Take me home

Paris calling. In the line of duty, I'm arriving with the late friday night plane and go straight to Verre Volé, where Cyril and his staff is hitting the roof and is throwing wine and food over the zink at an incredibly speed. A table for one? No. Perhaps a little later? Oh no, then the third seating will be coming in. But.. well, just a moment and with a wrinkle of a wand, a shelf that can be drawn from the wall and normally is used for cutting bread, is dusted, an old, rocking folding chair is found from the secrets - et volià: A table for un.

One has to lean a little forward, when waiters are going to the cellar, and take good care so that the folding chair is not using it's abilities for getting folded, but then the location is perfect; good food, good wine and a fabolous view to one of Paris' busy bistros. The room os meant for 14-16 eating guests or so, and the walls all the way around is full of wine bottles; just have a look around and decide. A large blackboard with todays - surprisingly many - dishes is carried around and squezzed inbetween tables. There's 28 guests not counting myself, and if it wasn't for the fact that three or four of theme were continuesely out on the street smoking, it would hardly be possible to serve plates and wine to the diminuitive tables.

Ahh. I'm leaning back a little, loosening up, but having second thoughts just in time not to let the chair show its full potential for deconstruction and smash me to the floor. So I'm sitting straight up again, sniffing in a glass of Allez Goutons from Dominique Derain; finally home. Always at home in Paris.

Copenhagen was april with some disastrous mixture of rain and snow and a cacophony of the colour grey; Paris is mild and open, and Cyril is arriving with large, and beautiful green asparagues with a vinaigrette, a bit of ibericoham and a glass of Melonix from Jo Landron. Fundamentally one goes to Verre Volé for the wine - a bit absurd as you're not aloud to drink without eating at the place - but the food is - again and again - striking me with wonder; always good and sometimes extraordinairy. The kitchen at Verre Volé is basically two large salamanders (it's an advanced toaster), an electric kettle and a electric pressurecookinglike thing mainly used for boiling potatoes in, which is then mashed and kept warm in the very same apparatus. Salades are mixed in the cellar, which is a temperaturecontrolled room just behind the bar, where many plates are made ready aswell. Sausages, caillette, parmentier and even rôtie de porc is prepared in the salamander. It's simple dishes, but of good raw materials and quite often that's exactly what one needs. Toulouse sausage with mashed potatoes and frissé salade; not too difficult, eh? In this moment of writing Verre Volé has been renovated, but as far as it's known kitchen equipment and style hasn't change at all.

Verre Volé is an important spot for natural wines and has for years, with a handful of other places - as Baratin in the 20. - been the leading spots for the Vins Nature-avantgarde. With it's location in the 10. arrondisement Verre Volé is not on Main Street for the tourists, but little by little the nerds and geeks of wine, has found the way out here. With a vigorous mixture of young parisians, who needs to be going out to eat and drink, but not necessarily has heaps of cash to do it with. Here you'll find natural wines from all outposts of France; strange winegrowers and strange wines, but all with life and a mission in the world. Not just to please, but to challenge, restaurate and intoxicate its audiance.

Salad of lentils with porkroast and a glass of Pineau d'Aunis from Puzelat. Third seating is on the go and Cyril explains that I can join a table with some friends of his, winegroowers from down south, but on the way from my breadstation and the three meters to the cornertable I'm trapped by the fourth seating, a handful of people from restaurants and a bottle of a very musically Anjou - Initial BB from Agnès and René Mosse - so it takes some hours, befor I reach the table with Cyrils friends. At this rather developed hour, Verre Volé is long sinced closed for the night and the shutters are down, but the wines is still floating and everytime someone is trying to escape, there's an unmistakenly sound of a cork leaving a bottleneck, and Cyril is arriving with a blind wine and large smile (occasionally with a large wine and blind smile; not that the difference matters too much). As the nightcap we're having 2004 Les Chênes from Vincent Laval and it makes the walk through the Paris night to some friends appartement both chalky and almost levitating.

Three hours later at a sofa bed in the tiny Paris flat of my friends, the appartements youngest participant (4yo César) is crawling underneath the matress to shoot mice with his bow and arrow (!). But it's Paris outside the windows. And a new tasting is waiting. Luckily you never get hangovers drinking natural wines. or.