Paris Match

~ last month three days in Paris, first time in a couple years, including first day of spring and sunshine, entirely agreeable.

hiked up the hill and climbed the steps to la Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, looking up and looking down.

tried something new at the dinner-table,

 first time for this fool: red wine with oysters.

’twas in Huîtrière Wepler, Place de Clichy in Montmartre— the oysters were large Fines de Claire from Marrennes-Oléron, and the red was a half-bottle of 2006 Léon Beyer Pinot Noir, from the town of Eguisheim in Alsace.

and the result?

well, the Beyer tasted entirely innocent of any oak-treatment, was light and bright, leapt sprightly out of the glass, not much in the way of tannins to speak of, succulent fruit...

and the six fresh specimens of Crassostrea gigas showed themselves as generous of flavour and texture as one could ever hope.

and the combination?

not hard to imagine, once you work your mind around the idea: Splendid, just splendid. And why? Monsieur pinot noir loves minerality—even when it’s not his own. The Beyer displayed no prominent mineral highlights, and so greedily amalgamated any inorganic nuance brought into its proximity by the bivalve into the bigger picture.

~ on dirait, peut-être, quelque chose d’huître  ~

~