“We wanted the hotel to feel like it has always been a part of the Marais landscape,” Swedish, London-based interior designer Martin Brudnizki is quoted on the website of the new Paris 5-star hotel Le Grand Mazarin as saying. “… We were therefore inspired by the great Houses of the aristocratic era.”

He is referring there to the mansions and townhouses built in the 17th century when the Marais became trendy territory for the construction of noble residences and their continued use and decorative evolution by the titled and entitled through most of the 18th century. The Revolution then sent the aristocratic owners and renters either into exile or to the guillotine, after which “always been a part of the Marais landscape” came to mean something vastly different.

No longer marked by great wealth and privilege, the Marais was increasingly defined by labor, light industry, immigration and poverty. There were still dozens of grand old mansions around, but by 1900, the Marais swelled with a poor and working-class population, including many immigrants, among them thousands of Jews from Yiddish-speaking communities in Eastern Europe, with many more arriving through the 1930s. The Holocaust then sent the Jewish population either fleeing or to the death camps, leaving behind a decrepit cityscape that the rare visitor in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, even 1970s may well have thought had “always been a part of the Marais.”

The 311-acre heart of the Marais was saved from further ruin and the specter of concrete-and-glass renewal by a national law of 1962 calling for district-wide historic preservation and restoration. The law, along with the subsidies, public works and business opportunities that would eventually follow, accompanied the continuing evolution of the Marais, with: the arrival of Sephardic Jews to Paris in the 1950s and 1960s; the opening of the Picasso Museum in 1985; the opening of gay bars and clubs in the latter half of that decade; the steep rise in real estate prices in the 1990s; the development through the 2000s of rue des Rosiers, formerly part of the Pletzl at the epicenter of pre-war Yiddish-speaking immigration in the Marais, into a street that’s part Jewish food court part internationally-branded boutiques, and, in the 2010s, the listing of a considerable number of properties on Airbnb, each promising “charm” and “exposed wooden beams” (read: old buildings now gentrified).

Slowly at first, then much quicker since the mid-1980s, the Marais evolved into such a well-maintained on-the-radar quarter for strolling, shopping, museum-going, art-gallery-contemplating, café-sitting, with a few gay bars here, and a few Jewish restaurants there, that today’s visitor might think that its trendy bourgeois-casual lifestyle and the ease of communicating in English “have always been a part of the Marais landscape.”

Le Grand Mazarin

Where, then, do Le Grand Mazarin and its restaurant Boubalé fit into today’s Marais?

On the edge, or in many ways as its main entrance, catercorner to City Hall, in a 19th-century building across the street from the BHV Marais department store, at one corner of Place Harvey Milk, named for assassinated American defender of gay rights. A doorman in pride purple livery stands by the hotel entrance.

Past the small reception area, the drawing-room lobby presents a muted flamboyance, introducing visitors to the muted greens, reds and blues that dominate throughout the building and to the cozy, quirky, sophisticated nostalgia that impregnates the place.

The 50 rooms and 11 suites present a potpourri of furnishings, each outlined with a prominent curve or bevel, with enough reminders of 18th-century styles that the pre-Revolutionary petite noblesse would feel very much at ease here. It’s design without being high design, welcoming without being precious, indulgent without being lavish. Above all, it’s stylishly comfortable. The rooms are of modest size, as one would expect in the Marais. Rates start at 590€ and will rise beginning spring 2024.

The hotel’s restaurant Boubalé, described below, serves traditional Askenazic/Israeli fare. There’s also has a little, kitsch-chic, ground-floor bar. In the basement there’s an attractive pool with a fresco reminiscent of Cocteau’s work along its arched ceiling. A VIP basement lounge-bar will also soon open in another portion of the basement.

All told, the upmarket hotel, restaurant, bar and VIP room that form Le Grand Mazarin don’t seem to have “always been a part of the Marais landscape” so much as they present a cheery, nostalgic pastiche of major markers of the Marais of the past five centuries.

Boubalé

This restaurant and its adjacent bar are very much part and parcel of Le Grand Mazarin but with separate entrances from the hotel. So they can certainly be considered for anyone not lodging upstairs.

While the hotel’s rooms and suites call to mind the well-being of the petite noblesse, Boubalé—the restaurant’s name is a Yiddish term of endearment—and the bar appear to have been inspired by a vigorous and stylish older actress in Yiddish theater who enjoys hanging out with the younger crowd.

As noted above, the restaurant serves traditional Ashkenazic/Israeli cuisine. Jerusalem-born chef Assaf Granit has become a prime purveyor of Israeli cuisine in France. He’s the first Israeli chef to have a Michelin star in France (at Shabour in the Paris’s 2nd arrondissement). As executive chef with the JLM Group, he has been overseeing Boubalé in its opening period before the restaurant’s executive chef Itmar Gargei takes full command of the kitchen.

“Tradition, tradition!… Tradition!”—you know the song. This is the menu version of that: challah, pastrami plate, gravlax, roast beets with feta and horseradish, chopped chicken liver… seafood knaidlach, “ashkenazi mesachen,” “goulash+gnochhis”… strudel, babka… More polished than revisited, it’s all tasty—“entertaining” is perhaps a more accurate word—in a traditional smorgasbord kind of way. If not made with Bubbie love, then at least made with open-kitchen care. Ordering several appetizers (we ordered nearly all of them) to share is the way to go, both to get a taste of the various dishes and to get into the upbeat spirit of the place. The aforementioned Yiddish actress may well have had the tableware custom-made in the old country; her children will let it gather dust in the closet when they inherit it, but the grandkids and their kids will find it delightful. Anyway, Boubalé isn’t meant for her own children, now too old for this. On the two evening that I dined here (once as a guest*, once as a host), the majority of the crowd appeared to be under 35. There’s a good, upbeat vibe if you don’t mind the rising music and voice level as the evening progresses.

A 3-course meal, with challah (10€), will run about 75€, without drinks. I leave it to you to decide if that’s “oy vey” pricing.

The Bar

As someone who enjoys the atmosphere of hotel bars, I found the playful kitsch-chic décor of the little ground-floor bar quite to my liking as a place to wind down the evening. Here, I had my first taste of the Tunisian fig brandy Boukha, a drink with an Ashkenazic-Sephardic history of its own. The basement club/bar, is intended as a no-cell phone space to wind up the night, wasn’t yet open when I visited.

Le Grand Mazarin and the restaurant Boubalé, 17 rue de la Verrerie, Paris 4th arrondissement.

