Contributing wine editor David Harker discovers the hidden vineyards of Paris.
Atlantic yachtsman, barge captain, vineyard worker and wine salesman. Geoffrey Finch is the kind of man you expect to fly bi-planes, jump from bridges onto passing trains or spy for the British in Cairo.
Tall and slim in his wine trade regulation red corduroy trousers and trademark battered straw hat, Finch has the air of Indiana Jones. Canadian Finch’s latest adventure is to seek out the hidden vineyards of Paris.
Paris was once home to the largest vineyard in the world, producing wines with a reputation for quality that rivalled Burgundy. The prosperity that made medieval Paris the most important city in Europe was generated by the sale of wine. Exported to England and the Low Countries wine created the wealth that built the great cathedrals of Amiens, Reims and Notre Dame. By the time of Napoleon the Paris region produced more wine than Bordeaux.
The nineteenth century brought industrialisation, urbanisation and the railways, and as the city grew so did its thirst for wine. Cheap wine poured into the city from regions now connected to the capital by rail. The Parisian vineyards, already devastated by phylloxera, were no longer viable. The vast collection of small holdings that had served the city for centuries were ripped up. Their memory living on today in street names such as Rue de Clos, Rue de la Pressoir and Rue des Vignobles.
With the surge in population came the need for a new wine storage facility. The Halle aux Vins, established in 1662, hadn’t the capacity to cope with the number of barrels being shipped from every corner of France. In 1869 new cellars were built just outside the city walls at Bercy, to receive wines from Champagne, Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Midi.
Bercy, once the largest wine storage facility in the world, no longer exists. Today it is redeveloped as a pedestrianised zone of cafes and shops. The only nod to its history, a small vineyard in the Parc de Bercy. Planted 30 years ago to Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, wine from the grapes of the Clos de Bercy is made in its underground cellar.
The cellar of Clos de Bercy also makes wine from Meunière and Chardonnay grapes grown in the Clos des Envièrges in Belleville. Celebrated for its wines in the Middle Ages, Belleville was one of the last villages to be swallowed up by the city’s urban expansion. It was also one of the last to have working vineyards. Belleville grew into a gritty working class neighbourhood. The Paris of Piaf, a neighbourhood of small kitchen gardens each with a plot of vines to sustain a subsistence existence. The residents of Belleville were still cultivating their own vineyards in the 1950s.
Before being consumed by the sprawl of the city, the buttes (hills) of Belleville, Chaumont and Ménilmontant were once a vast landscape of gypsum mines, the main ingredient in plaster of Paris, interspersed with vineyards, market gardens and pasture. The Butte Bergeyre, is a tranquil place isolated from the hustle and bustle of the surrounding city. On the steep west facing slope of the hill is planted a vineyard, the Clos Bergeyre. Planted in 1995 and today producing around 80 bottles of pale rosé.
The Clos Montmartre is the most famous vineyard in Paris, its well-tended vines producing the only Parisian wine sold commercially. The hilltop vineyard was first cultivated by the Romans and vines prospered here until the French Revolution, when the introduction of new taxes and stricter controls restricted production. Thirty years later the vineyard was largely laid to waste by Wellington’s occupying army and ultimately destroyed in the Franco Prussian war of 1870.
The restoration of the modern Montmartre vineyard began in 1933 with the planting of 2,500 vines of a dozen different varieties. The vineyard that we see today is planted mostly to Gamay grown on a challenging north facing slope. On average around 500 bottles of wine are produced annually, available for purchase in the neighbouring Musée de Montmartre. The annual grape harvest celebrated by a three day festival, bringing a little piece of rural France to the heart of the capital.
Montmarte is the largest vineyard in Paris but there are a number of smaller projects spread across the city.
The Albert du Man High School includes in its future sommelier programme a practical course in tending to and making wine from its small vineyard.
Purely for fun the firemen of the Rue Blanche, occasionally with the assistance of dancers from the nearby Moulin Rouge, manage to make 100 bottles of, “Château Blanche” from the century old decorative vines that adorn their fire station.
The Clos de Morillons, in the Parc Georges Bresson, comprises 700 vines planted on a site previously occupied by abandoned slaughterhouses. The 300 bottles produced donated to dignitaries or sold at auction for the benefit of local charities.
The Domaine de La Vigne de Paris-Bagatelle is a vineyard of 400 vines of Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc planted in the private garden of the Comtesse Christian d’Andlau-Hombourg. It is possible to make an appointment to visit the cellar and taste the only sparkling wine vinified in Paris.
Paris, a city shaped by wine and one of the best places on earth to enjoy a glass.
Geoffrey Finch’s excellent book “The Hidden Vineyards of Paris,” is the indispensable guide to discovering the wine history of Paris.
