Ah, that nice little white wine from Paris!

There’s a grand old love affair between Paris and vines. For sure, it’s hard to imagine Paris, looking at the ring road at seven in the evening, once gained something of a reputation for its wines. And yet…

In principle, wine and cities don’t make a great pair. Out of all the European capitals, only Vienna makes a strong case for having a sizeable vineyard close to its chest. Paris and its sprawling suburbs might one day be able to do so if the planting momentum continues. This would only be fair given the long love affair uniting Parisians and wine.

The story goes back to the Middle Ages when the whole of France was planted with vines. Most of France at least, since beyond a certain latitude, grapes just don’t get ripe enough to make wine. In those days, from the 10^th Century onwards, Europe’s economic heart was precisely above that line. It was the grand era of Flanders, Hainaut and England. Paris was off-centre compared with these great market places yet Paris was in a zone where you could still make wine. So, “French” wine would satiate these new markets via the Seine and Oise rivers. Paris became the centre of this Île-de-France wine business, but also those vineyards downriver from the Seine and its tributaries; nowadays Champagne and Chablis. Charles IV “the Fair” would consecrate their dominance by creating a Paris charter of sworn wine brokers and blenders. This brotherhood still exists and, even if they’ve lost their monopoly, their members still ply their trade to the capital’s restaurants.

From ‘Vinous street’ to the ‘Panoyaux’

After the Middle Ages, Parisian vineyards produced lively white wines and undoubtedly too acidic for our tastes today; but matching people’s taste at the time who found them lighter and easier to drink than those fortified wines (with spirit) from the Mediterranean regions. In the 13^th Century, the Paris region’s vineyards became Europe’s foremost in surface area. Grape varieties were Fromenteau, ancestor of Pinot Gris, Morillon, ancestor of Pinot Noir, and Gouais, a variety now extinct because of its dire quality. These vineyards lay on the best hillsides according to Lambert’s theory, who thought the best wines in northerly regions are produced on southeast-facing slopes, a rule still in force in Alsace, Burgundy and Champagne. Hence you find vines on slopes in the current districts of Belleville, Charonne, Montmartre and Montagne Sainte-Geneviève; as well as outside Paris on the edges of Mont Valérien in Suresnes, in Mantes, Argenteuil… This Mediaeval vineyard has left its mark in Parisian street names. ‘Rue de la Goutte d’Or’ (Golden Drop) in the 18th arrondissement recalls a vineyard recognised for quality, which the city of Paris gave four casks of to King Louis XI every birthday. ‘Rue des Vignes’ (Vine Street) and ‘Rue Vineuse’ in the 16^th refers to the existence of the Abbey of “Bonshommes de Chaillot”’s vineyard, where Louis XIII used to enjoy a glass on his way back from hunting. ‘Rue des Panoyaux’ in the 20^th is an old path that crossed the “Pas noyaux” vineyard (“no pips”), which got its name from its seedless grapes. ‘Rue du Pressoir’ (Press St.) reminds us of the grape-growing activity in the hamlet of Belleville…

A 14th July marked by grape juice and trellis

Paris’ vineyards were to expand in rhythm with the city filling up with mouths to satiate. And these throats were deep as, on the eve of the Revolution, average wine consumption in Paris was around 250 litres per year per person, including women and children! This big thirst was a source of not negligible revenue for the king, who received high taxes at the city’s gates. These taxes spawned an intensive amount of ingenious smuggling. The story goes that tax collectors in the 18^th Century were to discover a catapult designed to dispatch pouches of wine. They also sent them down a pipe 700 metres underground during the day in rubber garments, as any which way was fine including using a hot-air balloon. In his World History of Wine, English writer Hugh Johnson goes as far as claiming that the storming of the Bastille, on 14 July 1789, might not have happened if, between the 11th and 13th July, a band of rioters lead by innkeepers and wine merchants from the parishes of Charonne, Belleville and Montmartre hadn’t ransacked the ‘Barrière Blanche’: this closed off Chaussée d’Antin allowing, willingly or not, smugglers to flood Paris with low-price wines. The French Republic that came into being abolished these taxes on 19th February 1791, before reinstating them to finance the war effort. The watering holes set up outside Paris - and hence free to serve wine not subject to tax - could continue to prosper and the way of life associated with them. Workers would come here to dance the java to the sound of the accordion, and young middle class folk came here to have a picnic lunch in polite society as Édouard Manet painted it.

Bercy feeds the Parisian gullet

Despite being 42,000 hectares in the 18^th Century, Paris’ vineyards didn’t manage to quench the growing Parisian thirst. In addition, with improving communication routes, several other vineyard areas took up the challenge and shifted people’s tastes towards red wines, where that nice little white wine still ruled the waves. From the 19^th Century, the village of Bercy made the most of its position southeast of Paris to specialise in supplying wine to Parisians. When it became part of Paris in 1859, it was already the biggest wine market in the world. In 1877, the architect Viollet-Le-Duc built some immense warehouses here, which would later be declared a public utility. In the early 20^th Century, over 6000 people were still working on its 43 hectare site, organising processions of barrel-rollers, unloading barges called “pinardiers” on the banks of the Seine and bottling the contents of tanker wagons sent from the south of France all the way to Râpée station by the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean rail company. The empire built on consumption of inexpensive wine didn’t survive changes in drinking habits and the premium commanded by wines bottled in their own region. Out of all of this intensive activity, there are now only a few buildings left to commemorate this place’s memory in Bercy park. And more importantly, 400 vines planted in 1995 to help Paris retain its winegrowing tradition.

Rejuvenation

Incapable of fighting off the competition from wines from the south and successive frost and bouts of disease, the Parisian vineyard had more or less disappeared by the beginning of the 20^th Century. The artist Poulbot was the first to start the ball rolling in 1933 by replanting vines in Montmartre, an idea taken up again in 1967 in Suresnes and now spread across the whole of the Île-de-France. Even in Paris there are now six vineyards: in Montmartre, in Belleville park, Georges Brassens park, Bercy park, in the one in la Villette and in Rue Lardennois; without counting those ten vines belonging to the fire brigade on Rue Blanche, which officially produce 60 bottles of wine a year. Add to that what 300 individual members of the Paris winegrowers’ association produce, who grow vines in their backyard, their garden or on their windowsill even. Everything is picked during a big festival, fermented together and reallocated under the name “Wine from Paris”. This fad is happening just outside the Capital. The town of Suresnes revived its vineyard from the 1970s onwards and sparked off a whole new interest, which has seen every village and town plant a few rows of vines in memory of a more or less glorious past.

Production in the Île-de-France is estimated to be over 80,000 bottles, but don’t get your hopes up at getting your hands on any that easily as this wine doesn’t exist legally speaking. In a country that produces too much wine and in a regulatory framework where Europe is financing the distillation of surpluses; no commercially producing vineyard can be planted without asking for planting permission. The bottles produced are therefore destined for private use, with nevertheless a special derogation for the ones sold in auction in aid of charity. The Île-de-France growers’ association is lobbying for Paris’ vineyards to be recognised as part of France’s wine industry. This would allow them to develop commercially viable vineyards in the context of global warming, where the quality of the wines made has clearly improved.

Thomas Gueller