Le Grand Mazarin is the latest of the Pariente family’s slowly growing collection of distinctive 5-star hotels under the umbrella name Maisons Pariente, including Crillon Le Brave in Provence, Le Coucou in Méribel and Lou Pinet in Saint Tropez.

* Disclaimer: As many readers know, I wear various professional hats: travel writer and editor of this publication, travel and tour advisor for agencies and individuals, and organizer/guide in Paris and throughout France. I have worn all three with respect to Le Grand Mazarin: 1. In writing this article. 2. In first dining here as a guest on a site visit with a luxury travel agency, then second dining here on a tasting tour that I organized and hosted for visitors to Paris. 3. Subsequent to that first visit I was hired by the hotel to give a tour of the Marais to visiting journalists.

© 2023, Gary Lee Kraut

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* * *

Relais & Châteaux… If those words mean nothing to you, it’s a safe bet that your travel budget and fantasies typically stops short of 5-star lodging. Relais & Châteaux, a grouping of individually owned hotels and restaurants, publishes a luxurious color catalog with drool-inducing cheesecake photos of its platinum-card fantasy resorts. It’s 815 pages of travel porn.

Today’s Relais & Châteaux spans the globe from A(rgentina) to Z(ambia), with 544 resort/restaurant “members.” Of course, all this glamor had to start somewhere and “somewhere” turns out to be roughly 80 miles south of Paris, in Loiret, a region on the eastern edge of the Loire Valley, at a quiet, family-run inn called the Auberge des Templiers.

Back in the 1940s, the French were just getting used to the concept of paid vacations. Naturally, everyone wanted to go south for their holiday, and the National 7 highway, linking Paris with the Riviera, took on a mythic allure, similar to that of Route 66 in the US.

In 1945 the grandmother of the present owner of the Auberge des Templiers opened her roadside family kitchen to hungry vacationers happy to hit the road in liberated France. Nine years later, what had become a prosperous inn joined seven other National 7 inns to form Relais de Campagne, an association dedicated to “calm, comfort and courtesy.” Their pilot group was federated under the Relais & Chateaux banner in 1975.

Of the original eight hotels, only the Auberge des Templiers still exists. Guillaume Dépée, the third generation to run the family business, occasionally finds it difficult to fit into the corporate mentality of the present-day R&C, a gold-plate logo that embraces wine tasting in Uruguay, Chinese spa treatments in Nanjing, and luxury safaris near Kenya’s Maasai Reserve.

“There’s an emphasis on global investment and celebrity chefs, which are areas where a small family hotel like mine simply can’t compete,” says Guillaume Dépée, whose restaurant nevertheless has one Michelin star. “I don’t do glitter; I do authenticity. I give people exactly what I want as a consumer and what my grandparents stood for: calm, comfort and courtesy.”

Calm and comfort? Oh yes! The Auberge is a woodsy haven with wisteria-bedecked terraces, 400-year-old trees and a large outdoor pool. The guestrooms are housed in delightfully eclectic buildings with thatched or gabled rooftops. No two are the same since each generation of the Dépée family makes its own additions. The present owner added an Esthederm spa for the summer 2017 season plus a poolside champagne bar with sushi snacks created by Chef Yoshihiko Miura.

Courtesy? Yes, that’s also there but it works both ways. “This is my family home and I don’t mind ejecting guests who are rude with the staff,” says Dépée, noting that a prized staff-member has worked at the hotel since his grandparents’ day. Unlike most hotel directors, Dépée lives on the premises, in the house where he grew up, sharing his digs with a stray cat who developed a penchant for Chef Miura’s sashimi.

While the chef hails from Japan (and has a coveted license-not-to-kill with fugu), he displays a Franco-French sensibility for dishes like savory crabmeat with avocado cream and delicate lamb chops accented with herbs straight from the hotel’s garden.

“We buy only from local suppliers who use no pesticides,” says Dépée. “We have our beehives for honey and I support local wine-makers. Just don’t expect tuna, strawberries in January or water in plastic bottles.”

In other words, you can dine at the Templiers without fretting too much about your carbon footprint.

“I totally support the Relais & Châteaux ecological initiatives spearheaded by [Brittany’s three-star chef] Olivier Roellinger. As members of the hospitality business, we are the ambassadors and guardians of the precious ecosystems that make our locations so attractive to others.”

The Auberge des Templiers is also surprisingly affordable, offering some economical mid-week packages and lunches – either in the restaurant or poolside.

The Auberge des Templiers may be removed from the block-buster chateaux of the Loire Valley but the World Heritage portion of the Loire Valley actually starts right nearby, with the castle at Sully sur Loire. A few miles from there is Saint Benoit sur Loire, notable for the extraordinary details and luminosity of the Romanesque basilica of Fleury Abbey. An excursion from the inn might also include a visit to Gien, famous for its earthenware (faience) and its International Hunting Museum and to Lorris for the Museum of the Resistance and Deportation.

Auberge des Templiers. Les Bézards, 45290 Boismorand. Tel: 02.38.31.80.81. Closed February 15 to March 10. The Auberge is a 75-minute train trip from Paris-Bercy to Nogent-sur-Vernisson. For those arriving for car-free R&R the hotel can arrange to meet guests at the station, a 10-minute drive from the inn.

(c) 2017, Corinne LaBalme

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* * *

The gilt bronze equestrian statue of Joan of Arc on Place des Pyramides, across the street from the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden, is one of the most well-known and copied statues of the martyred heroine of the Hundred Years War with the English. Though glimpsed daily by thousands of tourists, few stop to contemplate the work or even to photograph it—and with good reason: they are intent are on preserving their own lives as they cross the street. Greater notice is likely given to copies of the statue in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Portland and Melbourne. Nevertheless, holding her standard high, Joan rides on here in (temporary) victory over the “invader” as a symbol of, well, whatever one group or party wants or needs her to be.

In the wake of France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), France’s young Third Republic needed her to represent a proud and unified nation marching in progress. Emmanuel Frémiet was commissioned to create the statue. No sooner was it installed on Place des Pyramides in 1874 than another invasion gathered strength: the invasion, welcome this time, of wealthy British tourists for whom the 1st arrondissement was becoming their Paris headquarters. In the decades that followed the statue’s inauguration, major new hotels opened or expanded on and around Rue de Rivoli and Rue Saint-Honoré—the Normandy, the Continental (now the Westin), the Meurice, the Ritz and others—as did shops and tea rooms and restaurants (“We speak English”).

