If the art of pairing food and wine is now part of gastronomic practice and French savoir-vivre, it wasn’t always so. It was not until the 19th century that these elective agreements were formalized.
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The choice of such a name is not insignificant, as you may have guessed. It refers to an illustrious past, while at the same time expressing the desire to ensure the renaissance of what was, in the 18th century, one of the largest vineyards in the Île-de-France region, covering 45,000 hectares. More than the current Burgundy vineyards.
La Bouche du Roi? What does that mean? Historical background.
“La Bouche du Roi”, “The King’s Mouth” in French, was the name of an office at the court of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV, builder of the Château de Versailles. This Office was responsible for supplying the table of the King and his family. It was also responsible for those of lower rank, apart from the King and the princes, «having mouth» at Versailles, that is to say who had the privilege of taking their meals there.
The wine was purchased under the responsibility of the so-called «Grand Maître de France». The solemnity of the title shows the importance attached to wine.
The Grand Master’s suppliers were merchants licensed by the King. Thanks to this exceptional status, they could travel freely in France, without paying all the duties of the time, and transport their wines to Versailles in complete safety. To give you an idea, the journey from Avignon to Versailles took 15 days.
In their task, these licensed merchants were assisted by “Gourmets”, i.e. professionals in the commercialization of fine wines who tasted the wines, guaranteed the origin indicated on the barrel (forerunners of the AOC) as well as their composition – single grape variety or blend – and vintage. Finally, they set the prices. In short, they were like sommeliers-négociants.
This guild disappeared with the Revolution of 1789, and the professional figure of the “Gourmet” fell into oblivion.
In France, the royal links with vineyards began very early, in the 9th century, with Charlemagne, a wine-loving king who had numerous vineyards planted from Spanish Catalonia to the Elbe valley around Dresden in Germany. And who had set the rules of aging in casks.Everyone knows François 1st for his friendship with Leonardo da Vinci and for the Château de Chambord he left behind. We know less about the role he played in Loire viticulture by planting the Romorantin grape variety at Cour-Cheverny, near Chambord, where dry white wines are still produced under the AOC Cheverny (532 hectares). Or by creating the vineyard of the castle of Chambord with grape varieties that he had imported from Cahors. Disappeared in the early 20th century, 5 hectares we are replanted in 2015. We will present it to you in a future post.
«Breakfast», Cornelis Mahu, 1638.
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Over the years, some great classic pairings have emerged, such as oysters with the minerality of a Chablis. A pairing already favoured by kings Henri IV and Louis XIV.
The period of the Revolution and then that of Napoleon have turned everything upside down. We moved from aristocratic cuisine to bourgeois cuisine. The “Service à la Française”, the French service, where all the different dishes of a service were placed on the table, disappeared in favour of the “Service à la Russe’ the Russian service, with the presentation of the dishes in sequences.
It was at this time that wines appeared on restaurant menus. The oldest one we have preserved, that of the restaurant Véry, at the Palais-Royal, dates from 1790.
However, the concern to conceptualize food and wine pairing is more recent. It was not until the 19th century, with the book of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, book “Physiologie du goût” published his in 1825. True pioneer in this field, he conceptualised these pairings with a clear objective: if the food can be passable, the wine must be good. And follow a long and patient gradation during the meal, the best nectar only appreciated at the end.
At this time, some actors were working to bring together the great champagne houses and gastronomy. Like Madame Veuve Clicquot, a pioneer in this field, who offered wines with lower doses that could be served at various times during a meal, where almost all arrangements are allowed, from the most subtle to the most intense.
But it was not until the early 20th century and the first wine reviews chronicles that food and wine pairing came closer to what we know today. With a rule dictated by Paul de Granier de Cassagnac in his 1927 book, “Les Vins de France”: « Let no wine make you regret the previous one ».
A few years later, the “Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin”, “Brotherhood of the Knights of Tastevin”, founded in 1934, introduced the practice of a menu in which each dish was paired with a great wine. It is no longer the wine that accompanies the dish, but the dish that enhances the wine. A staging of gastronomy at the service of wines that is invented with the annual Nuits-Saint-Georges meetings and then one of the Clos de Vougeot.
Today, we have entered the era of food pairing or the quest for the perfect match. An art at the heart of the French gastronomic meal, inscribed since 2010 on the UNESCO list of intangible heritage of humanity. Its aim is to create a symbiosis between the dish and the wine, to achieve a third dimension of taste.