It’s the new natural wine gestapo in Paris. Even when I specifically asked for something not brut nature, the somm “accidentally” gave me a non-dosé.
I especially don’t want brut nature with tasting menus as it is less flexible, in my opinion.
Sarah, it just means you’re in all the cool spots in Paris. You should take it as a badge of honor 
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Agree. Tasting menus most often require a vinuous Champagne, rather than acid with bubbles. And I write this as someone who buys and drinks no dosage champagne. Unfortunately, most of the no dose Champagnes at the hipster/‘natural wine’ Paris restaurants don’t have enough bottle age to evolve from acid with bubbles to something more gustatory. The previous somm at Arpege once told me that they hold all no dose Champagnes for a couple of years prior to putting them on the winelist so that they can develop into something more appropriate for the experience.
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I buy and drink some no dosage, too. And it can be great. But it’s not what I want with a varied menu.
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I wish I could be in Paris complaining about no dosage champagne. Come on Sarah, how bad can life be?
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It often happens with trends that the subject line becomes the selling point rather than the quality of said trendy product. There are some very good no dose wines but there are a lot that are just not fun to drink.
I’m not convinced that age will fix many of them. If the fruit isn’t there to balance the acid at the start, its not going to grow with age. The no dose wines I’ve had that work have very nice fruit as a feature from the get go.
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Sorry to hear about your crappy experiences Sarah.
I think it can work with some dishes, and it could make sense if it was a glass as part of the pairing for one of the courses, but rarely is it a style of champagne that can pair well across a wider range of dishes. Just overall rude and inexcusable behaviour on the somm’s part.
Being able to recognise that difference tastes in wine exist and working to help find a guest something that fits within their parameters is, I think, one of the most basic elements of being a sommelier.
Too often somms get into a ‘I know better than my guests, therefore my opinions on wine matter more’ mentality. The shear amount of egoism that goes into not recognising there’s a wide range of equally valid palate preferences is frustratingly upsetting.
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It’s much worse than you think, she had to go to Paris to get away from her unfortunate sounding Hi Fi room at home.
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Thanks, Rodrigo. Doesn’t even scratch the surface of many of the somm issues - like on this trip when I sent back a bottle of Ulysse Collin Les Maillons that was DOA, and three separate people came to tell me I was wrong, that that’s what Les Maillons tastes like, and to ask if I’d ever had one before, since it’s a very rare wine, you know…It took showing them pictures from my cellar to make them accept I might have tasted Collin a time or two.
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The sheer amount of eye rolling I did while reading your original post would cause my ophthalmologist concern.
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Where? If you don’t mind stating publicly.
Le Clarence. They were very nice once we got past this disagreement. It’s so confusing to me. What possible motivation could I have for refusing a wine except that I truly believe it to be incorrect? I’m obviously hoping to enjoy it, and willing to pay for the experience.
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That’s disappointing, as I am very enthusiastic about Le Clarence and our experience was definitely not that, or I wouldn’t have been so effusive about it. Did you get a sound bottle, eventually?
What do you think about the food?
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Not of that wine, but they found me something very nice. Honestly, though, the wine I ended up with was slightly advanced as well. If it weren’t for the Maillons debacle, i wouldn’t have thought much beyond bottle variation, but given the two in a row, one wonders.
I do want to stress that it was a lovely meal, and the staff ended up being excellent. But they really, really didn’t want to budge on the Collin.
I thought the food was very good, but should have been better. A little something special was missing from every dish, though the potential was clear. I wondered if the kichen was phoning it in a bit for lunch service. Lots of older businessmen, not a lot of foodies, lol. I was the only female diner in the room.
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When I was young and destitute, our Paris Michelin ** and *** tasting menus were at lunch. Now that I’m old(er) and merely impoverished, when we eat ** and *** tasting menus (which is much less frequently than even five years ago), we do so at dinner, because I’ve concluded that service and food are better. And we don’t want to waste a single Paris afternoon sitting in a restaurant.
Our only dinner at Le Clarence, in October, was impeccable in all regards.
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I’m with Sarah on the brut nature issue… it’s overdone in my opinion and I find most to be far too acidic and lacking body/fruit. Of course when it works, it works well. There’s nothing wrong with a couple grams of sugar to balance a wine out, other than current trends seem to favor not having sugar just for the sake of avoid sugar. It’s a crazy world when Extra Brut is considered too sweet.
Re the Maillons — was the bottle just a bit advanced or was it corked / have some other flaw? If the wine was sent back for being a bit advanced, I could see how the discrepancy with the somms could occur. That’s not to say it’s inappropriate to send back… if one clearly knows what it should taste like, isn’t happy with the wine, and is willing to buy another bottle, I see no reason the restaurant shouldn’t oblige.
Sounds like they maybe have a cellar that’s a bit too warm???
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That would be tragic. Have you seen the list? It is very long on vinous treasures, including those produced by Chateaux owned by the family.
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Cults are usually in favor of doses.
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I’m just trying to understand how a place like that would bring back to back wines that were advanced. It’s either a (1) coincidence, (2) something about the cellar, or (3) where they source their wines. All feel unlikely, but if the somms are saying “that’s how the wine tastes”, the logical explanation is they drink a lot of wine from a warmer cellar and that’s what they are accustomed to (???)
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I haven’t seen the restaurant cellar, but given how much the family spent on restoring the building and building the kitchen and cellar collection, it would be strange if they cheaped out on cellar construction and maintenance. I can’t imagine that Le Clarence is profitable, and that is likely by design.
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