As the prosperity and innovation of the Belle Epoque raced toward the turn of the century, a new hotel, the Hotel Regina, prepared to open on Joan’s Place des Pyramides. The Regina was under construction at the same as the Alexandre III Bridge, the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, all to be ready in time for the World’s Fair of 1900.

The Regina was founded by Léonard Tauber, working with an associate named Constant Bavarez. Eventually Bavarez would take the reins, and the hotel is still majority owned by the Bavarez family, as are two other hotels developed by Tauber, the Raphael and the Majestic, both 5-stars near the Arc de Triomphe in the 16th arrondissement.)

Enter the Regina’s original art nouveau revolving door today you’ll find yourself in the lobby of old-fashion luxury with a choice of three directions: to the left to check in at the reception desk to one of 100 rooms and suites, straight ahead into the oak-paneled English bar for a cocktail or whiskey or to the right to the new wine bar.

The Hotel Regina was refurbished in 2015 without losing any of its character circa 1900, gaining a fifth star in the process. Its room style is clear and direct in its sense of well-being, with grey, beige and off-white walls and fabrics offset with the occasional touch of red. Excellent sound-proofing allows rooms facing the street to shut out the traffic on Rue de Rivoli.

Some furnishings, notably desks, from the opening years of the hotel are still present. Several rooms might even fulfill a guest’s fantasy of living luxuriously in Paris circa 1900, both for the décor and, in the case of exceptional corner rooms, the view to the Tuileries Garden and beyond it Eiffel’s Tower, a remnant of the World’s Fair of 1889.

Having refurbished its rooms and repolished its reputation, Regina opened a new wine bar this year. The bar is a sleek, boldly lit little white box with gold trim, high saucer stools and a corner view toward the garden and the tower.

It’s a sign of the times that the old English bar is called le Bar Anglais and the new French wine bar is named Wine & Friends.

Wine & Friends is the domain of sommelier and barman Antoine Henon, who counsels and pours with the cool and gracious demeanor of a man who is trying to please but not entertain or impress. Henon supplies the wine; you supply the friends.

With friends I turned right at the revolving door to have a drink—actually four, but I’m not one to try to impress with beverage consumption. They were small glasses, several tastes to get acquainted with the pleasantly balanced Dourthe wines while getting a feel for the place.

Dourthe is a company that owns ten Bordeaux vineyards (among them Saint-Estèphe, Haut Médoc, Saint-Emilion, Pessac-Léognan, Graves) including several grand crus. Producing grower and merchant wines, it is part of the Thiénot Group,  whose home soil is in the Champagne region. Other regions are also selectively represented at Wine & Friends.

I’m not a fan of the presence of branding stamped into the décor of luxury bars as found here, but many now have them—an indiscretion that is also a sign of the times. Nevertheless, Wine & Friends (& Dourthe) offers a nice variety of wine styles.

Considering the location between the Louvre and Rue Saint-Honoré, the sense of privilege of leaving hurried Rue de Rivoli and the elegant presence of Antoine Henon, a decent bottle of wine is rather moderately priced at 29-55€, a glass at 9-15€, with several more prestigious wines available by the glass or bottle.

A glass or a shared bottle can be accompanied by a fine plate of cheese and charcuterie, as one would expect in a Paris wine bar. Foie gras and sourdough toast (tartines) topped with smoked salmon or Bayonne ham or chicken are also available.

The atmosphere depends on the aforementioned friends as well as the light, which together lend themselves to cheery aperitif, showy chicness, rising romance in fading light or post-dinner dialogue. Wine & Friends is open daily from 5pm to midnight.

The cocktail-drinker among a group of wine friends needn’t go his or her separate way since one can also get a cocktail served here from the hotel’s Bar Anglais. That bar, with its oak paneling and red velvet armchairs and sofas, is the domain of Marc Desange, who has been shaking and stirring cocktails and pouring whiskey here since last year.

Previously he worked at the Regina’s sister hotel the Raphael, another worthy stop on the Paris hotel bar trail.

Hotel Regina
2 place des Pyramides
75001 Paris
Tel. 01 42 60 35 58
Metro: Tuileries
© 2016 Gary Lee Kraut

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* * *

No casual tourist would describe Aix-en-Provence as a hotbed of the architectural avant-garde. From the terrace of Café des Deux Garçons, the Aix skyline looks just about like it did back when Paul Cézanne sipped his tisane with Emile Zola.

And yet the ultra-modern Sextius Mirabeau quarter, a showcase for Rudy Ricciotti, Kengo Kuma and some of the hottest 21st century design on the planet, is only a few blocks away. As one sips one’s pastis and looks around at the tawny-tinted 17th-18th century façades, the only question is “Where?”

Closer than you think

Like most 2000-year-old towns, Aix-en-Provence faced a severe space crunch in the mid-20th century. The population had exploded (from 30,000 in 1945 to 100,000 in 1975) and its summertime Lyric Festival, which started small and provincial in 1948, had gone global.

But unlike most 2000-year-old towns, Aix had a magic mushroom: 46 acres of friche—abandoned and under-used industrial land—that started right where the tree-lined Cours Mirabeau ended. City planners had coveted this terrain since the 1950s but given the multiple ownership couldn’t gain title to it.

Eventually, sorely-needed housing projects simply hop-scotched over the zone to new settlements west of the city, such as Jas de Bouffan, where the Fondation Vasarely broke ground in 1976. This left a void that started just west of the 19th-century Rotonde Fountain.

That’s not to say that nothing happened in this sector in the late 20th century. The Marseille autoroute bull-dozed through in the 60s, and a defunct match factory morphed into the Cité des Livres library complex in 1986. But the area wasn’t cleared for construction until negotiations were finalized over land held by the French railway company SNCF and the 1989 sale of the Thompson factory.

All these delays produced some happy results. The nastier brut abuse of the Pompidou era of the 1970s passed Aix by, and city planners had enough time to note that public opinion was against skyscrapers. Although the first set of plans had to be scrapped due the 1980s financial crisis, what emerged is all the more impressive.

Touring the new Aix

Head for the Napoleon III-era Fontaine de la Rotonde at the end of the Cours Mirabeau. It’s topped with three goddesses representing commerce, justice and the arts. One of those ladies, probably Miss Business, is staring hard at the brand-new, glass-walled Apple boutique that popped up last month. The gateway to New Aix is Les Allées Provençales, a series of sleek shopping and housing corridors (ca 2007) leading right across from Apple and the brand-new Tourist Office. Between Les Allees Provençales and the Grand Théâtre, you cross the Esplanade des Justes, inaugurated in March 2014.

