I Largely Started My Wine Career With My Father In Paris, FRance In The Early 1970's Visiting The NICOLAS Local Wine Shops

It was fun to visit the local NICOLAS wine shops in Paris, France with my father that could be found every three-four blocks apart as you shopped and strolled the streets and neighborhoods. We would do it in the evenings. We would need a bottle for the dinner that night that my mother would prepare us from her daily shopping excursions that had already happened. She would tell us what she had discovered and wanted to make and Dad and I would then go in search of at least one wine to purchase for the evening. It was fun and easy to walk into one of the many local NICOLAS stores that dotted many of the streets in Paris. I have saved a series of the wine labels and so it will be easier to now use them and hopefully construct a spur-of-the-moment wine story / my family's story in the first part of the 1970's in Paris, France. I'm excited because I really hope that doing this will reveal to me memories and thoughts that have lain dormant for many years as I pushed on to gain many more as I became a young man living and enjoying all the possibilities open to me in this most exciting, vibrant city.

So where do I start? I think with the oldest Nicolas vintage I have in my book which is the 1973 Macon , negotiant a La Chapelle de Guinchay, Soane-et-Loire. It;s a rather non-descript label which I do not remember at all! What did we drink it with? What foods did my mother find to sample it with? Did we have some of the marvelous cheeses that she found in the little marche down on the Rue Passy close to the Seine and not far away from the Eiffel Tower but across the river from it? We lived then at 63 Avenue Paul Doumer and I lived in the chambre du bonne across from my family's apartment. You could see it through the exposed courtyard that let a sky of light shine in between my window and theirs. I liked it. I still have a photo of Toben my friend who's father was the Ambassador of Denmark. We were good friends, his cheerful countenance and big smile and curly auburn hair. We shared many laughs together but I do not think that any of them involved wine. We did talk about girls a lot and that was nice in a new and exciting environment as it was in Paris for me then.

But back to the label : it was one of those older-looking ones : pastel colors in the landscape of a town and vineyard nestled into a nice French countryside of valleys and rolling hills. The words NICOLAS and Macon ( 73 cl ) were in bold black and there was a gold strip running behind the name NICOLAS up in the top of the label : a bit boring, really if you ask me. I hope the wine made up for this old and tired label of theirs. It probably did; and I'm sure my enthusiasm to try and to appreciate the wine made up for most or all of any objections that I may of had as this was perhaps the first white burgundy that I had ever tried in my life at that point! Wow, that's pretty heady stuff! I like the thought : a virgin to white burgundy, my first voyage into the Chardonnay grape and the southern burgundy region! Oh yeah, and the journey thus began.

It's like a puzzle that I have to try and put together here. I know I have some of the pieces ans how may I extrapolate around them to fill in those that are missing? Like those fragments of dinosaur bones or those shards of pottery : how to create something in it's whole from only parts? The imagination has to fill in some as well as some excellent detective work, too.

I was just thinking about it earlier and reconstructing my college time-line at Randolph-Macon College , Virginia from 1972-1976 when I graduated with an English major. I also edited both the school newspaper and the yearbook as well as took a number of art classes.

There are a number of labels from the early 1970's starting I think with some in 191, 1972, 1973 and 1974. They are not all wines that I bought at Nicolas or perhaps some are just without the Nicolas logo. I've just flipped through the pages again and with the Nicolas label I have wines from : Puligny Montrachet white " Clos de la Mouchere " 1971 ( 73 cl ) - I believe this was our first year in Paris - , Loire valley Pouilly-Sur-Loire 1974 ( appellation controlee ) - I was a sophomore and just getting used to college where women had just been admitted for the third year was it? -, 1974 Sauvignon Vin Blanc Sec 11.5% alcohol, 73 cl , Charent, Val de Marne, " Le Sauvignon est un des meilleurs cepages blancs de France. On le trouve dans tous les vignobles ou il donne ce vin blanc sec au bouquet accuse et a saveur exquise de ' pierre a fusil ' " is written on this label - I was working on the school Yellow Jacket newspaper writing human-interest stories like the one on art teacher Jack Witt ( sculptor ) - , Madiran 1973 " Madiran c'est la perle du vignobles rouge des Pyrenees. Un plant indigene tres particulier, le Tannat, lui donne ce caractere, cette vinosite, cette generosite qui en font le meilleur cru de tout le Bearn. " is written on this label ( Ets Menjucq 73 ml ) - I had not a clue then what this red was about and it was probably quite tannic and hearty and an acquired taste that probably swept right over and by me and left me clueless and wanting, wanting something else. However, if my mother had prepared a hearty French meal or served a strong cheese I may have liked it as it would probably have cut the flavors of many of the cheeses. It is also the grape today that people in 2006-2008 refer to the grape with the highest level of any red grape in the natural substance called resveratrol which is good for weight management and blood circulation. I also tried a Gris de Gris " Montagne d'Alaric V.D.Q.S Corbieres dry rose 73 ml. Again I knew nothing of the wines of southwest France's Corbieres region at that time. I do remember seeing many French commercials for these wines in the French movie houses at the time. It seems as if in the early 70's that the French government or at least the French wine trade was trying to actively promote these wines of southwest France. I certainly noticed though I knew near-to-nothing about them then.

I just took pictures of my labels this past Monday ( October 27th, 2008 ) and posted them here on the blog early this morning, Thursday, October 30th, 2008. They are not they best with some blur and some glare from the plastic and the lights above me but they are better than nothing and give you all an idea of what I am writing about and inspired by. I will include more as I go along.

And so begins our adventure together told through these labels and the additional pieces of ticket stubs to concerts, the opera, theater, etcetera that I will now bring in from my office that have also lain dormant for so many years. With all these various pieces and scraps of my history in Paris, France I will try and make an interesting collage that will make this journey hopefully entertaining and mostly enjoyable reading. After all, isn't that the idea of any good story? There must be a least several good stories waiting to be awakened inside all of this? I'm game to try and find them, Follow me please.

This is a beginning and I will continue to add to it as I can. Cheers, TONY