Easy peasy….go on the cross channel booze cruise and buying wine in France to last you six months in one fell swoop. Not quite what I had in mind. I have been wondering why so many British with holiday homes – or first homes come to that – in la Belle France go to supermarkets rather than direct to the vigneron, the wine maker himself. First growth claret may well be best bought through a specialist wine merchant, but, for the rest, if you are in France and you want to buy French wine, then go to the man who makes it.

Buying Wine in France: Supermarkets

Agreed, the supermarket is easy. You can study the labels at leisure, you can check the prices to avoid unpleasant surprises and you don’t have to speak to anyone, except perhaps a for muffled ‘bonjour’ to the cashier. Once a year they put on wine fairs, as well, with better class bottles on offer and, as long as you manage to duck the guy running the tasting – smidgeons  of liquid in plastic tubs that I would associate more with medical specimens than sommelier work,  all tasting of vinegar because the wine has oxydised shortly after removing the cork – you retain all the three advantages listed above. You won’t have too much trouble ducking the organiser…he will be surrounded by his mates for whom fresh bottles will be opened and will not be interested in you at all.

I suggest taking a corkscrew and plastic cup with you on these trips. If you take a fancy to something, buy a bottle and sample  – in moderation, remembering the gendarmerie lurking in the bushes with the breathalyser – in the car park, then, if the wine meets with your approval, shoot back in and collar the lot because what you see is what they’ve got. I made the mistake of ordering cases of a wine I liked. Four weeks later, no sign of life, no telephone call, nothing, so I went back to the supermarket and asked what had happened to my order. A superior young man assured me that I could not have made the order as, for the whole of Super U in France, there were only four cases of the wine I had ordered available. I assured him, copy in hand, that I had indeed been able to order it…the problem was their inability to obtain supply. This strategy also avoids the problem of buying a bottle, letting it settle for a week or so and then being totally unable to remember at which supermarket wine fair you bought it. I have had several interesting encounters with security while promenading the aisles with an empty bottle looking for its’ fellow.

So, what is the problem with going to the vigneron? I believe that there is some sense of inferiority, brought about by articles about wine tasting…all the swirling, sniffing and spitting that seems to be necessary in choosing a wine is not attractive to the average guy who wants a few bottles for his cellar from a local grower. He will feel enough of a fool with the language barrier…he doesn’t want to be made to feel a complete fool by his ignorance of a time honoured ritual as well.

The average guy can be reassured. The visit to the vigneron will be painless, even on the wallet.

It is best to ring, or if you must go unannounced, try the early evening, because his wife will probably be out at work all day and he will be in the vines. You will probably first encounter his father, busy filling a jug from the vats for his evening lucubrations, who will give you a drink while you’re waiting, thus spoiling the ritual of starting with the dries and working to the sweets because what you will get is whatever father fancies with his dinner.

The vigneron will arrive and take you through his repertoire…the glasses are distinctly better filled than in a wine bar and there is no spittoon, so designate one of your party to get you back through the lurking gendarmerie , or ask the vigneron how to get back on the side roads. You make your choice of wine, and you can buy it in several ways.

The traditional bottle…most expensive per litre as he has had to buy bottle, cork and the capsule with its’ tax stamp. If you get to know him he might suggest leaving the capsule off….with advice as to the side roads to get you home unobserved.

The bib…the bag in box. This is the method of choice for those whose wives survey their liquid intake. The beadiest of French wives cannot see through the box to check the levels.

The vrac…where the wine come straight from the vat into plastic jerrycans and you bottle it up at home. The popular method. This is why every French house comes complete with a pile of bottles tucked into one of the outhouses.

If you still feel nervous, just make your first visit when you see an open day announced. There will usually be food on offer as well, and not only can you see what everyone else does and copy them, but you will also meet most of your neighbours as well.

In these days of worry about carbon footprints, just direct your feet to the door the of the local vigneron and kid yourself you are doing something for the planet as you buy wine with less transport miles to its credit than those of a snail from your garden wall to the cooking pot. Hope you enjoyed our tips about buying wine in France.

French Fashions matter in France in an exact correlation to how far you live from centres of political and social life – that is, life as reported in national newspapers. So how does French outfits and clothing affect a French woman?

Thus in Paris,  La Baule, or the Ile de Re, the French Outfits and clothing are important and it will matter that you are seen with a last year’s ‘must have’ bag from a major fashion house, whereas out here in the sticks while we do have the idea of a ‘signature’ bag it is not the sort of thing carried by Mrs. Cameron, but  the plastic ‘eco’ bag from the supermarket….forget Gucci, think Leclerc.

