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FOOD AND DRINK

Fact or fiction: 11 rules about French wine (and a couple of myths)

French wine is a heavily mythologised subject, with people keen to tell you all about the 'must follow' rules - we take a look at the facts and the fictions surrounding drinking wine in France.

Fact or fiction: 11 rules about French wine (and a couple of myths)
(Photo by Philippe LOPEZ / AFP)

Never drink red wine without food accompanying it

For the French, vin rouge goes with food, especially if you’re serving meat. Red wine is also the traditional accompaniment to the cheese course.

As with many of these wine ‘rules’ older or more conservative French people will stick to the rules while the younger crowd will probably decide that it’s OK to just have what you want.

READ MORE: Apéro: All you need to know about the French evening ritual

Red is, however, not usually drunk for apéro (pre-dinner drinks) – at apéro time if you’re having wine it will usually be white (sometimes with the addition of a splash of kir) or rosé in the summer months.

You can hear the team from The Local chatting about wine in the latest episode of the Talking France podcast, download it HERE or listen on the link below.

Under no circumstances can you pair red wine with fish

While it is fair to say that the vast majority of the time, this rule will be respected and you will be told “only white wine with fish”, there are some exceptions to be made.

For more meaty fish like tuna you might be able to get away with it. In these cases, you will probably be advised to go for a red that is more on the tannic side – like a Pinot Noir. 

French women do not pour their own wine

French tradition dictates that women should not open wine bottles or pour their own wine, but should instead wait for the man to pour.

These days it’s really only the older or extremely socially conservative French people who are likely to stick to this rule – in 2023 most French women are perfectly comfortable pouring their own wine. If you find yourself dining in a chateau with an elderly French aristocrat, however, they might expect men to do the pouring.

The rule of “the guest should not pour his/her own wine” is slightly better adhered to, however, and among older French people you should perhaps let your host serve you.

The bigger the dimple at the bottom, the better

Most bottles of wine have little concave dimple at the bottom that you can use to help you grasp and pour the bottle better.

The size of this varies from a small indentation to a deep grove that you can fit your entire thumb into – and some believe that the size of this dimple determines the quality of the wine – the bigger the dimple the higher-quality the wine.

According to experts, however, this has little to say about whether the wine is high quality or not.

Different wine regions in France use different shaped bottles (for example, Alsatian wine comes in thin, long bottles), so it is not possible to say across the board that having a big dimple at the bottom signifies quality in any way.

Champagne should only be drunk from a flute or a coupe

It is true that a traditional, tall, narrow flute will keep the Champagne bubbles, so if your goal is to emphasise the fizz, then the flute is the best way to go.

However, if your objective is to taste all of the rich flavours in the Champagne, then you might opt for a coupe or even a standard wine glass. 

Ella Lister, wine expert and taster for the Figaro Vin, recommends that flavour connoisseurs opt for a ‘Tulip’ glass or even a regular wine glass that has a wide bowl at the bottom, but narrows at the top (like one intended for white wine) to get the best taste from Champagne. 

The Champagne coupe is modelled on the breast of Marie Antoinette

A persistent myth is that the coupe style of Champagne glass – the wide, flat glass – was modelled on the breast of Marie Antoinette, the guillotined French queen, although some legends also say it was the breast of royal mistress Madame de Pompadour.

Either way, the couple style of Champagne glass is seen in France at least 100 years before either of these women arrived on the scene, so we can say it is conclusively a myth. It’s likely that it came about because of Marie Antoinette’s post-Revolution reputation for excess and extravagance. (she never said ‘let them eat cake’ either). 

Putting ice in rosé is a faux-pas

It would be best to avoid doing this in a restaurant, but when you’re relaxing on a friend’s terrace on a sweltering summer day, no French person will blame you for dropping a cube or two into your rosé. 

The reason that it’s frowned upon is because you’re diluting the wine so it’s best not to do this with an expensive rosé, but a cheaper ‘rosé piscine‘ (wine for drinking around the pool) probably won’t suffer too much from the addition of a bit of ice.

Rosé is much nicer when served well chilled, however, so perhaps invest in a cooler or ice bucket to keep your bottle chilled in the summer. 

Wine with a screw-top is bad quality

Wine with a screw cap is less common in France than other wine-producing nations like Australia or the USA – but it’s not true that only the cheap wines get screw caps.

In fact, having a screw cap can actually protect the wine – cork taint affects about five percent of all wines with corks, so you might even be better off with a screw cap.

French people might think you’re crazy if you store red wine in the fridge

You will definitely get some weird looks if you put red wine in the fridge. That being said, red wine should not be drunk too hot either. Ella Lister told Le Figaro that the ideal temperature should be around 14 – 15C.

If it is too cold out and you suspect the wine has dropped below that, the expert recommended rubbing the glass or bottle with your hands a little bit. Otherwise, try to store red wine somewhere that is not too hot, not too cold. 

Wine should be stored laying down

There is some logic in the idea of investing in a wine rack, as the bottles really ought to be kept horizontal.

The reason for this is to keep the wine in contact with the cork, so that the cork doesn’t dry out.

“If the wine is not in contact with the cork, the cork becomes dry, and oxygen can more easily penetrate the interior of the bottle and oxidise its contents”, explained Lister to Le Figaro.

Avoid bringing wine to a French dinner party

Some people recommend  not to bring wine as a gift to dinner parties because it could be seen as an insult to your host – implying that they do not know much about wine.

READ MORE: Apéro to digestif: What to expect from every step of a French dinner

This really just depends on who your hosts are. The best practice is simply asking ahead of time what you can bring, and whether they would like another bottle of wine.

If you do take wine don’t be surprised if your host doesn’t open it however – many people will have already planned what wine they will serve, based on what goes best with what they have cooked.

