrived before you take your first sip whether that’s one person – or 50! I was once invited to a party in a restaurant. My husband and I got there first, we didn’t know then that it is de rigeur to arrive a little late. 

Oli: Ah yes, the quart d’heure de politesse, another etiquette thing, it’s ok to be quarter of an hour late! 

Janine: We were shown to our seats at the table. The waiter dashed off without taking our order for drinks which we thought was odd because where we’re from, London, they take your drink order straight away. Anyway, another couple arrived, we exchanged handshakes not kisses because we didn’t know them and they sat down. Again the waiter didn’t ask any of us if we wanted a drink. More and more people arrived, we all either shook hands or kissed on the cheek. By now we were pretty thirsty but not so much as a glass of water offered. But, as soon as the last person was seated, the waiter scooted over and rapidly completed drinks orders. It’s a thing in France – drinks when everyone has arrived! 

Oli: And you know, when drinking with French friends, it’s considered polite to clink glasses. And there are a few rules when doing so – first you must keep eye contact with everyone as you clink your glasses, and second you should wait for everyone to finish clinking and staring into each other’s eyes before you drink. It doesn’t matter if it’s alcohol or a non-alcoholic drink. And if you’re wondering why the French require you to look into their eyes as you toast each other – it’s said that failure to do so will result in seven years of bad luck – or bad sex! 

Janine: It makes me laugh when we do that in France and people stare intently into your eyes! It’s said this custom goes back to the middle ages when you had a drink with someone and you didn’t know if they were friends or enemies and might poison your drink so you watched them intently to make sure they didn’t slip something horrible into your drink! 

Oli: And finally when you have a drink in France with a friend or family It's common to say “À ta santé” or just “santé”, which means to your good health and you answer by saying “à la tienne” - to yours. And if you’re wanting to be a bit more formal, like with your boss, you say “à votre santé” - to your good health,  answered by “à la vôtre”  - to yours!

Janine: Or keep it simple “tchin-tchin” which is like cheers!.

Oli: But now, as with every episode, it’s time for a listener’s question.

Oli: So Janine what’s today’s question? 

Janine: It’s a fun question today! Sally Doolally – I think that might be a nom de plume, you know a pretend name but that’s what she calls herself, Sally Doolally from Cumbria, UK, wants to know “Why do the French eat cheese before dessert when everyone else eats cheese after dessert?” So Oli – what’s the answer to that one? 

Oli: Well it’s a good question. We never really think much about why in France, it’s just something we do but I think there are several reasons. It’s savoury, so it goes with the savoury courses rather than having savoury starters, main meal then something sweet, then something savoury again. Also it’s got a heavy fat content so it’s best at the end of the meal so it doesn’t fill you up completely.

Janine: My French friend Isabelle told me that also you typically have coffee or tea at the very end of the meal and it makes the cheese solidify in your stomach and that’s another reason why you should have it before the dessert.

Oli: Also cheese is best eaten at room temperature so if you get it out of the fridge at the start, it will be perfect by the time you get through the rest of the meal! Just like wine is best decanted, cheese is best left to breathe.

Janine: I read somewhere that cheese is an alkali and desserts are generally acidic and so eating cheese as the last course is better for your teeth. don’t know if that’s true but maybe?

Oli: And if you love cheese, have a listen to our Welcome to Cheeseland episode – everything you want to know about French cheese and more! 

Janine: So there you have it Sally Doolally, love that name. There are good reasons for cheese at the end of the meal! 

Oli: Thanks so much for that question, Sally Doollaly – perhaps that is her real name? If you also have a question for us – feel free to send it to janine@thegoodlifefrance.com or via our podcast newsletter. And, if there’s a topic you want to know more about – let us know! 

Oli: Thank you so much, a massive merci beaucoup, to everyone for listening to our podcast from 148 countries all around the world! And huge thank you for sharing the podcast with your friends and family, we’re truly grateful when you do that. 

You’ve been listening to Janine Marsh and me Olivier Jauffrit. You can find me at parischanson.fr 

Janine: And you can find me  and heaps of information about France – where to visit, culture, history, recipes – everything France - at thegoodlifefrance.com where you can subscribe to the podcast, my weekly newsletter about France and our totally brilliant, totally free magazine which you can read at magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com 

But for now, it’s au revoir from me.

Olivier: And goodbye from me.

Janine: Speak to you soon!