Roar Like a Lion…
Paris is terrible. I know it, the French know it, you should know it. It was once the “city of light,” gleaming fin-de-siècle boulevards were the playground of Europe’s hautiest (haughtiest?) cultured. Hold your breath before artistic masterworks hanging in a maze of galleries; salivate over the constellation of Michelin-starred restaurants; spend far too much money in its ritzy boutiques, and the mirage seems just about real. And yet, I say again as someone who has made repeated visits for two decades: Paris is terrible.
Is this opinion mere hyperbole? Of course. Is it entirely incorrect? No. As France’s economic, political, and cultural center, Paris is over-crowded, polluted, affectless, and trite. But these afflictions are the norm for every globalized, post-industrial megapolis today. Urban spaces are more than the sum of their parts; they cannot bear the weight. Inevitably, gravity will cause them to collapse upon themselves. It goes beyond the scope of this discourse to solve the global urban crisis of the twenty-first century. Rather, I wish to correct the perception that all of France can be discovered on a visit to Paris. Let us take a trip down the Michelin, to a place of farmhands and silk workers; lentils and river pike; bouchons and Beaujolais. Paris might be the heart of France, but Lyon is most assuredly its stomach.
Lyon is France’s third-largest city by population. It is a crossroads, where influences from Rome, the Alps, Rheinish Germany, and the Mediterranean germinate and coalesce. France’s A6 highway is nicknamed the “Paris-Lyon” route. Its last third is known as the “route des Grands Crus” because it passes through Burgundy’s most heralded names: Chambertin, Romanée-Conti, Corton, Volnay. Before highways and high-speed rail, the Rhône and Saône rivers brought commerce and culture from the entire continent to Lyon.
And yet, nobody would mistake Lyon for a cosmopolitan city flirting with the edges of what is en vogue. The Lyonnais are a fiercely proud brand of French. Parisians will not speak English as a form of snobbery. The Lyonnais do not speak English because they never learned it. They demonstrate a particularly Gallic determinacy - art without pretense, hard-driving without fatalism, and brutal efficacy at eating and drinking an heroic amount of their decidedly un-cosmopolitan cuisine and wine.
There is no bistronomie in Lyon - no micro-plated, micro-dotted egg-yolk-suspended-in-gelée nonsense. Lyon is the city of the bouchon, a unique eatery steeped in proletarian tradition. Silk-workers, fresh from a hard and heavy overnight shift, would sit for hours as dawn light spread over Lyon, downing platter after steaming platter of salade lyonnaise (frisée lettuce with lardons, soft-boiled eggs, and a spicy mustard vinaigrette); Andouille aux lentilles (locally-made cured sausages served over a soft bed of plush green lentils); and quenelles de brochet (flaked river pike filet lended with flour into a oval pastry and baked with a sensuous mushroom cream sauce), among others.
There is a plainness about the bouchon. It smacks away all pretentious behaviors and thoughts. Seated at communal tables, egalitarianism reigns supreme. It is hardly a place to dream, googly-eyed (just ask the college-age woman I was sitting next to once, professing her desire to marry the young Lyonnais man she was seated across from and move him to New York, oblivious to his absurdly clear intention to abandon her once stateside). It is a place to do the serious business of eating and drinking with your fellow humans.
And what is drunk at a bouchon? Equally unpretentious wines in copious amounts. As a sop to what few tourists might expect them, there is the requisite cru Burgundy and the odd bottle of Bordeaux. But the local grape is Gamay, and that means Beaujolais. It comes in carafes, half (500ml) and whole (1 liter). It is refreshingly acidic, lip-smackingly fruited, and light on the alcohol. The bouchon is, alas, impossible to replicate here in the United States. But The Wine Press can help you drink like a silk worker. Here are three selections that exemplify the uncomplicated drinking culture of Lyon.
Domaine Dupeuble Père et Fils, Beaujolais
The ten cru Beaujolais represent - arguably - the best of French Gamay. But there is a whole world south of this tiny growing area from whence some of the most unique and forward-thinking Beaujolais. Perhaps cru Beaujolais has become too cute for the 2020s; perhaps the natural wine revolution has run its course, or at least its first movement has finished. Beaujolais may be seeking a middle ground between its crus and the nouveau phenomenon. Domaine Dupeuble appears to fit that bill. Briskly fruited with notes of cranberry and stewed strawberry, this is nonetheless an acid-forward wine that’s far from sweet. Dupeuble is the perfect bouchon wine - light and easily drinkable, uncomplicated and fun, pairs with anything on your table that is hearty and communal.
Super Glou x Fond Cyprès, Rouge
Otherwise known as the “lazy kitty” wine, this is a juicy blend of Cinsault and Grenache Noir from southern France. It combines elements of sweet fruits like plum jam and blueberry with the distinct savoriness of Niçois olive. Rather than a too-sweet fruit bomb, the Grenache creates balance and texture in this wine. There is an abundance of earthy tannins reminiscent of fresh rain on sod. It is eminently drinkable, and will no doubt have you feeling like a lazy kitty after a glass or two.
Domaine Chaume-Arnaud, Pontias
South of Lyon is the Rhône appellation, where some of the best Grenache and Syrah in the world are grown. In its northern straits, elegant Syrah challenges Burgundy for perfumed grace. In the southern hills, it is all pomp and power, none more muscular than Châteauneuf-du-Pape. This erstwhile appellation, named for the historic Papal retreat, has strict limits on how much wine can be produced in a year. Hence Pontias. The same blend of Rhône grapes in Châteauneuf-du-Pape appears here in a much more relaxed and accessible form, ready to drink rather than requiring years of age to take its rough edges off. Pontias is a dense, chewy-textured red-and-blue fruited wine with plenty of leathery tannins and the right amount of heat. Robust enough to stand up to beef roasts, chicken in sauce, or sausage & onion tarte.
Reject Paris and embrace Lyon, if only by embracing the oleaginous delights of quaffable French wine and rib-sticking cuisine. Perhaps you will find a measure of salvation from the urban crisis by doing so. And if you are still agnostic, writer and chef Bill Buford said it far better than I could in Dirt: “Young people today no longer have gout, but mope around on diets: noodles without butter, butter without bread, bread without sauce, sauce without meat, meat without truffles, truffles without scent, scent without bouquet, bouquet without wine, wine without drunkenness, drunkenness without gaiety….Saints of Paradise! I would rather have gout than deprive myself of all of life’s charms.”
