A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to one of Le Foodist‘s Daring Pairing events. Le Foodist provides a variety of different events where people from or visiting Paris can experience culture through food. Whether it be for a dinner, a wine and cheese pairing, or a tea time history of sweets, you’ll be able to take a big bite into French culture.

This particular evening, on a cozy péniche right under the Notre Dame on Quai Montebello, we participated in Daring Pairings. It was chilly and snow was falling, and it was the perfect setting for a mysterious undertaking of pairing with two of France’s most prided things: wine and cheese. The creator of Le Foodist, Fred, immediately greeted us as we entered Bateau Daphné with our chilled rosy red cheeks. As soon as we walked into the boat, the covered bottles and empty wine glasses awaited us: this was going to be good.

A lovely sommelier, Stéphane Bonnerot, so full of energy and passion, introduced 4 wines to us, explaining to us how to properly taste them and notice each of their particularities: we shook the glasses to see the marks that would fall from the glass, we sniffed them to see what aromas we could guess, we observed the color of reds in front of a white piece of paper. All that good stuff.

Once we made all of the visual observations, we tasted the wine in a few different ways, seeing if we could decipher the dryness and sweetness. All of these traits made for a fun guessing game of where the wine came from in France. Stéphane tied in the history behind the wines and the differences that various regions and grapes provide. This helped us to guess the perfect cheese to pair with each of the four wines tasted.

By the end of the evening I had a wealth of new knowledge and I was anxious to impress my Frenchman of a boyfriend with my knew cheese and wine pairing skills. Not kidding. I now can bluntly state that I never would I ever serve a comté with a white wine! Bien sûr!

It was a night filled with laughter, mystery and passion. People of all ages and all nationalities came together around one fusion of a love: French wine and cheese. The whole night I kept thinking about how fun my mom would have at an event like this, while visiting Paris. What a wonderful and unique way to meet people.

And after a toast of bubbly in the winter chills under the lit up Notre Dame and the reflections of lights on the Seine (yes, Stéphane did indeed teach some people how to open a bottle of champagne with a sabor), we wandered back home in the snowy snowy Parisian night.

For more information on what Le Foodist has to offer as well as their calendar and prices for these diverse and magical events, you can check out their website and their Facebook page. The events happen several times per month but still fill up, so it’s advised it to reserve in advanced for your visit to Paris.

If you’re interested in their Once Upon A Table dinner experience, be sure to check out this lovely post on the HiP Paris Blog.

A special thanks to Fred and Stéphane for their vigor and energy.