The high architectural drama starts a few meters west at the Grand Théâtre de Provence, designed by Milan-based architect Vittorio Gregotti and inaugurated in 2007.

The choice of Gregotti as one the spirit guides for this new district is significant in itself. Gregotti is considered an anti-modernist of the Jane Jacobs/Robert Venturi ilk, believing that new architecture should harmonize with the existing urban context rather than make a stand-alone “statement” (e.g. Paris’s Tour Montparnasse).

Thus the curved, amphitheater-like entrance to the 1,366-seat building appears to nestle into its site, its stones carefully chosen to mimic the changing colors of Mont Sainte-Victoire. (Fact: The proximity of train tracks meant that the whole structure had to be mounted on springs.)

The rear of the theater, more linear but just as attractive, is visible from a high parvis (built above transit) that is home to two other 21st-century bijoux: the Centre Choréographique National d’Aix-en-Provence, nicknamed the Pavillon Noir, designed by Rudy Ricciotti (2006), and the comparatively virginal-looking, all-white Conservatoire Darius Milhaud (2013), signed Kengo Kuma.

Ricciotti, designer of Marseille’s drop-dead gorgeous MuCEM Museum (2013), used an angular, black concrete grid over sheets of glass for an effect that he has described as ”sado-maso” for the Aix Ballet’s home-base. It’s perfectly in line with the edgy work of Angelin Preljocaj, director of the Aix Ballet, famously quoted as saying “La création se fait dans le noir” (Creation takes place in the dark).

Next door, the angels (literally) sing in the Music Conservatory that Tokyo/Paris-based Kengo Kuma coated with shimmery, silver-white anodized aluminum that has been folded, origami-style, to create asymmetric zones of light and shadow. The concert hall, seating 500, is fashioned with wood-paneling in a similar origami treatment.

And below all this?

Remember the autoroute that was paved through the center of the neighborhood in the 1960s? Efforts have been made to beautify it as well. On one side on the tunnel, drivers see a vegetal wall developed by landscape artist Patrick Blanc in 2008. (Parisians know his work from vertical gardens at the Pershing Hall Hotel, the Quai Branly Museum and the BHV Homme store, among other places.) On the other side, yet to be completed, there will be a “water wall” (mur d’eau) commemorating Aix’s natural springs, designed by Christian Ghion.

Where to stay in the Sextius Mirabeau neighborhood?

This is a no-brainer. The glamorous, 5-star Mariott Renaissance opened right across from the Conservatory Darius Milhaud (Pavillon Blanc) in Feb 2014. Marseille architects Claude Sabon Nadjari and Rémy Saada drew up the plans which include a spa, a pool, and a gourmet Provençal restaurant that poached Aix’s top chef, Jean-Marc Banzo, from Le Clos de la Violette. The gastronomic restaurant (closed Sunday and Monday) serves dishes like grilled red mullet with zucchini spaghetti, calamars in squid ink and a reduced bouillabaisse sauce on its 90 € and 130 € prix fixe menus. (There’s also a bistro, open daily serving a 25 € lunch and a 39 € dinner.)

Christian Ghion designed the sleek furniture for the 133 guestrooms that are long on creature comforts: king-size beds, rain showers, AC, coffee/tea service, WiFi and iPod music chargers.

Even in a luxury hotel, however, you won’t get away from the fact that Aix, with 40,000 students, is youth-oriented. (There’s Gatorade right next to the Rémy Martin in the mini-bar.) To fit in better, book yourself a “face-modelling massage” at the spa or go directly to the bar and order the Renaissance cocktail (orange vodka, amaretto, lemon juice, ginger and sesame oil) and test its Phoenix effect.

Note that from many rooms like N° 18, you’ll have a great view of the Water Wall, which, when finished, will be the largest of its kind in Europe.

Marriott Renaissance Aix-en-Provence. 320 avenue Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 13100 Aix-en-Provence. Tel: 04.86.91.54.50.

Exterior Aix

Modern art doesn’t stop at the city limits. Forgo the all-too-familiar Cézanne route and check out the Fondation Vasarely, an Op Art palazzo presided over by Pierre Vasarely, grandson of the artist Victor Vasarely. It’s rare to be able to see this artist’s illusionistic work on a large scale… and ‘large’ for Vasarely was as tall as a two-story building. It’s a hike out of town, but the N° 2 bus takes you up to the doorstep.

Fondation Vasarely. Jas de Bouffan, 13690 Aix-en-Provence. Tel: 04 42 20 01 09. Closed Monday. Through September 2014, the museum showcases the work of Venezuelan op-artist Carlos Cruz-Diez.

Count on a half-hour drive due north to the Château La Coste and get an early start because it’s worth a day-long visit. Irish businessman/bio-dynamic wine entrepreneur Patrick McKillen has spiked his vineyards with works by a Who’s Who of contemporary artists.

Tadao Ando created the striking entry, Jean Nouvel designed the wine production area, and the surprises on the grounds include a Louise Bourgeois spider, a Calder stabile, a Frank Gehry music pavilion “rescued” from its Serpentine sojourn in London, Liam Gillick screens, a Druid-like subterranean vault by Andy Goldsworthy and Michael Stipe foxes… and that’s not all.

It takes at least three to four hours to see all the installations… and new ones are being built all the time. (Kengo Kuma, Ai Weiwei, Carsten Holler and Renzo Piano are on the coming attractions list.) Eventually, the owner plans to create a hotel.

In the meantime, there’s wine to drink and food to eat in two different restaurants. One—slightly more formal, overlooking a Hiroshi Sugimoto sculpture in a reflecting pool—serves quinoa tabbouleh and foie gras. The second—set in a village-like townscape which is actually where La Coste vineyard workers live—serves gazpacho and salads. Open daily. Call ahead for information about wine tastings and special evening events.

Château La Coste. 2750 Route de la Cride, 13610 Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade. Tel: 04 42 61 92 90.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

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* * *

The best adjective to describe the family-run Hôtel San Régis, nestled on a side-street betwixt the Grand Palais and the Avenue Montaigne haute couture shops, is discreet. However its latest renovation, completed in 2013, is all about glasnost. Owner Elie George literally blew the roof off his “insider’s only” restaurant, which originally catered only to hotel guests. The lighter-and-brighter glass-roofed result is now open to all hungry and thirsty travelers and residents seeking a quiet refuge from museum blockbusters, Dior ODs, and Champs-Elysées traffic.