Testing out a bottle of wine at a restaurant is not actually about your preferences

If you feel slightly intimidated by the idea of being asked to provide a detailed critique on the wine when your French waiter pours you a little to try, don’t worry.

This is not a test of the wine quality of your knowledge of it – instead, it is meant to determine whether the wine was contaminated by the cork.

Any knowledgeable wine fans will be able tell from the first whiff if a wine is bouchonné (corked). That’s why the host of a dinner party should always taste the wine first to make sure it’s good before serving guests. 

Member comments

  1. Some of the stuff about red wines here is nonsense. It is quite common in France to have lightly chilled red wines with fish and not just the strongly flavoured, high fat, fish such as tuna, salmon, mackerel, herring and anchovies. Commonest here are wines made from: Gamay; light Pinot Noir (but NOT your Romanée-Conti or Chambertins of course), Corvina, Frappato and Dolcetto wines. In the Mediterranean in summer chilled red wines (your vin trés ordinaire usually) by the glass in bars is also widespread.

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HEALTH

Perrier problems: What’s going on with French mineral water?

Perrier has halted production of 1-litre bottles of its famous carbonated water because of a contamination problem - the latest in a series of problems with some of France's most famous mineral water brands.

Perrier problems: What’s going on with French mineral water?

The French love bottled water. They spent an estimated €2.5 billion and drank an average of 145 bottles each of the stuff in 2023.

The country is both the world’s biggest exporter of bottled water and the home of its most famous brands from Volvic to Evian, Vittel to Perrier.

But all is far from well in the highly lucrative bottled water market.

In January, it was reported that a third of French mineral water brands received treatments which are banned for the supposedly ‘natural’ products and, in April, France’s health watchdog demanded a clampdown at Nestlé water sites after traces of “faecal” contamination were found.

Meanwhile drought conditions last year raised concerns about overproduction of bottled water in France, with companies exempted from water restrictions that everyone else faced.

Perrier problems

Now, it has emerged that Nestlé has halted production of one-litre bottles of Perrier water at its facility in Vergèze, in the Gard département in south-west France, according to Le Monde and Radio France.

After learning in April that one of the plant’s wells had been shut down following a ‘contamination episode’ after flooding caused by Storm Monica, the investigation has found that two more wells have recently undergone disinfection operations – which the Nestlé group said was a ‘regular maintenance operation’.

Following the April contamination warning, State authorities ordered the destruction of a batch of at least two million bottles of Perrier. The final number of destroyed bottles was around 2.9 million, according to Nestlé group’s own estimates.

Officials, including members of the Occitanie regional health authority, visited the Vergèze facility on May 30th to inspect the plant, boreholes and water quality monitoring laboratory. The findings of this inspection have not yet been made public.

But of seven wells used to produce Perrier brand fizzy mineral water, most are currently out of service, the investigation found – prompting production of the famous one-litre green bottles of Perrier water to be halted until at least the end of summer.

A préfectural decree means the company can draw water from two boreholes to produce a drink called Maison Perrier, which will not have ‘natural mineral water’ status.

Water conditions

The risk to water quality is not confined to the Vergèze operation. Safety concerns have been known by health authorities for years in the Vosges region where the Hépar, Contrex and Vittel brands are drawn, the investigation found, citing a confidential report in which officials expressed concern about the withdrawal of illicit treatments, which could “expose consumers to a health risk, as the treatments were put in place to compensate for a quality defect in the resource”.

In June 2023, in a letter sent to food safety watchdog the Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire alimentaire nationale (Anses), the director of Occitanie’s regional health authority referred to “regular bacteriological contamination of raw water in at least five of the seven drilling”. 

In October of the same year, Anses alerted the government of an “insufficient level of confidence” to ensure “the health quality of finished products”.

Nestlé’s response

Nestlé said that it had initiated a plan to transform its factories, in agreement with authorities. “We have invested significantly, and will continue to do so, to protect this unique heritage and ensure its future,” the group told journalists from Le Monde and Radio France.

But unions are concerned about the future of the plant and its 1,000 employees and have triggered a clause in the Code du travail meaning they will be alerted of “facts likely to affect the economic situation of the company”, amid concerns authorities could order the shutdown of the plant for safety reasons.

So, is bottled water in France safe to drink?

There are two main types of bottled water in France – spring water and mineral water. 

Spring water is subject to the same safety regulations as tap water. But it cannot undergo disinfection treatment. Be aware, a single brand of spring water can in fact come from several sources located in different regions, and the composition can change bottle-by-bottle, depending on the origin.

Mineral waters are not subject to the same safety rules as tap water – in fact, some mineral waters would not be allowed in the public drinking water system because they would not meet strict criteria. For example, fluoride levels are limited at 1.5 mg/l for tap water; mineral waters, however, can contain up to 5 mg/l.

Like spring water, mineral water should not be subject to disinfection treatments.

But, on the whole, and despite recent concerns, bottled water in France is safe to drink.

And which one is the cheapest?

Tap water. According to consumer watchdog UFC-Que Choisir it costs €0.003 per litre, on average, or less than €2 per year for a consumption of 1.5 litres of tap water every day.

And it is subjected to all kinds of routine checks – 54 different parameters are monitored pretty much all the time.

6 things to know about tap water in France

If you’re not a fan of the taste, you could always run it through a water filter. It will be more expensive, but still cheaper than bottled water – and still subject to the same number of safety checks, plus it has been filtered.

It’s also better for the planet because tap water doesn’t involve plastic bottles – the city of Paris is currently running a campaign to encourage people to drink tap water in order to reduce waste in the form of plastic bottles. The city has hundreds of drinking water fountains and businesses that display the L’Eau de Paris’ label will refill your water bottle for free.

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