Paris-Cheese shops

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Baguette, cheese and wine belong to the image of France like the gauloises cigarettes or the Citroen car. The image of the
"mustached "Frenchman, with the alpine "beret" walking down the street with his two baguettes under his arm, is one of the most loved clichés in all foreign countries. Of course, baguette and fromage are two VERY important elements of every meal in France. And to meet the budget of the less fortunate, the price of the "baguette" is legally fixed. A good baguette has to be crispy, to too white and NEVER out of the deep freeze.

Wine , you can get everywhere in Paris. every arrondissement has branch shop of the Nicolas chain , where you can buy all sorts of wines to all sorts of prices. The main branch is on the place de la Madeleine. But it is much more fun to shop if you get the advice of wine experts. Take the wine cellar shop "Caves Taillevent". A real "oenologue" (wine expert) tells you all you want to know about wine, tasting, colors and even how to look at wine. By the way, Paris has also its vineyards, even if it doesn't look that way. In the city limits of the 20 arrondissements you have six small vineyards. the most famous is the one in Montmartre. 700 vine plants grow in the park George Brassens, Another 15 in the rue Blanche, belonging to the 7th company of firemen. An infant school in the rue de Vilette has three vine plants of the Pinot noir family. And every year, the bistro owner Jacques Melac assembles, together with his group of "Parisian wine farmers" a part of the wine harvest. Everybody is entitled to participate, even if he has only one wine plant in his garden or balcony. And every year Jacques Melac fills 800 bottles . Half of it goes to the "proud" wine harvesters, the other half is sold. In 1993 a bottle was at the price of 600 FF!! Alain Dominique Perrin, president of the Cartier concern paid 11.500 FF for a Jeroboam of 1992.

But how does Parisian wine taste? Patron Melac answered clearly and without any second thought: "Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, So the wine is the best there is to find...."

And what about the cheese?  There are more than 300 sorts of cheese in France. Everybody knows Camembert, Brie, Munster and Roquefort. Less popular are Ossau-Iraty, Pouligny-Saint-Pierre and Persillé des Aravis. And those who assimilate French cheese to the plastic wrapped packages in the supermarkets, have surely never been in a REAL FRENCH FROMAGERIE!!. In the best ones only raw milk is used as base material and the cheese is thoroughly "matured". Cheeses like that have to "float" and smell.  The cheese merchant is often himself an "affineur", the one who ripens and matures the cheese. He buys the selected sorts of peasants of all over France and leaves the noble "stinkers" in his own cellars the time it needs to mature and meet his severe standards of quality. Only if all these conditions will be fulfilled, the connoisseurs of the capital and abroad will approve the bizarre, not tasty but true word of the famous gastronome Brillat-Savarin:" A meal without cheese is like a beautiful woman missing one eye...."