NOT DRINKING POISON Podcast

I realized [natural] winemakers in particular were outsiders in their communities, too, in a way. And I’ve always been kind of an underdog, an outsider. - Crislaine Medina

What does Crislaine Medina, the Cape Verde-born co-proprietor of Paris 19th arrondissement restaurant Le Cheval d’Or, have in common with legendary MCs MF Doom and 21 Savage? She, too, ran into trouble in the USA as a longtime illegal immigrant. In her case, after high school in Bucks Country, Pennsylvania, she found herself ineligible for university tuition aid in the USA. It inspired her to move to Paris, where alongside studies in literature she apprenticed herself to natural wine at Left Bank traditional bistrot Les Pipos. Before taking over the 19th-arrondissement restaurant Le Cheval d’Or with her husband Luis Andrade and their partners Nadim Smair and Hanz Gueco in August 2023, Medina had a star-making turn as the opening sommelière of 11th-arrondissement yakitori-and-more destination Le Rigmarole.

At Le Cheval d’Or, Medina collaborates with young Japanese sommelier Taiki Sakurai on an unusual natural wine list that aims to integrate as many international influences as their kitchen. (Chef Gueco is Philippino-Australian, while Andrade is Cape Verdean-Portuguese.) Alongside natural wine classics from the Beaujolais and Burgundy, one finds familiar favorites from Italy and newly-minted masterpieces from Moravia. (For the Le Cheval d’Or space itself, the new partnership also represents a rebirth of sorts, coming three years after the tragic passing of its former chef, Taku Sekine, who first brought renown to the site with a Chinese-inspired menu.)

During set-up at Le Cheval d’Or in early December, I joined Medina to talk about her decade of experience in Paris natural wine circles, and how her perspective as a lifelong immigrant has shaped her approach to hospitality, natural wine lists, and menus. Check out the episode for Medina’s thoughts on her most beloved Beaujolais vigneron; her early challenges selling natural wine in Paris as a foreign black woman speaking limited French at the time; and how she came to consider Paris her true home.

Aaron

FURTHER LISTENING & READING

NDP PODCAST Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part IEp. 7: Oliver Lomeli of Chambre NoireEp. 8: Jessica Yang & Robert Compagnon of Folderol & Le RigmaroleEp. 9: Louis Mesana of Café Montezuma

NDP PODCAST Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part IIEp. 11: Oliver Gage of Rock BottlesEp. 12: Nathan Ratapu of Rerenga Wines

NOT DRINKING POISON PODCAST Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part INOT DRINKING POISON PODCAST Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part II

I think we started this change, this transition in natural wine in Paris. Because before it was established places, it was more restaurants. And we were more like a wine bar. And we decided to give a fair price… So young people could actually drink natural wine. - Oliver Lomeli

Few could have anticipated that Mexico City native Oliver Lomeli, after studying film in Lyon and working as a barista, would emerge as the French capital’s most dynamic natural wine impresario of the last decade. As radical as they are casual, his Chambre Noire series of wine bars and wine shops has been more responsible than any other restaurant group for bringing a new generation of Parisians to natural wine.

Initially a partner in 11ème Mexican brunch spot Café Chilango, Lomeli struck off on his own in 2015, founding his first Chambre Noire wine bar in an adjacent space on rue de la Folie Méricourt. Lomeli’s friend Rémi Kaneko would join him in the business the following year, before departing in 2020 to produce wine in the Drôme as La Ferme du Pasteur. Today Lomeli’s ever-expanding panoply of establishments includes a Chambre Noire wine bar in a newer space on boulevard Jules Ferry (opened 2021); another Chambre Noire wine bar in Ménilmontant (opened 2023), run in collaboration with former La Contre-Etiquette caviste Fabrice Mansouri; a Chambre Noire wine shop on rue de la Folie Méricourt (opened 2020, further south from the original Chambre Noire location); and, since September, a natural wine and taco restaurant, Furia, in collaboration with chef Gloria Vasquez. In the midst of all this, Lomeli also found the time to become one of the city’s foremost importers of German natural wines.

Leitmotifs throughout Lomeli’s flurry of entrepreneurism have been the service of exclusively unsulfited, unfiltered natural wines at generously low margins; a no-reservations policy; and artfully brut décor, often adorned with fresh flowers. Paris’ natural wine old-guard may call Chambre Noire a “vinegar bar,” but Lomeli’s formula has proven its formidable and durable appeal, as popular with up-and-coming vignerons as it is with radical natural wine lovers young and old. Inside the episode, Lomeli tells us about his first taste of natural Beaujolais; how he got his first loan; and why it makes good business sense to embrace German natural wines.

Aaron

FURTHER READING & LISTENING

NOT DRINKING POISON PODCAST Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part INOT DRINKING POISON PODCAST Ep. 8: Robert Compagnon & Jessica Yang of Folderol & Le RigmaroleNOT DRINKING POISON PODCAST Ep. 9: Louis Mesana of Café Montezuma

NOT DRINKING POISON PODCAST Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part INOT DRINKING POISON PODCAST Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part II

It was fantastic to sell natural wines to the crowd in Paris, because it is so international. You have so many people from all over the world… I think my role at the time was to pass on the natural wine love to many people, many young people and many older people. - Pierre Jancou

An epoch-defining figure in Paris natural wine circles and natural wine at large, Pierre Jancou is the prolific, media-savvy restaurateur responsible for a slew of the French capital’s iconic natural wine destinations of the 2000s and 2010s. Taken together, Jancou’s series of bistrots and caves-à-manger represent nothing short of an influential artistic oeuvre: their patinated, hand-wrought aesthetic and frank service style is nowadays perceptible in fine natural wine spots around the world.

