WHY FRANCE MATTERS TO WINE
I recently said to a friend, “New York is the most Parisian of American cities.” “No way,” he retorted, “There aren’t the grand boulevards—and the food overall, no way.”
I said, “What I mean is that the people who live in each city believe that they are the most exceptional people in their country.”
Whatever the merit of that claim (no doubt both New Yorkers and Parisians would take exception), there’s little question that at least Parisians are at the head of an exceptional country of winemakers.
In wine, no place equals France. No country produces as wide a range of every type of wine and at every level of price. Other countries grow more varieties of grapes, but none other does so well with the many that it does grow.
And everyone else, it clearly appears, wishes to do the same with the same grapes. To many wine drinkers’ palates (and minds) Burgundy’s pinot noir is the globe’s touchstone; so, too, Bordeaux’s cabernet sauvignon or the Rhone’s syrah.
And what great things has France given, over time, to the world of wine: how to use oak barrels, an appellation system guaranteed in law, the idea of terroir, those selfsame grapes. In large part, we cannot even speak the language of wine without also speaking French. (It’s the same when we cook.)
France matters to the world of wine. Here’s a look in a few spots—and why they matter to the world of wine.
Wine words
Like saying “Bon voyage” or “Bon appétit,” French is now part of English. In wine, the words are “brut” or “blanc de blancs” about sparkling wine, for instance, or “cru” or “cuvée” to designate levels of quality or blends.
You’ll hear French when it’s dry rosé season (such as the pink-ing method of “saigner,” or “to bleed”) and at any time of year when people sit down to taste (“dégustation”). Lingua vina is lingua franca.
Photo from Mike Baumeister on unsplash.
Using wood
The Celts, being people of the forest, figured out how to use wood to construct containers for liquids, a first in the history of both drink and transport.
Their progeny, the modern French winemaker, has done more to find how wood barrels lend subtle flavors and scents to wines fermented or aged (or both) therein, and to pass that knowledge to others. It’s really the judicious use of oak that is the great lesson of French wine with wood.
Grapes
The bounty of plant life in the vineyard that France has scattered around the world is impressive. What would we taste in wine were it not for the cabernets sauvignon and franc, and other reds such as pinot noir, merlot and syrah?
The world’s most popular white wine grape, chardonnay, is French-born, as are sauvignon blanc and chenin blanc. Certainly, Spain, Germany and Italy have given us deliciousness on the vine (as mourvedre, grenache, riesling and sangiovese), but, yes, it’s the French grapes that are so often nicknamed the “international varieties.”
French wines really aren’t made without food in mind.
Wine with food
The idea that wine (as a food) best accompanies food at table as its quintessential beverage is hardly natively French. But while other Mediterranean countries, alongside France, have done the same for decades, it’s the French who have done it with such, well, élan.
If you look at French wines as a totality, you find common to them the elements that most felicitously pair with food: finely toned acidity, moderate alcohol, flavors that lay back and, for red wines, moderate levels of tannin.
Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC)
The words do not translate conveniently into English, but the AOC is the law that governs grape growing and wine production for the country. It is important most especially for consumers because it is a guarantee that a wine is from where it says it is.
AOC controls vineyard practices, yields and types of grapes harvested, winemaking methods, minimum alcohol levels and varietal labeling for each appellation that it governs. Its birthplace, in the 1930s, was the Rhone Valley. From there, the force of its idea has spread worldwide.