Over a decade ago when my husband and I were in Paris I suggested trying a wine tasting evening course I had read about in one of our hotel magazines.
We embarked in a taxi to an area just outside of Paris where I was just starting to get anxious on where we were being taken - and we had arrived. With a bit of effort we found ourselves comfortably sitting at a long table in a super cool loft with a fun group of people hosted by the wonderfully charismatic, charming, easy on the eyes and downright funny Olivier Magny. Not only did we learn about french wine regions and terroir, we also had an amazing and entertaining evening. Truly lovely and memorable.
In the time since then, Olivier has been very very busy. You know, important things like establishing himself as a top French Wine Expert, becoming an entrepreneur (opening O'Chateau wine bar) and also becoming a best selling author, twice so far. Knowing him, this is just the beginning.
I highly recommend his two wonderful books: Stuff Parisians Like (a highly amusing, intelligent, witty international best-seller) and Into Wine, (a good book where even a jaded wine connoisseur will learn something new). Olivier also hosts a wine travel TV show and is a frequent global guest speaker, generously sharing his french wine knowledge.
O'Chateau is a fabulous wine bar, located conveniently in central Paris a couple blocks directly behind the Louvre Museum. Only celebrating it's two year anniversary, it is already an established landmark in Paris for wine lovers. Impressively it has also grown to become France's #1 wine school as well as the largest wine bar in Paris. The team has taught over 100,000 students from all over the world about wine.
It's the perfectly lovely yet cozy wine bar with an excellent wine list, top notch servers who will explain anything you want to know, a robust selection of tasty noshing (cheese, please!) as well as bookable wine dinner tasting courses where you can both imbibe and learn something. Also separately available by booking online are evening champagne tasting boat cruises on the river Seine and even small group day trips to Champagne. The last time I was in Paris I stopped by twice for the exceptional wine selection and a light dinner. Worth it! To learn more http://www.o-chateau.com