Wine Tasting at O-Chateau!

Bonjour mes amis!  On Saturday, my friends and I celebrated Cinqo de Mayo the French way:  at a Wine Tasting!  I also said a cheers for my maman, because it was her birthday as well :)  I first heard about O-Chateau (http://www.o-chateau.com/ )over Christmas break.  I received many Paris/France books, and one of them was a rather humorous book called Stuff Parisians Like .  It used to be a blog, and has since become a book.  Voila le link for the Stuff Parisians Like Blog : http://www.o-chateau.com/stuff-parisians-like/page/2  . Some examples of entries are Le Hamburger, Baguettes Tradition, Saying Putain, you get the idea.  A very entertaining blog and book! I recommend it. 

The author, Olivier Magny owns the wine bar at O-Chateau.  Et heureusement, THEY HAVE STUDENT DISCOUNTS FOR WINE TASTINGS!  C'est fantastique.  Here is the little blurb they have for their student discounts.  I find it quite delightful and charmant:

Being a student is tough.

Boring classes, countless hangovers, all that romantic drama going on, and being kinda broke all the time… We’ve all been there, and we sympathize.

In the O Chateau sympathy package comes a nice discount off of all of our programs on any week day!.

Make your parents proud: come to a wine tasting. For the first time, they might actually congratulate you for drinking with your friends.

And to top of this fantastic deal, our program reimburses us 30 euro once a semester for cultural activities.  And a French Wine tasting is a cultural activity, bien sur.  We had 1 Champagne (for sparkling wine to be called Champagne, it must come from the Champagne region.  It's the law.) 2 whites, and three reds.  Each came from a different region of France.   We had whites from the Loire and Bourgogne areas, and reds from the south west, Bordeaux, and the Rhone valley.

 The Wine Cellar for Tastings.  The map of France shows the different wine making regions.

 Everyone waiting for the wine to start flowing...

Ah le vin....



 Our sommelier explaining about sugar vs alcohol content.

Analyzing the bouquet....that's my thinking face.

 Poppin Bottles

Good wine, good bread, and great friends.  What could be better??

*here is Arielle's blog post on the Wine Tasting*



At the end of the class, we got a little cheat sheet with all the wines we had tasted and some other information about wine.  It was really fun, and we all learned a little something about French wine too!  We picked up some new French vocabulary as well.  Bottoms up translates into "cul sec".  Overall, a lovely cultural experience.  One more thing off my Parisian Bucket list!

Bisous,

Allison