Medieval and Roman Paris

Our newest wine walk recounting the role wine has played in shaping the city

JAN 16

Announcing the latest in our line of wine focussed wine walks, recounting the real history of Paris. Like a glass of wine, the experience of savouring what remains of Medieval and Roman Paris is brief, but the spiritual connection can still be felt. Wine built Paris and this can still be seen in the mystical elements of Medieval architecture, the pace of which was deliberate, reflective, celebratory, and devotional.

Île de la Cité before Haussmann

What followed after with the destruction of most of medieval Paris by Haussmann and his vandals was undoubtedly fuelled by coffee and snifters of brandy. On the bright side, it is true he did also bring clean water, sewers, and broad, gaslit avenues by demolishing most of the crooked, narrow lanes lined with ancient houses, mansions, taverns, chapels, and churches - everything that constitutes urban existence - that were also torn down. The rich were soon accommodated in bourgeois Haussmannian apartments, while the poor were disenfranchised, relocated to the city’s poorest neighbourhoods to the North and the East.

It would not be an understatement to suggest that a week would still not be enough to truly unravel the history of Notre Dame de Paris alone. To offer a tour of Medieval and Roman Paris in under two hours is therefore cursory, brief, and superficial at best. And yet, such a comprehensive overview as this tour offers allows one to piece together an image of the Paris that was, and still is.

Notre Dame de Paris today

The focus of this walk is still the wine history of Paris and its hidden vineyards, but without the tastings (other than one celebratory glass at the end). It is therefore ideal for families and children, or those who don't want to mix wine with their walking. This is not an intentional concession to ‘Dry January’ (we still include a glass of wine at the end for those inclined), as the tour will be offered throughout the year, but it is certainly suitable for the abstemious and those who are not yet of age as well.

Starting at the epicentre of the city on the Île de la Cité and Notre Dame, we learn the real beginning of the gothic style and how wine built and restored Notre Dame. The vineyard history of Paris is vast. An example is the forgotten Clos de Laas, one of the largest 'city' vineyards that belonged to the Abbaye Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which once flourished along the banks of the Seine from Saint-Michel to the rue Dauphine.

From our start on the Île de la Cité, we wend our ways through the winding streets of the Latin Quarter past the Square Viviani and the oldest tree in Paris, Saint-Julien le Pauvre, Saint-Severin, and the Roman Baths at the Hotel Cluny. We carry on past La Sorbonne, saying hello to Michel de Montaigne on the way, to the College de France, the Passage du Clos Bruneau (another notable vineyard) and the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, to Saint-Etienne du Mont and the Pantheon.

Medieval and Roman Paris

We pass the vestige of the Philippe Auguste wall and continue along the rue Déscartes to the rue Mouffetard and the Place de la Contrescarpe, evoking the literary history of the quarter, along with its popularity as a meeting place for revellers and its extensive and uninterrupted presence of taverns, bars and cafés, which have been serving wine since the middle ages. Vineyards covered the hillsides of the ‘Montagne’ for centuries, providing an immediate source of cheap, local wine.

“Dubito, cogito, ergo sum - I doubt, I think, therefore I am” is what Déscartes, who lived on the nearby rue Rollin, really said. There is no doubt though that ‘bibo, ergo sum’ is a more certain way of proving one’s existence, because when one drinks, there is a very physical result that we must drain from our bladders.

This rather unusual road, ending in a staircase, takes us to our final stop at Les Arenes de Lutece, Paris’ Roman Arena, representing nearly 2000 years of history. This most ancient of Parisian historical monuments was built around the year 50. The Roman arena, unearthed and rediscovered in the 19th century during construction of the Place Monge Metro, was also the location of a medieval vineyard, first cited in the 7th century. Today, the sloping banks of the arena, once occupied with seating but since its restoration simply covered in grass, offer the perfect pitch for vines. In February 2020 these slopes were planted to vines, making them one of the most recent additions to the vineyards of Paris.

Our tour and overview of Medieval and Roman Paris ends here with a celebratory glass of wine, or juice for the abstinent. You can find out more about this most recent addition to our roster on our webpage. Bookings are open and at a cost of only 45€ per person, eminently affordable as well. Santé!

My book, ‘The Hidden Vineyards of Paris’ (reviewed in Jancis Robinson’s wine blog, the Wine Economist, National Geographic Traveler UK, UK Telegraph) is available for purchase via our website and at anglophone bookshops and wine shops in Paris. You can also find it at the Musée de Montmartre and the Librairie Gourmande.