The restaurant/tea room, now re-named Les Confidences du San Régis, has a glass roof that shows off the half-timbered walls of the hotel’s attractive, provincial-esque courtyard. The new concept also includes longer hours. Jet-lagged travelers can now drop in for a cozy little chorizo-laced cheeseburger (24€), club sandwich (22€), Caesar salad (28€) or organic omelets (16€) in sophisticated surroundings from 3 to 6pm.

Reflecting the hotel’s new contemporary spin on its classic decor, the new menu adds curcuma-laced quinoa to the tomato fritters (16€) and proposes a hummus garnish with the lamb filets (34€). Quite astutely, the wine selection tends towards to affordable, rather than aspirational, vintages. The Château de Lachaize Brouilly, one of the best bargains in Beaujolais, is a case in point at 24€.

The San Régis has also expanded its tea-time offerings, with over a dozen super-stylish Kusmi teas accompanied by finger sandwiches and/or lush pastries from Philippe Conticini’s ‘Patisserie des Rêves’, like the re-visited Paris-Brest.

The latest renovation includes guestrooms given 21st century pastel update (bayberry greens, powdered azur and gold) by designer Pierre-Yves Rochon while retaining classic touches like the Art Deco style light fixtures beloved by SR regulars.

Hôtel San Régis Paris. 12 rue Goujon, 75008. Tel: 01.44. 95.16.16. Metro Champs-Elysées-Clemenceau or Alma Marceau

© 2014

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Hotel du Palais
Imperial Resort and Spa
1 avenue de l’Impératrice, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 41 64 00. Website.

You don’t need a 5-star budget in order to enjoy the pleasures of the French Basque coast, but if you’ve got one then there is only one place to use it: Biarritz’s Hotel de Palais, the classically luxurious, exceptionally situated and overall outstanding seaside palace.

The history of this hotel has been inseparable from that of Biarritz ever since 1854, when Emperor Napoleon III, gave his nod to the construction on this site of a summer palace, Villa Eugénie, named for his wife.

It was she, Eugénie de Montijo, born into Spanish aristocracy but raised mostly in France, who was so fond of Biarritz, having first visited at age 9, in 1835. (While Eugenia was particularly fond of Biarritz, Napoleon III had a warm spot for Vichy [see article http://francerevisited.com/2009/07/vichy-not-that-vichy-this-vichy/], as did his mistresses.)

The imperial couple’s visit to Biarritz in the summer of 1854 got them hooked on the beauty and warmth of the Basque coast, and Villa Eugénie was ready to receive them on their visit the following year. For the next 16 years, with the exception of 1860 and 1869, they sojourned, bringing with them a train of aristocracy—French, first, then from throughout Europe. “La reine des plages et la plage des rois,” Biarritz was called: The queen of beaches (beach resorts) and the beach (beach resort) of kings.

The crowned heads barely took pause with the Franco-Prussian war and the fall of the emperor, as Biarritz remained one of France’s most notable resorts during the Belle Epoque. It was a period that saw Villa Eugénie transformed into a hotel and casino. Russia’s grand dukes came for the season; Queen Victoria saw fit to visit and then so did Edward VII and many more. Much of the hotel-casino burned down in 1903, after which it was largely rebuilt as the luxury hotel seen today. You’ll see the initials NE around the hotel referring to Napoleon Emperor or, if you prefer, to Napoleon and Eugenia.

The Hotel du Palais has the particularity among France’s top crop of hotels of belonging to the City of Biarritz and of nevertheless being well managed, apparently, by a semi-public (mixed economy) company. The rooms are of classic luxury with pretty little contemporary touches.

The hotel has a pool, a fine restaurant, bar, direct access to the beach and a spa. A fine place from which to enjoy a moody sunset.

The spa (Guerlain products) covers five floors and is brightly lit by natural sunlight. In addition to the pool and other amenities to which clients have free access, the spa offers soins that are “cocooning, personal and intimate” along with a Leonor Greyl hair institute.

Café de Paris
5 place Bellevue, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 24 19 53. Café de Paris is part of the HMC group of hotels and resorts. Website.

This sweet and sober 4-star boutique hotel with an easy-going décor of gray, white and splashes of color is ideally situated at the crux of the Grande Plage, with a remarkable view from all 19 rooms of the length of the beach and out to the lighthouse. A short walk in other directions leads to covered food market, the old ports and the promenade over the rocks. The hotel itself has a worthwhile restaurant.

Hotel Windsor
Grande Plage, 64200 Biarritz.
Tel. 05 59 24 08 52. Website.

The Hotel Windsor, owned and operated by the Heguy family since 1948, is also a 4-star. It’s a notch less notable than the Café de Paris but also a notch less expensive. Half of its 48 rooms overlook the crowds of the beach (la Grande Plage). The rooms are simply decorated—bright white walls and furnishing, striped bed covers, dark wood floors; pleasant if not exuberant. There are some nice rooms on the courtyard and others on the side with a sliver of a beach or ocean view, but of course the full frontal view is preferable. There are a few reasonably priced family rooms for those traveling with young children.

Edouard VII
21 avenue Carnot, 64200 Biarritz. Tel. 05 59 22 39 80. Website.

With 18 rooms housed in a 19th-century mansion, this family-operated 3-star hotel feels like a large B&B: cozy, a touch of charm, a nice place from which to feel at home in the city and to chat up other guests. The Edouard VII isn’t as close to the beach as the others mentioned here, but it’s only a short walk (about 350 yards) to the Plage de la Côte des Basques, Biarritz’s longer and less citified beach. Another way of looking at it is that when staying here you can reach either beach on a short walk, and the covered food market, which is the center of local life in the morning, is just 200 yards away.

Room size increases slightly from one category to the next though the more noticeable difference is the increase in bed width—140 cm/55 in., 160 cm/63 in., 180 cm/71 in. There’s a fourth category: a family room suitable if traveling with small children. In the warmer seasons breakfast can be served on the terrace.

Mercure Plaza
10 avenue Edouard VII, 64200 Biarritz. Tel. 0559247400. Website.

A handsome, 69-room, 3-star chain hotel with an admirable Art Deco heart, the Mercure Plaza is well set just a block off the beach, across the street from the casino and a fine place from which to set out on a promenade in any direction.

When to visit: A visitor naturally wants warm weather and warm (at least not cold) water when visiting Biarritz, and that naturally means visiting from mid-spring to mid-autumn. Nevertheless, Biarritz is a worthwhile off-season destination, when you may well luck upon some warmish sunny days between October and March. Furthermore, as with all seaside resorts, off-season pricing can be up to half that of the high season.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

For more on Biarritz on France Revisited read: Biarritz Ocean: The Brand Between Bilbao and Bordeaux and Biarritz: The Surfing Lesson.