Jancou began his career as a restaurateur in 1991, opening the Italian restaurant La Boca near Etienne Marcel. His embrace of natural wine came just over a decade later, shortly after his 2001 opening of La Crèmerie, the tiny, enchanting 6th arrondissement wine shop that would become a touchstone for the cave-à-manger genre. In 2007, Jancou opened Racines, inaugurating his most influential period, when he offered what may have been the world’s first radical zero-zero natural wine program. Jancou followed this success with Vivant (2011), Vivant Table (2012), Heimat (2015), and Achille (2016), before conflicts with neighbors at this final address spurred him to leave Paris behind. He relocated to the Alpine village of Chatillon-en-Diois, where he ran the Café des Alpes from 2018-2020.

In 2022, Jancou relocated once again, this time to the remote Aude village of Padern, home also to renowned natural vigneron Fabrice Monnin of La Mazière. Today Jancou runs the local Café des Sports as a seasonal natural wine bistrot, and is establishing a small winemaking practice, farming 1.5ha of carignan, marsanne, and macabeu in the surrounding jagged limestone hillscape. Check out the episode for the lowdown on Jancou’s first wine; his thoughts on Instagram; and his secret to quitting hard drugs.

Aaron

Pierre Jancou’s Café des Sports in Padern will reopen for Autumn 2023 on October 20th, offering lunch service Fridays-Mondays until Christmas.

Paid subscribers to NOT DRINKING POISON can access all episodes of the podcast - plus the rest of the newsletter’s winemaker profiles, interviews, breaking news, commentary, and more.

FURTHER LISTENING & READING

Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part I

Ep. 1: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Michel MoulheratEp. 2: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Kevin BlackwellEp. 3: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Olivier CamusEp. 5: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Marie CarmaransEp. 6: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Guillaume Dupré

Pierre Jancou modeling Comme des Garçons Homme Plus Fall-Winter 2000.

My place was really laid-back, really laissez-faire. The idea was freedom of thought, movement. Also, people were talking about wine at the time. Whereas now it’s like, you go to a wine bar, and nobody talks about wine. - Kevin Blackwell

Originally from Mountain View, California, Kevin Blackwell moved to Paris in 1996, and quickly fell in with the city’s natural wine aficionados, despite possessing no formal background in wine. He opened a cyber café in 2000, only for it to founder in the wake of 9/11 (and the subsequent drop in Paris tourism). Given Blackwell’s nascent love for natural wine, it was, he says, a “natural transition” to transform his erstwhile cyber café into the eccentric, homespun bistrot Autour d’Un Verre in 2003.

A self-taught cook and self-taught restaurateur, Blackwell’s no-frills approach embodied the anti-establishment ethos of natural wine in the early 2000s. Visitors to Autour d’Un Verre were typically welcomed by his dog or his cat. His bistrot was also known for its shrimp toast and its lively semi-annual wine tastings, which reliably drew the leading lights of the Roussillon natural wine scene, along with friends like Nicolas Carmarans and Axel Prüfer.

Check out the episode to find out why it’s useful to have a cat in a restaurant; why he only ever spoke French in his bistrot; and why Blackwell is “Mr. Southern Carbo.”

Aaron

FURTHER LISTENING & READING

Paris Natural Wine Lifers Ep. 1: Michel MoulheratParis Natural Wine Lifers Ep. 3: Olivier Camus

My November 2010 blog post on Autour d’Un Verre.My December 2010 blog post on a natural wine tasting at Autour d’Un Verre.

“I like the idea that people were brave enough to say ‘Let’s try [to make wines with zero sulfite addition]. We’ll lose wine, into vinegar, or we’ll dump it in the gutter.' But they still tried hard to learn and pass on their knowledge. To say, we made it: no sulfites from A to Z, and it works. - Michel Moulherat

Now largely retired and living in the Touraine town of Loches, Michel Moulherat saw prominence among the second generation of natural wine advocates in Paris, starting in the mid-nineties at his 15th arrondissement bar L’Insolite (1995-2000), and continuing into the second decade of the new millennium at his 11th arrondissement wine shop La Cave de l’Insolite (2002-2011).

While he was among the early supporters of radical vignerons like Rémi Poujol, Catherine and Gilles Vergé, and Jérôme Saurigny, Moulherat professes no personal insistence on zero sulfitage. His own classical wine background is extensive, beginning with two years working for Stephen Spurrier at Les Caves de la Madeleine. Moulherat then spent three years working for two prominent expat restaurateurs, Tim Johnston (of Juveniles) and Mark Williamson (of Willi’s Wine Bar). He spent the first half of the 1990s working as a sommelier at the Michelin-starred restaurant of Hôtel de Crillon, before opening L’Insolite in 1995.

Check out the episode to learn what sorts of insects he occasionally found in early natural wine bottles; where he’s been drinking 1959 Vin Jaune lately; and why he signed the open letter circulated in defense of scandal-plagued Sancerre vigneron Sébastien Riffault.

Aaron

FURTHER LISTENING & READING

Paris Natural Wine Lifers Ep. 2: Kevin BlackwellParis Natural Wine Lifers Ep. 3: Olivier Camus

A Suggestion for Sébastien Riffault

An October 2010 blog post I wrote about Moulherat and La Cave de l’Insolite.A May 2015 blog post I wrote about Moulherat and La Poudrière, the Issy-lès-Moulineaux bistrot where he was then working.