The clothing seen on the catwalks does not penetrate the fastnesses of La France Profonde, where the owners of the small town boutiques know exactly what their customers want – a nice neat suit to be seen in when shopping - while those who can’t afford the astronomical prices in the small boutiques have to rely on the supermarkets, the chains like Defi Mode, whose name has ominous overtones to the anglophone ear, and the ever present travelling van from Barbe Bleu, purveyors of polyester to the populace.

Not that taste is static.  A wedding is the place to observe what is ‘trending’ in St. Supplice.

First, if she is wearing a hat, whether Queen Mum at Ascot, upturned flower pot in tulle or fascinator, she is British.

No rural Frenchwoman is going to spend a fortune at the hairdresser and then cover the results with a hat. Surveying the ranks of red shingled hair, ladies with a different shade or with a different cut must be from ‘foreign parts’,  like the next department, while the odd element that fancies the Segolene Royal cum Carla Bruni  option – the hamster cheeks between two wet spaniel’s ears -  indicates ladies who feel themselves to be above the common run of local mortals and who have access to an out of  area hairdresser.

They are also more likely to be wearing neat little suits with the jacket daring left undone to reveal the blouse and obligatory chain and pendant, while the more sedate will be wearing  either Defi Mode chiffon or Barbe Bleu polyester in shades of orange or purple. I feel that the designers of these ranges should nip out and take a look at the hair colouring used by country hairdressers before they choose the palette of colours for next year…this year’s range calls for sunglasses at fifty yards. Colours that go with bright red hair and the rosy hue of cheeks after drink has been taken would prove a better bet, in my view.

In my first days in France, I can remember occasional glimpses of black clad grannies wearing the local ‘coiffe’ – the head dress which varied from area to area and which now only really survives in the ones the Breton ladies wear on high days and holidays, towering efforts of starch and lace. The one I remember was more like an old fashioned nurses’ cap, with a high front and wings at the back, but its’ day has long gone. The counterparts of those grannies now strut their stuff in heels, shiny tight skirts and a decollete that gets the old boys into a lather.

And that, I begin to think, is another example of the difference between Paris and the provinces.

Paris fashion sends a message that the wearer can afford to buy something outrageously expensive – or, more likely, that she is part of the internecine world where each lives off the other – you lend me a dress to wear to some event where the society photographers will be present so it’s good publicity for you and good for my image - the modern day equivalent of the French aristocratic refugees in London after the Revolution, keeping up appearances by taking in each others’ washing.

Local fashion aims to please the observer. Just read ‘Clochemerle’ for back up for this assertion…the efforts made by the local ladies to astound their audience when going to church on the saint’s day….nothing much changes in rural France.

One British wedding guest removed her fascinator during the dancing and left it on the table where it was the object of awed interest on the part of a number of elderly gentlemen. One finally delivered the jury’s verdict.

‘You’d think you’d keep something like that to yourself, wouldn’t you, not go parading it in public!’

No, I am not talking about the ubiquitous MacDo, where the car parks are never empty and the clients never full, but about French eating habits.

French supermarkets have never mastered the idea of matching open tills to number of customers waiting in line so there is leisure to clock the contents of other peoples’ trolleys while the lady currently being served twenty ahead of you is busy extracting her purse from underneath the shopping she has neatly packed on top of it and the other nineteen are busy putting their purses in the bottom of their bags in readiness.

The trolleys will be laden with ready prepared food, packets of biscuits, and those abominable bags of ready prepared salad leaves, washed in chlorine to remove the bugs acquired during the production process. Fast food seems to have taken over.

I am not convinced that ‘fast’ food is fast at all. It always seems to me to involve heating an oven for twenty minutes before proceeding, if not using the microwave at the same time for the combination meals, while extracting the offering from its’ packaging takes nearly as much time as heating the oven. Further, it is my view that the endless layers serve to reduce expectations roused by the styled food shown on the outer layer…by the time you are down to the actual object you have bought, your expectations are down to zero and can only rise on eating the product. Very clever psychology, that.

Should I judge French eating habits on the basis of visits to the supermarkets? What about the weekly markets and the specialist shops?

Well, what else is charcuterie but fast food? Otherwise the ladies who need all morning to extract themselves from the dressing gown and slippers and insert themselves into the neat little suit without which they cannot be seen in public would never be able to shop at eleven forty five and put lunch on the table at twelve thirty…husband chomping through the slices of pate de campagne or jambon persille while she dishes up the pork chop or the sausage with lentils.

What is faster than oysters? Unless you have to go to hospital half way through opening them for the ‘oyster knife through palm of hand’ syndrome. Then mussels would be a better bet. They open themselves.

Black pudding cooked Didier’s way….split open, the contents spread on bread, then put under the grill…..you have not lived!

No, France has always had fast food….it is just that it used to be edible.

Courtesy of  Real France Blog