Official site of the Biarritz Tourist Office: http://tourisme.biarritz.fr/en

Getting to Biarritz: There are direct flights to Biarritz from Paris and other French cities as well as from various northern European capitals (London, Dublin, Copenhagen, Brussels, Rotterdam, Stockholm). By train, Biarritz is 5:20 from Paris and 2:00 from Bordeaux.

The post Biarritz Hotels: Hotel du Palais, Café de Paris, Windsor, Edouard VII, Mercure Plaza appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

As for the in-with-the-new, the Crillon, like the nearby Ritz, which closed last August for a planned 27 months of renovation, is shutting down for at least two years in order to better rise up to snuff to compete in the exclusive “palace” category of French hotels. The top-tier upgrade pandemic that has been giddily transforming the Paris hotelscape for the past five years (crisis, what crises?) has pushed the bar higher—or at least sleeker and techier—with renovations/expansions at the Bristol, the Royal Monceau and soon the Plaza-Athénée and with the arrival of Asian newcomers Shangri-La and Mandarin-Oriental and the soon-to-be unveiled Peninsula.

While prices for a room at the new begin at about $1000 per night, you could spend less and walk away with a piece of the old to last a lifetime. Consider, if you will, a pair of Art Deco-style chairs, Christofle flatware or champagne buckets, assorted serving trays, flutes or decanters, Bernardaud dishware, some framed prints, well-pressed tablecloths, bathroom accessories, mini-bars, chimneypieces, maybe even a Louis XV- or Louis XVI-style chair, bed headboard, dresser or couch. Prepare to spend more for the Lalique chandeliers. The catalogue, with starting bid prices and instructions for joining in the fun, can be viewed here. Warning: Potential buyers should keep in mind before raising their hand at the auction that an additional 29.9% in premium and tax will be added to the hammer price.

History of the Crillon

The Crillon may be getting rid of its Louis knockoffs but it’s keeping the originals, since its late-18th-century architecture has earned it a place on the list of historical monuments.

The hotel occupies the far western end of one of the two identical colonnaded facades on Place de la Concorde, designed by architect Jacques-Ange Gabriel in the 1760s under orders of King Louis XV, and the adjacent portion on Rue Boissy d’Anglas. (The police at the corner aren’t there to protect the rich and famous at the hotel but rather the American Embassy across the street.)

Gabriel’s western colonnade, though designed as single building, soon became a front for four different lots that were sold off in 1775, Louis XVI then king. The king’s architect/building manager Louis Francois Trouard purchased the far western lot and designed the mansion that first served home to the Duke of Aumont, before being sold to the Count of Crillon in the 1788.

A private city mansion or freestanding public building is called a “hôtel” in France, so the property was known as the Hôtel de Crillon long before it became an actual hotel.

The revolution may have put an end to the Crillon family—as it did to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, beheaded a stone’s throw from the hotel’s front door (did Marie-Antoinette have one final flashback to music lessons she took in the hôtel many years earlier?)—but the Crillons, having had little time to use their mansion before the guillotine ruined the view, returned to their property in 1812.

In 1906, Crillon descendants sold the property to the Société du Louvre, a company that was one of the first big players in the luxury hotel and department store business in Paris, which transformed the private mansion Hôtel de Crillon into the “do you have a reservation?” Hôtel de Crillon. The hotel opened in 1909, a time when luxury hotels spreading further west and about to claim ownership of the area surrounding the Champs-Elysées. Opening to rave reviews as French luxury at its finest, the Crillon has had an illustrious history ever since.

But the finest in luxury is far more international these days, and French hotel ownership has trouble keeping up with the big money. So, apparently, does American hotel ownership since in 2005 the Société du Louvre was purchased by Starwood Capital, which in 2010 sold the Crillon to a member the Saudi royal family. (The George V is also Saudi-owned.)

We’ll have to wait until sometime in 2015 to know what Saudi money does for the place. Meanwhile, it’s auction time: out with the old… and perhaps into your home.

Hotel de Crillon, 10 place de la Concorde, 8th arr. Metro Concorde. Public pre-sale exhibition of auction items April 12 to 16, 10am to 8pm (until 10pm on the 15th). Auction by lot April 18 to 22, conducted by Artcurial. See the online catalogue to view lots and for information on registering for the auction.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

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The ever-chic Théâtre des Champs-Elysées,  designed by the Art Deco dream-team of Auguste Perret, Antoine Bourdelle and Maurice Dénis, opened on March 31, 1913, followed three weeks later by the ever-fashionable Hôtel Plaza Athénée.

Thanks to the twin anchors of the TCE and the PA, Avenue Montaigne became an international roadway of haute couture, especially after WWII when Christian Dior et al. set up shop along the avenue.

While the venue that showcased Nijinski, Stravinsky and Josephine Baker “back in the day” focuses its centennial season on its greatest hits with a dash of 21st-century stardust, the hotel that Dior was so fond of celebrates its birthday with a year of special menus and surprises.

The TCE’s first 2013 production opened on a high note in February with Donizetti’s La Favorite, a slice of gorgeous 1840 bel canto rarely performed in its original French. Against a minimalist set by New York artist Andrea Blum, director Valérie Nègre skillfully underlined the contemporary political implications of the twisty baroque plot.

After a Don Giovanni  (seen through the eyes of Stéphane  Braunschweig) that debuts on April 25, the TCE goes into nostalgia overdrive with Le Sacre du Printemps… the earthshaking ballet that premiered on this gilded stage in May 1913. Starting in May 2013, dance fans will get numerous spins on this classic: Stravinsky’s wonderpiece plays to Nijinski’s original choreography, followed by new interpretations by Sascha Waltz and Pina Bausch.

Not to forget productions by Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, Benvenuto Cellini (Berlioz), Agrippina (Handel), The Barber of Seville (Rossini) and a dance-in-the-aisles Big Band homage to Josephine Baker and Sidney Bechet on July 5. Ticket and schedule information at www.theatrechampselysees.fr.

Meanwhile, several graceful steps away, one would expect a fashion-conscious belle like the Plaza Athénée to lie about her époque, but instead she’s releasing 100 birthday balloons over the 8th arrondissement on April 20th, drinking “Baccarat Harcourt” cocktails from cut-crystal glasses in the bar, and definitely not watching her waistline with special centennial dishes like pâté chaud de pintade truffé in her three-star restaurant which operates under the supervision of ubiquitous stellar chef Alain Ducasse.

