Pass the Cognac, it’s from 1788, you know
One of the finest cellars in Paris, at Tour d’Argent restaurant, was cleaning house recently and found it had some vintage bottles it could sell. One of these happened to be a drinkable cognac from 1788, and if history isn’t your strong point, that is the year before the French Revolution.
If that has piqued your interest, there are also four bottles of 1875 Armagnac Vieux, plus oodles of vintage wine. One might ask why this cellar has such aged wine in its portfolio, but bear in mind that the landmark Tour d’Argent dates back to 1582, and has 450,000-bottle wine cellar. That is both a lot of history, and an awful lot of wine.
Sphere: Related Content“You’ll probably see, we’ve got too many bottles,” jokes chief sommelier David Ridgway.
Unlocking a padlocked iron gate, the tuxedo-clad sommelier ushered visitors into the restaurant’s underworld, where bottles are stacked floor to ceiling in a succession of caverns. Though everything is registered in a computer, there are occasional surprises, like the 1875 Armagnac, which Ridgway came across while looking for something else.
The wine cellar of the Left Bank restaurant, known for pressed duck and spectacular views of Notre Dame, is a part of its history. A sign marks the spot where a brick wall was built in 1940 to hide the best bottles during the Nazi occupation in World War II.
Visitors are offered sheepskin blankets for the chill: 14 degrees Celsius (57.2 Fahrenheit) this week, but dipping to 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 Fahrenheit) in winter.
“I like the wine to live a little bit of the seasons, even though it’s temperature-controlled,” said Ridgway, a Briton who has overseen the restaurant’s wine menu since the early 1980s.
