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I haven’t been to Paris for too long. Far too long. I miss it. Frustratingly it is now further away than ever before. I didn’t take nearly enough advantage of the proximity of that beautiful city when I was in London - the cliche of not appreciating something until it is gone. I loved every moment I spent in that city and as soon as possible will spend as long as I possibly can there year on year. Soon, I keep saying. Soon. The issue is, now, there is too much to explore here in Australia to make that a priority. This is a story about a wine shop. A story about a wine shop owner and the desire he held to make sure you understood the importance of what was being bought and consumed. It was inclusive, educational, and necessary. It informed that way I ran PxFranco (bless it’s death) and was fundamental in the conversations I had with Andy as to how we wanted to run Dandy - not with the same sort of brash hostility but instead with a deep desire to share new experiences with customers by challenging their palette and their perceptions.
The story below is something I wrote a long time ago and recently found. It feels immature in its innocence now. Almost inappropriately simple in what I was trying to express. At the end of the day it is a memory. A beautiful memory, humbling, really. I had arrived in Paris in 2011 thinking I understood the world of food and wine and everything that was to be seen in it. In a moment I came to realise how embarrassed I was at how little I knew and equally how excited I was at how much there was to learn.
"So you have never heard of Chablis?" It is one thing to offer a customer advice, another entirely to shake your head, shrug, and walk away exhaling disparagingly. It was a warm autumn afternoon in Paris. We had sunshine, some cheese, and only a short walk back to our apartment in the Marais. The only thing missing was wine. Unfortunately, behind Bastille, standing in the green fronted wine shop we weren't so sure that would happen.
We were standing in Les Caprices de l'Instant, a nondescript wine shop off Rue Saint Antoine. A friend had insisted that we visit. I was the “Only place,” to buy wine in Paris. This recommendation was due almost entirely to the owner, Raphael. The delightful man who had, so suddenly, left the room.
Admittedly, my knowledge of French wine is not great and, in a sense, I was looking for something very specific. I needed a wine that would complement black truffles and a soft white rind cheese. A combination that is, undoubtedly, very good, but according to Raphael predictably difficult to pair with wine. Our first mistake was buying the cheese before the wine, our second mistake was buying the cheese from the wrong person and it became apparent from his dramatic exit that our third mistake was not knowing Chablis.
Raphael was not quite what I expected. He was short, slightly chubby, and almost gnomish in the way he rolled his shoulders down and held his hands. He had a receding hairline and the hair he had left was pulled into a defiantly loose ponytail. He wore dark brown tapered corduroy pants, old fashioned light brown oxfords and a light purple cardigan. He had on a white french cuffed shirt, with silver cufflinks and a striped green, blue, and mustard bow tie. He spoke with great confidence and assurance in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. However, even when speaking his native French, it appeared that the language was insufficient. Certainly not up to the task of communicating the various thoughts facts in his head. Unfortunately, he had just disappeared.
Which is why i was so surprised when he returned to the shop front holding four glasses of white wine. "Chablis," he stated, handing my friends and me each a glass, "What do you smell?" I detected an aroma of apricots, thyme, honey and a very slight bitterness. His response was to shrug dismissively exhaling once again with disappointment. This Chablis is aged in steel barrels and possesses none of the qualities you would associate with oak aged wine, he said it was the New Zealand beach that we should smell. More specifically, we should smell the "musty sweetness of the seaweed on the west coast" he yelled as he darted to the back of the shop to seize a pen and a tectonic encyclopedia.
The area of Chablis south - east of Paris was, before the tectonic development that has given Europe its present form, under an ocean that extended across the centre France. It is this history that provides Chablis with its distinct terroir and the aroma of seaweed that I was expected to detect. The closest sedimentary match has been found on the western coastal beaches of New Zealand. As a result, the terroir of Chablis is directly linked to the terroir of the West coast vineyards of New Zealand. Naturally, the New Zealand west coast is ideal for growing Chardonnay.
The Chablis was crisp and dry, with hints of apple and date. It possessed a slight bitterness but lacked any real persistence. It was perfect to cut through the truffle and complement the cheese. After tasting it, I put it once again to my nose. The musty sweetness was now much more apparent, the aroma of seaweed was now much clearer and I told him so. “So what,” he remarked, once again with a shrug ‘Tomorrow, come back. We will play bridge and read,” he said pointing to the stacked lunar charts. He seemed to sense our awkward confusion at this remark deciding finally to add “Not bridge… We will taste wine and learn. You have so much to learn. Now, go and eat your cheese.”
Eat cheese we did. When you have a four gram black truffle and a triple cream brie, there is only one thing you can do. Slice the brie horizontally, stuff it with the shaved truffles and bake it. Make a truffle / cheese toasted sandwich. Four minutes is all it will take and suddenly you can really smell the truffle, the fresh cream and the slight sour notes of the cheese. Out of the oven the truffle sits speckled through the melted brie like gold dust through limestone.
It is an exciting sight, something you should definitely see at least once in your life, something you should smell at least once and without fail, something you should taste at least once. Typically, it would be suggested that you enjoy black truffles with an aged Burgundy or Barolo, especially for a four gram rock. That’s a lot of truffle.
With age, Burgundy and Barolo can become earthy and oaky with minor notes of mushrooms, cherry, raspberries and leather, they are rich and deep in complexity. With truffles they can be incredibly complementary, allowing the taste to linger in the mouth, slowly crawling down the back of the tongue.
Traditionally, truffles are enjoyed with simplicity, served on fried eggs, with oil on pasta or with a buttery polenta. The intent when cooking a truffle is to emphasize its flavour and to have that flavour last as long as possible. Truffles are a delicacy and an expensive one at that. Enjoying a truffle dish with a Barolo or Burgundy makes sense in that it helps to make the flavor last. Which I have to say, is what I hoped we would be drinking when we found the truffle.
However, the cheese is, soft, creamy, and buttery and the truffle is earthy, gamey, sweet and incredibly moreish. The combination is rich. One bite is almost too much as the fat from the cheese coats the inside of my mouth and the aroma from the truffle refuses to leave. Surprisingly, the Chablis offers relief. It is cold, crisp, and refreshing. As it rolls down the back of my tongue it takes with it the taste of truffle and the fattiness of the cheese. It does not complement the cheese but facilitates it. The Chablis tastes clean and sweet and provides a necessary break from the intensity of the truffled brie. Without it, the cheese would have been inedible. Raphael, in all of his hostility was right.
Daniel has a Masters in Food Culture from The University of Gastronomic Science in Pollenzo, Italy. He is a writer, a chef, and a recovering restaurateur.