The Plaza-Athenée is also planting 100 trees at Versailles this spring, minting a special (gold) card for her favorite customers, and offering packages that include tickets to Le Sacre du Printemps next door.

The Plaza-Athénée is classified as a “palace” (i.e. a rare and exceptional 5-star) by official French hotel standards. All the info at www.plaza-athenee-paris.com.

Théatre des Champs-Elysées, 15 avenue Montaigne, 8th arr. Tel. 01 49 52 50 50. Metro Pont de l’Alma.

Hôtel Plaza-Athénée, 25 avenue Montaigne, 8th arr. Tel. 01 53 67 66 65. Metro Pont de l’Alma.

© 2013, Corinne LaBalme

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I would soon learn that the cereal plain (wheat, colza, barley, rye) is indeed part and parcel of Auvergne. The current owners of the hotel, the Monier family, were formerly in the flour business. After nine generations as millers (Monier is a transformation of meunier, meaning miller) they sold the business to a large competitor and entered the hotel business with the purchase Chateau La Canière.

The term “chateau” covers a wide range of large residences in France and La Canière belongs more to the mansion than the castle portion of that spectrum, but like any respectable chateau it’s reached at the end of a long tree-lined alley.

Replacing a previous structure on this site, the chateau was built in the 1880s to showcase the instruments, portraits and library of the chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) that had been inherited by a member of the Bérard de Chazelles family, and presumably to hold elegant parties. Lavoisier is considered the father of modern chemistry and credited with naming oxygen and hydrogen and developing various theories about air, combustion and other matters that I started forgetting soon after taking the Chemistry AP exam in 12th grade.

To support his passion for scientific research, Lavoisier had a job in Paris with the tax farming office known as the fermier général in pre-Revolutionary France. His research and analysis made him famous, but having “worked for the man” noted on your resumé tends to get noticed in times of revolution. Lavoisier tried to keep his head low during the Revolution, but was nevertheless sent to the guillotine during the Terror along with his fellow tax farmers. In response to attempts to save his head for its scientific smarts, a member of the revolutionary tribunal is said to have declared, “The Republic doesn’t need scientists” (La République n’a pas besoin de savants).

Chateau La Canière fell into disrepair after the last owner of the Bérard de Chazelles family was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 for her role in the Resistance and deported to Ravensbruk in 1944. Purchased by a Dutch group in 2006 and rehabilitated as a hotel and restaurant, the the project had barely taken off when the group sold it in 2010 to the Monier family. The Moniers have now upgraded La Canière to its current 5-star status.

La Canière is not as heavily staffed as a city 5-star, so employees are necessarily at your immediate beck and call. Nevertheless, the infrastructure of well-being is present. A gastronomic restaurant called Lavoisier occupies an outbuilding (to the right, above) that is partially a remnant, vastly transformed, of the chateau that preceded the current mansion. A 17th-century orangerie (citrus greenhouse) is found on the opposite side of the chateau. There’s also a swimming pool (open summer only) in the back. In addition to some handsome wood-paneled reception rooms, including one that serves as the breakfast room, the mansion/chateau has a chapel and, more interestingly, a cozy library where one can read, write and/or drink, day or night.

La Canière is now operated by two brothers, Pierre, 24, and André, 28, whose grandfather, Denys, who bears the title “manager,” can be seen puttering around the place. That sounds like a great set-up for a British sitcom, but the French are better at chateau-hotels than at sitcoms.

There are 26 rooms and suites of high comfort. Prices run 130-600€ depending on size, split into six categories, making the hotel accessible for moderate as well as higher budgets. The ground-floor rooms are spacious and wheelchair accessible, though I preferred the upper rooms, particularly the “traditional” rooms that recall (with mostly contemporary furniture) the style of what would have been the heyday of the private chateau here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. My own airy room on the top floor had more contemporary character—lively carpet, its ceiling beams and its bathroom partially open to the room—and a clear view over the surrounding cereal fields. Craning my neck to the south I could see a milky view of the mountainous region of the Volcano Park and the peak of Puy de Dome visible on the horizon.

The Lavoisier collection was sold in 1925, including a famous portrait by Jacques-Louis David of the scientist and his wife, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If I continue to speak of Lavoisier here it’s because he can’t be ignored. A copy of that portrait can be seen at La Canière along with other portraits of the chemist, reproduced ad nauseam throughout the hotel. Lavoisier is everywhere. The restaurant is named after him. Portraits, nearly always the same, line hallways and overlook beds. I was reminded of what Oscar Wilde, referring the wallpaper in his rundown hotel room in Paris, said as he lay dying, “One or the other of us has to go.”

Nevertheless, there were nice things to stay for.

Over a fine dinner in the hotel’s gastronomic restaurant, Pierre Monier, the young director, informed me that his family had actually removed a number of the Lavoisier portraits since purchasing the property and that I might only have been overwhelmed by those that remain because, unlike other clients, I took a complete tour of the hotel and its hallways. Most guests would only see a few. Be that as it may, and without suggesting that a traveler not come this way because of an overdose of Lavoisiers, they might consider removing a few more.

The pool, the restaurant, the lounge areas, the breakfast room, the atrium lobby, the library, the nearly 20 acres of lawn and wood, and the wifi undoubtedly make La Canière an attractive place to relax, reflect and romance or for a work retreat.

Château La Canière is about 10 miles from the hot springs/spa town of Chatel-Guyon by way of the Riom region. Though Riom is larger than Chatel-Guyon, it’s lesser known beyond the region. The director of the Riom tourist office was kind enough to meet me at the hotel to tell me about the treasures of the area such as the Renaissance buildings in the center of Riom and the cute neighboring villages of Mozac and Marsat.

As we shook hands to part I promised her that I would consider getting up at 6am to have a quick look at those Renaissance buildings and cute villages before heading into the volcanic landscape, but after a drink in the library, then a late dinner in the restaurant, then a long gaze up at the stars from my bedroom window, I looked long into Lavoisier’s eyes above my bed and admitted to myself that I had lied.

Château la Canière. Rue de la Croix Blanche, 63260 Thuret. Tel. 04 73 97 98 44. Member of Chateaux & Hotels Collection. The hotel is 2 miles outside the center of the village of Thuret. The Riom train station is 9 miles away.

