Wine in Paris – Everything You Need to Know

A wine guide to Paris is essential, and mine will do the trick at https://parisinmypocket.com and get you where you want to the fastest – get it along with all my wine recommendations for Paris before your trip (or before it’s over!).

There’s a lot to know about ordering wine, far more than you actually need to have a good time, so I’ve distilled all I’ve learned in the last decade to the most important wine tips for the best time in Paris possible. If you’d like to find friendly and trustworthy wine folks in Paris in 2024, then you’ll want to hit up one or all of the places that we visited in this video (or any of the killer spots in my guide).

Get all of my favorite wine bar recommendations in Paris at https://parisinmypocket.com

Where we drank wine in Paris in this video:
Ô Chateau: https://www.instagram.com/o_chateau/
Furia: https://www.instagram.com/furia_paris/
Cavalier: https://www.instagram.com/cavalier.paris/
Cave Pétillance: https://www.instagram.com/cavepetillance/
Cavewoman Wines: https://www.instagram.com/cavewomanwines/

If you’re looking for a solid bottle of wine from someone you can trust while you’re in Paris, any of those will do you right. I’ve become fully dependent on the amazing friends I’ve made in Paris over the years and their mastery of French wine (among so many others) – you’re in good hands if you drink with them.

00:00 Intro
00:33 Ô Chateau
01:43 Rules for ordering
04:15 Furia
05:15 Cavalier
05:20 Tips from a sommelier
08:19 French wine customs
10:15 Cave Pétillance
10:54 Drinking outside
11:51 Cavewoman wines

Credits
Edited by: Paulo Pales
Additional Camera: Arianna Razavi
Music by: Dyalla
Double-checked by: Emily Guernsey
Guide developed by: Jeff Beltran
Written/Produced/Directed by: Jay Swanson
Tolerated by: Cooper

