A Wine Bar is Born : Racines, aka Marchand de Vin
A new wine bar in town is always a much awaited event, especially when this wine bar is Pierre Jancou's. This new wine bar is named
Racines [ 8 Passage des Panoramas 75002 Paris, click on link for map], which means "roots" in french. Pierre who formerly owned La Crèmerie in the 6th arrondissement, was looking for a place a bit larger in Paris, with enough room for a real kitchen, and he settled his choice on a place located in another style of neighborhood, near the Grands Boulevards in the 2nd arrondissement, in one of Paris' covered passages, the Passage des Panoramas, which was built on the very first year of the Napoléon era, in 1799.
I'll make a more extensive post in the wine bar section some day about the new venue, but here is a first taste, an avant-goût of the wine bar...
Guy Blanchard (left), Jean Pierre Robinot gesturing (center)I expected some cheerful mood of course but the invited guests brought more than that. Pierre Jancou had invited friends, former patrons of his previous place, artisan vintners (who brought their wines of course), a few Paris cavistes and several italians who are both friends and long-time charcuterie suplliers. The vintners were Jean Pierre Robinot, Philippe Jambon, Claude Courtois, Patrick Desplats, Jean Delobre, Guy Blanchardand and a couple of others. B. was arriving on foot after her work as I was parking the motorbike on the sidewalk. I had just spotted Claude Courtois (a vigneron from the Loire) who was leaving early and was trying to find a taxi on the boulevard. Chatting with with him the helmet still on, he had told me that he had to go but that his son was on duty at the wine bar.
Marc Sibard of Caves augé (center-left), Stéphane Courtois (center) pouringOf course people tend to be cheerful when they get treated with unlimited pours of wine, but I don't think ANY wine would have been able to make people this happy. Believe me, there was a sense of general happiness around us that many private parties in town would be grateful to have. The secret behind that was friensdship, nice people...and these natural wines favored by Pierre Jancou and poured by the vintners themselves. There's a magic at work in these true wines, it's obviously more than simply getting high with a couple of glasses. Anyway, take the three aforementionned elements and you get this result. The last element, the natural wine, is so powerful that I think it could maybe induce the first two from scratch...
Pierre Jancou with the ItaliansI may have omitted an important piece in the magic recipe of that day, the italian artisan-charcuterie, but B. and I were not fast enough to grab a slice, being too busy speaking with the vignerons and enjoying the company in the passage. As far as I know, Pierre will keep serving the products of his Italian artisans along with the natural wines he used to.
A few words about some of the many wines we had there, especially about people I didn't know yet : Guy Blanchard, a vigneron from Burgundy with a very small surface (1,3 hectare) had several nice wines, a Macon Montbellet les Perrières 2005, a surprising Chardonnay with a "Savagnin sous voile" feel, really a very nice wine for only 8,5 Euro a bottle. Another great Chardonnay was his Macon-Villages 2005, a superb mouth, what a pleasure (my choice). 6,5 Euro a bottle, a steal, limestone soil. Lastly, he poured us his Bouchat 2005, a Chard from a sandy terroir, more dry. B. preferred this one.
Another vigneron, Jean Delobre, from the Rhone (east of Annonay - 5 hectares), had an incredible white named "Lune de Miel", a white Table Wine (100% Roussanne) with a clear honeyish color, a gorgeous nose, with wheat before harvest, honey notes. Exquisite mouth, extremely concentrated, some residual sugar. He doesn't know the retail price of this wine yet.
Bonjour Bert,
This weekend iam in Paris, do you have the exact adres of the new wine bar ?
Maybe you want to come to Amsterdam the weekend of the 18 nov. My friend and I organize an salon the Vin Naturel, 20 viticulteurs are coming www.vleck.nl
Salut !
Posted by: michael | October 17, 2007 at 10:57 AM
Hello Bert,
Thank you for this. I had an email from Pierre that he was going to open a new place. I always liked the Cremerie. Specially de Lardo di Colonnata. His lunch dishes also were great. I hope to visit Paris in the near future. I understood that there was no gas in the kitchen yet, do you happen to know when he will be in full service?
Mart.
Btw. Is it possible to find you 'asian' writings somewhere? You told me about them at the auge tasting. I'm always gratefull for your blog, one of the few good sources on bio vin.And a feast for the eye as well.
Posted by: Mart | October 19, 2007 at 11:18 AM
Wow, It's on my visit list, which is growing constantly!
Posted by: Wine Blogger | October 19, 2007 at 03:44 PM
Thanks for posting about this, great pictures too!
I will make a detour the next time I'm in Paris, and even better, it's not far from Willi's or Juveniles.
Cheers!
Posted by: Vinotas | October 25, 2007 at 08:08 PM
I did a basic search on "new wine bars paris" and found your informative and helpful Blog. Thanks to your mention of Racines, I'm throwing an impromptu wine tasting party there this Saturday.
Merci beaucoup!
Posted by: Gabrielle Alicia Miller | January 03, 2008 at 03:33 AM