Riom Tourist Office. 27 place de la Fédération, 63200 Riom. Tel. 04 73 38 59 45.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut (text and photos)

Continue to:
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu.
Or return to:
Part I: From Paris to Clermont-Ferrand
Part II: An Introduction to Spa Towns and Hot Springs By Way of Royat
Part III: Chatel-Guyon

The post 5 Days in Auvergne, Part IV: Château La Canière, a Luxury Hotel appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

The discreet entrance to the Hotel Fouquet’s Barriere on avenue George V, just off the Champs-Elysées, is a cross between that of an Italian pensione where you don’t know how to find the reception and an illustration by Dr. Seuss with its long couches and playful curves and colors.

The bar, Le Lucien, which is what I’d especially come to visit, was one twisting flight up.

The lounging area of Le Lucien is given rhythm by gold columns that play against violet and green velvet chairs and couches. One wall is occupied by brightly backlit empty shelves as though the background for a Kindle commercial. Warm weather opens the inner courtyard, where the busyness of the Champs-Elysées is but a silent memory.

That’s where I met head bartender Stéphane Ginouves, who in 2011 won the first Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF, Best Craftsman in France) competition for bartenders.

One reason I wanted to meet Mr. Ginouves was that I’d read in the press release that he was once in charge of the bar at the non-commissioned officers’ mess and that among his achievements prior to the MOF title was winning the “Shaker Challenge” at Disneyland Paris, where he worked at the Steak House. The resumes of most bartenders in luxury bars tend to emphasize that they’ve been mixing for the rich and powerful or the young and chic rather than for non-coms and people willing to get their picture taken with Goofy.

Having myself attended the New Jersey School of Bartending before a brief career behind a bar for wannabe mafiosi in Milwaukee, I appreciated the lack of glitter of his early career. Mr. Ginouves, born in 1974, nevertheless went on to earn himself in 2003 the title of Champion of France for Cocktail Creation and Technical Champion at the World Cocktail Competition . I went onto a career in mixing words with a few if less prestigious titles of my own. He has worked at Fouquet’s Barriere since 2008.

The other reason that I wanted to meet Mr. Ginouves was that with any luck I would get a free drink out of the interview. But what to choose?

As far as cocktails go, Mr. Ginouves professes a preference for classic rum-based cocktails while also having several non-rum creations to his name, including one consisting of vodka, guava juice, candy strawberry syrup and poppy flavoring. That’s certainly not something I would order, so after a bit of discussion I settled on another his creations called Single S, a kind of champagne julep meets whiskey sour.

I chose it because several months earlier I had been introduced to Single de Samalens, an armagnac-cum-whiskey of sorts (tasting notes further down this page) and because they primarily taught us Madmen drinks at the New Jersey School of Bartending while the wannabe wise guys in Milwaukee only ordered drinks that evoked people they dreamt of doing business with (white and black Russians, Irish coffee, Scotch and soda, Manhattans).

Stéphane Ginouves’ Single S
3 cl of strawberry puree in which fresh mint has been crushed (strained)
3 cl of Single de Samalens (8 years)
2 cl of amaretto
7 cl of champagne
Decoration: mint and a strawberry

Rooms at Fouquet’s Barriere

Unlike most other five-star hotels in Paris, Fouquet’s Barriere is part of a French group, which partially explains why it rings few bells for American travelers. Furthermore, despite the prestige of their Paris address, Groupe Barriere is better known for its hotels (and spas and casinos) in Deauville and La Baule, where its brand of luxury dominates, or for its properties in Cannes. (France Revisited review of Deauville properties are found here.)

Though its entrance doesn’t signal this hotel to be as high fashion and crème de la crème as some of the other hotels in its category, it is indeed in the same league as the others. In the 81 rooms and 31 suites, decorator Jacques Garcia has reigned in his Seussian tendencies in favor of a hearty luxury in tones of chocolate, gold and leather in the suites, creating plush 1950s revisited. The wifi is free, as it always should be these days, and, pleasant surprise, so is the mini-bar.

Hotel Fouquet’s Barrière and Bar Le Lucien. 46 avenue George V, 8th arrondissement. Tel. 01 40 69 60 00. Metro George V. Room rack rates begin at about 640€ for a standard room. Member of the association The Leading Hotels of the World.

Single de Samalens, my cocktail back-story

I first encountered Single de Samalens in 2011 at a well-oiled wine and spirits trade fair in Paris. It’s produced in the Bas-Armagnac zone of the Gascony region of southwest France. It’s not Armagnac brandy but rather an attempt by a large Armagnac producer to find additional use for its grapes and its stills.

Single was launched in 2010 and is marketed as a would-be whiskey-like spirit though made from grapes. The brand name points to the use of a single grape varietal, the ugni blanc (white), which is one of four main varietals that can go into Armagnac, and underscores the attempt to position this as an alternative to single malt whiskeys.

I brought home some of their test-tube tasters and invited a whiskey-drinking buddy over to try them. We tried the three available Singles, aged 8, 12 and 15 years:

Aged 8 years: 80% double distillation*, 20% continuous distillation. While I wouldn’t otherwise associate this with whiskey because it’s clearly grape-based, lightly floral and fruity, it can evoke certain adolescent whiskeys. It’s no competition for an average single malt, especially by itself, but it’s affable enough with ice or better yet in a cocktail, such as Stéphane Ginouves’s above. Of the three tried here, this was my co-testers preferred because he enjoyed its comparison with whiskey.

Aged 12 years: 50% double distillation, 50% continuous distillation. Clearly more of a brandy (i.e. Armagnac) than the 8-year Single and even edging toward a port with tastes of fig and plum, I found it pleasantly complex and with adequately long finish and so preferred this over the others.

Aged 15 years: 50% double distillation, 50% continuous distillation. The additional three years hasn’t added anything other than wood, while taking away some of the dried fruit. We both found it a bit leathery.

I suspect that these were early batches, which would explain the lack of appeal of the oldest product, so it might be worthwhile to revisit the subject in a few years.  For the time being it’s an entertaining concept spirit that I wouldn’t run out to buy but that I enjoyed discovering.

* Note: By contrast with the process used for this product, Armagnac is produced though a single continuous distillation process of any of four main grape varietals including the ugni blanc grape used here. Cognac is produced through a double distillation process of any of three main grape varietals, also including ugni blanc. Armagnac and cognac are both brandies but result from other differences including soil, weather, grapes, and types of oak in which they are aged.

** Samalens is a producer of Armagnac (specifically, Bas-Armagnac) that has belonged to the Samalens family since 1882. It is based in Laujuzan, 100 miles south of Bordeaux in the department of Gers.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

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