France is arguably most famous for its wine, and Paris is overloaded with
delicious wine bars. But it can be overwhelming. How do
you even know what to order if you don’t know much about wine? Can you
send it back? Do you tip? And how do you even
know you’re getting a good wine bar to begin with? After living in Paris for
the last seven years, I’ve picked up all the tips and tricks you’ll need to
have the best time possible in Paris’s wine bars, and I’ll even share five of
my favorite wine bars with you along the way. This is Paris in my Pocket’s
Guide to wine bars in Paris, 2024.
Let’s go.
I’m in the fancy private tasting room at the back of
Ô Château, which is very centrally located in
the first arrondissement and is
going to be the one conventional wine cellar
that we talked about today because their
service is really friendly. They’re actually very,
they’ve been very kind to me in
coming in and wrecking their space here for a little bit. Their wine selection is
quite tasty. I have had no bad experiences here, and in fact,
if you want, you can privatize this special room in the back to have
a tasting, to have a little bit of a team meeting, a birthday party,
whatever it is you’re looking for, you can get
totally schwasted in this most classy
of environments. But if you’d like to hang out at the bar, they have a
beautiful bar with some wonderful chairs.
You could probably meet somebody who’s
also traveling along the way. And it’s really, really easy to get to.
It’s just outside of Les Halles, like right on the edge, where we’d start to
say things start to get delicious. And this area’s got a lot of great food
and wonderful places to go, which you can find in my guide at parisinmypocket.com,
Along with Ô Château classic
spot, great reputation come get your
wine on, or we should go get wine on elsewhere.
Rules for ordering there are three main rules
for ordering, especially if you’re new
to ordering wine in France. You’re feeling a little bit overwhelmed. You don’t
really know what you want, maybe, or you just need a little bit of help.
It’s totally fine. Like, it can be a scary situation to be
in. Just three rules to remember how you feel, how much, and
how much. If you don’t know exactly what to
order, there’s no need to feel
guilty. If you don’t know the difference between a pinot noir or a pét nat.
You can just walk into it and start with the basics. Like, I’m feeling like
a red, a white, maybe a rosé, champagne.
The basics. That’s a great place to start.
And then from there, tell them what
you feel like. For me, often I’m gonna say I’m feeling like a light,
juicy red. It’s something that always gets
me pretty much what I’m looking
for, and it’s a great combination. There is a little bit of interpretation,
obviously, depending on the person you’re
talking to. But if you can give a little
bit of a chat about the things you like,
the things you don’t, and let
them know where you are in your wine journey,
letting them know how you feel.
Like, ah, a warm summer’s day or a dry,
crisp white. Dry, by the way, is a word that
doesn’t mean the opposite of
wet in this instance, dry means the opposite of sweet.
It’s a wine that’s used up all of its sugars in fermentation, and so it
tends to be on the less sweet side. Number two, how much?
How much do you feel like drinking?
If you’re looking to have wine by the
bottle or by the glass, it’s gonna have a direct
impact on what your options
are, because a lot of bars are gonna end up having a few options on
hand for "by the glass" and then a whole long wine list for what
you can drink by the bottle. Like, this place has a massive list of stuff
that they’re not gonna give you just by the glass.
So if you’re by yourself
or you’re feeling a little bit uncertain, starting with by the glass is a really
good option to kind of get your feet wet, and then from there, you can
always ask for a bottle. If you’re traveling with
friends, you’re with a group,
going by the bottle is probably gonna be the way to go. And the nice
thing is, all you have to do is divide that bottle by six, and you
know roughly how many glasses you have to share.
Rule number three. Also, how much?
But this time, how much you want to pay. The third constraint on how
you order is going to be budget.
How much are you willing to spend?
What are you looking to spend?
If you’re looking to spend, like, €7 for a
glass or you’ve got a larger budget, the bottle side is where things can go
absolutely crazy. The wonderful thing is that in France, we do have an
amazing selection of wines, from €10 to
€20 per bottle. But remember, if you’re in
a restaurant like Furia here, there is going to be a markup, and so
the price is going to be a little bit higher or significantly higher,
depending on where you go in the city. But
obviously, places like this are going
to be cool. Just let them know how much you’re
willing to spend, and don’t
be afraid to raise the question in case they just happen to
forget to mention the cost of a bottle.
Furia offers the single best — their Baja fish talk taco is
the taco to get. If you’re gonna be looking for tacos in Paris, and I
realize you’re probably not coming for tacos when
you’re in Paris, but you might be
missing it. And if you live here, you definitely are on the hunt for a
good taco. But the wine selection is phenomenal. This is gonna be
our first natural wine selection for the night.
They’re supplied by Chambre Noir, the number
one importer of german natural wines. They’ve got quite the selection.
This place has great wine, phenomenal service. They are hilarious.
A ton of fun, really good taste in just basically
everything they’re doing. The vibe
is really good. And if you get a window seat, you have a straight view
to Saint-Amboise, one of the best underrated churches in Paris.
It’s a phenomenal view. Vibe, place, wine,
people, tacos, Furia. If you don’t come to Furia
while you’re here, you’re definitely missing out. It is also perfectly legal
to drink wine outside in Paris, but that’s. We’ll get to that…
You don’t want to do that here. This is not the right spot.
So my friend Fred here is a sommelier. He’s very impressive in a number
of different ways. Taught himself French
just by living and working here.
Has worked in a Michelin star restaurant, sings opera, is a writer
is handsome, clever, smart, hardworking. There’s a
lot to say about this guy that is positive.
– I am on Tinder. I am.
On the professional side, somebody who’s
actually worked in wine for a decade.
When to you is it appropriate for a client to send wine back after.
– Yeah. I really love this conversation because
it’s entirely practical and it’s very much on a
case by case basis. There are certain flaws in wine that
make returnable wine, and often it comes at
how they’re promoted to you, how they’re explained, and if they miss
one of those components, that actually ends up being really important. If I
say, I want a white wine that’s dry and fresh and
mineral and drinkable or something more sophisticated
or whatever the profile of the wine that you’re
looking at is. And then you
get served something, and it’s sort of like a car crash of
fruit into alcohol, or it’s got something really lactic
going on, or if there’s a problem in its exposure to oxygen that
makes the wine. Now, see, so if it ever feels like someone is
not addressing a fault in the wine so that they can sell it and get
away with it, then, like, that’s, to me, that’s not acceptable.
