Sharon Bowman

Py in the sky

Paris may not be Rome, but it does have a few hills. Accordingly, I like walking up to the heights of Belleville to stop in at Le Baratin. Last night, I did this, and sat down to a nice terra cotta dish of tripe and veal foot stewed with chick peas and chunks of red bell pepper.

A glass of NV Lassaigne Vignes de Montgueux beforehand was shockingly, and wonderfully, vinous. Where had the green apples and the asparagus gone? It was all winey and deep.

The followup was intended to be a 2007 Foillard Morgon, but as it turns out, they were fresh out of stock, so the young barman suggested something I had never had nor even heard of prior to that instant.

2006 Foillard Morgon 3.14 – Yes, the name is a pun on Côte de Py, where the cuvée is from; yes, punning is contagious; no, I’m not proud. What I am is enthralled by this wine. I stuck my nose in the glass to smell a short pour and make sure it wasn’t corked – and did a double take. No. Fricking. Way. Intensely aromatic, it was a sucker-punch of glorious fall berries. I looked up at the barman, as though to say, „You’ve got to be kidding.” He nodded, the pantomime, „Eh, oui.” I tasted it, and it sent my brain circuits briefly on the fritz. I was not in the Eternal City, yet here was some kind of big ecclesiastical mass of vinous choir and song and organ and vestment and hell, god, it was just so good. Trumpets.

It was in a decanter, which was all the better for its continuation, as it smoothed; there was something a slight bit coarse to the tannins at the start, like a pleasant cat-tongue, just to show it wasn’t some kind of manufactured thing.

Because really, if someone in a lab could make this, well, I’d have it running out of a faucet in my pantry.

But let’s come down from our cloud. My only niggle with the night was the rushed turnover of the tables. Mine I could squat only from 8pm to 9:30pm, so it was over to the end of the bar, after, to pay my last devotions to the 3.14. Which it resoundingly deserves.