So I do think that returning wine is an
available option if you feel like you’ve been misled. And so
what is unacceptable as a consumer is if you
take a wine list, you flip to whatever page and you say, I want that one!
You don’t ask any questions about it, and they pop the cork, they bring it
to the table, you taste it, and it’s not what you wanted.
– I think a
good way to sum that up then, is to offer both
your host and yourself the opportunity for some education. But I also
don’t mean teach me everything about the wine so much as just to, like,
here’s an opportunity to educate as far as, like, this is what I think I
like. And then let them guide you through that process. Gotta be careful.
Go to the places where you know that people can
be trusted. Pretty sure everywhere
in my guide is plug plug. Cavalier,
a bar that I’ve only discovered today because of Fred. And I trust
his recommendations implicitly, especially
when it comes to stuff like natural wine,
when you don’t exactly know what you’re gonna
get. What pays off the most is
to know the people that are selling it to you,
because they have relationships with
the producers. They’re always trying it,
talking to them. They really know
what they’re buying and selling.
And so if you can find a few people that
you trust, like the people that I’m showing
you in this video, then you know
you’re gonna have a good time, even if it’s a little bit extra fun and
funky. Cavalier is a bar on a street that you wouldn’t normally
expect to find a place like this. It’s surrounded by kebabs, pizza by the
slice places, and one of my favorite random theaters. I’m gonna
wait for this. They make cocktails too,
and they have pop up chefs, so you never
know what you’re gonna get when
you come on in. What we’re having tonight,
you won’t be able to get when
you come in, but the food will be good.
Wonderful spot. Friendly staff, proud staff.
Their photos are on the walls. Cavalier – happy to
add it to the guide.
There are three major rules to cheersing in
France and you would be wise to
adhere to them. One, eye contact. Make and maintain
eye contact with the person that you’re
cheersing until your glasses have touched
and then move on to the next.
This is very important. You can say cheers,
you can say santé. In French we say santé,
normally, we can say chin. But if you don’t
make eye contact, you’re cursing yourself
to seven years of bad sex. And yes, that is a
cultural norm. And no, you can’t get out of it.
I don’t know how deeply cursed I am at this point, but anyways, I don’t
need to out myself on the Internet like that. Two, do not cross arms with
anyone else while cheersing. Whether under or over or wrapping
around, crossing while cheersing is considered deeply rude and will
bring sexy doom upon you as well. Number three, cheers everyone.
Something that’s very important to french culture is
acknowledging the humanity of everyone at
the table or in the room. It’s very much like having to do the bises
with everyone at a house party. You need to make sure that you see people,
you acknowledge their humanity, and then you’re
able to move on. Also, when you’re done
cheersing everybody, make sure you take a drink.
There’s no cheersing and then
putting your glass back down without taking
the drinking question. That one’s
probably debatable. I’m sure somebody would
debate me on that one, but I hold to
it. As for tipping, if you’re an American and
you feel morally obliged to leave
a percentage behind, no one will be offended.
I often say that I think this
is a big part of the rehabilitation of the image of the
American tourist in France, that we are very generous tippers.
I’m not anymore because I’ve lived here too long,
and the reason is because in
France you don’t have to tip. Service staff are paid a living wage.
It’s not something you need to stress out
over, and they will behave accordingly,
like they’re not here to earn your tip. So that can explain a little bit
of the edge to some French service. If you do get exceptionally
good service, you have a really good time. It’s perfectly acceptable to leave €1 or
€2 on the table as a pourboire. Pourboire means literally
for a drink. You can buy your server a drink just by leaving a couple
euros, and enough of those add up to a full glass.
Cheers.
As for where we are, I thought we would switch it up a little bit
and go for a little bit of a casual champagne evening. This is a great
way to do it. We’re at Cave Pétillance. They’ve got some nice charcuterie,
some really good cheese, and then some delicious options
for champagne. If you’re looking to sit down, uncork a bottle and share it among
your friends. Not a bad spot to do it in a very,
very fun part of town with so much nightlife and great food
that you’ll find in my guide. I love this area, but if
it’s warm outside and the sun is shining indoors, might not
be your vibe. And I’ve got some really good news for you there.
You can drink outside in Paris. Technically,
it’s actually only legal in certain arrangements, but basically,
nobody enforces any rules about it. As long as
you’re being cool and you clean
up after yourself, that’s a really big one.
My favorite place to drink is gonna
be on the canal, but the river happens to be a really great spot to
do it as well. I can drop a pin on that where there’s a great
spot by Pont Marie. Cooper is not allowed to
drink. He’s not quite old enough.
And if you wanna be a hero, one of the things I would recommend is
if you’re here and you want a really nice souvenir for your time in Paris,
that’s one that you can get back easily and is gonna be useful to you
for the rest of your life. Grab a bottle opener and then bring it with
you to the river or to the canal, because there will be people around who
definitely forgot. And it’s a really nice way to be social and offer
a helping hand wherever you are. So be a hero. Bring a bottle opener.
– I feel like romances have been found—
– You probably will find the
love of your life that way. There are a couple of good places that you
can grab wine, obviously, when you’re out and about. I have a few in my
guide. One of those, one of my favorites is
Cavewoman wines, run by Alison
Alison. I’ve got. I do have a loaded question to ask you. How would you
define the difference between a natural and a
conventional wine? Because we’re obviously,
we’re at a natural, natural wine festival
right now, but it’s also kind of a
testy subject, right? Like, what is the difference between the two?
– Yeah, natural wine is
minimal intervention. Basically, you’re not adding anything, and
you’re also not doing any additional processes
when it comes to, like, filtering or fining.
Conventional wine: There is more latitude
with regards to what you can put in it, what you can take away from
it, and the way you basically interact with it. That said,
most of the things that we’re putting into our body have had a lot of
interventions. So I’d say I don’t know why
we’re getting so picky about our wine,
given what most of us do on a Saturday night.
– All right. Thank you
very much. Cheers.
– Cheers, Cooper!
Anyway, if all of this wine talk has got you deeply
thirsty and you’d like to
quench that thirst in a more sacred space,
then you’re going to want to watch this video
right here about the churches you
can see in Paris to get that Notre Dame fix in 2024 before
the cathedral opens back up. Go give that a watch right now.
And, you know, bring a bottle of bubbly along for
the ride.