La Petite Chinoise : LPC

I had read somewhere that a telltale sign of early alcoholism is early morning drinking… It only struck me one morning, when I was on my last sip of the rosé that I was drinking a glass of rosé at 10am on a Sunday morning. Eeeks! This has been going on for 6 months. When I mentioned it to a girlfriend, she merely shrugged her shoulders… Mais, c’est normale! You’ve just finished shopping for the whole week at the marché. But of course you’re parched! Eh come on, it’s only a rosé. Not hard liquor. Don’t be paranoid!

It definitely helps that I am not the only person having a rosé, a blanc, a muscat or a nice red at 10am on a Sunday morning. When I arrive at Le Baron Bouge, my natural stop after shopping at the Marché d'Aligre, there’s usually a crowd. Yup, all parched people.

While I am still sober, I head to the barrels on the left by the entrance and get my week’s fill of table wine. There are usually 5 to 6 barrels of wine: Merlot d’Arpège (EUR2.80/bottle), Touraine Blanc (EUR3.20/ bottle), Côte de Rhone (EUR4/bottle). The barrels of wine are hooked up to even bigger barrels in the cave (basement). There is about 600 litres of wine in the basement. Doesn’t 600 litres seem like a lot of alcohol?? When supply runs low, huge trucks, the size of oil trucks, only they are filled with wine, park outside Le Baron Bouge and fill the basement up. Deliveries usually happen on Tuesdays. Must be quite a sight!

Le Baron Bouge is a typical Parisian bar à vin (wine bar). It has a zinc bar and the wines are handwritten in chalk boards. It serves all kinds of wine at very reasonable prices. A glass of red can cost anything from EUR2.50 to EUR10, a 30-40% below restaurants. The prices are kept low, because the bar à vin get the wine in bulk, and so are able to offer lower prices. The typical Parisian bar à vin also serves finger foods like slices of parma ham, prosciotto, rillets, cornichons (little gherkins), cubes of emmental cheese… In the wintertime, you can feast on oysters.

Le Baron Bouge opened doors in 1979 as Le Baron Rouge, named after the “ace of aces” fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen (1892-1918). History tells that Richthofen took intensive flying lessons for 24 hours and became a fighter pilot thereafter. He was credited with shooting down 80 Allies planes and was feared by all. Richthofen was called “Le petit rouge” (the little Red), “Le Diable Rouge (the red devil) by the French, “el Barón rojo” by the Spanish, “der Rote Baron” by the Germans. They came to call him the Red Baron after he had painted his entire fighter plane in bright red. It was hard for ground control to identify his plane, so Richthofen decided to help them. The red plane of course also became an easy target for the enemy planes. But no plane was able to bring down this “novice” fighter pilot. Richthofen met his maker when he was shot by a single bullet from an anti-aircraft gunner from behind and below, which passed diagonally through his chest. And even then, Richthofen was able to land his plane in a nearby field.

Le Baron Rouge bar à vin changed its name when some member of the public threatened to sue the wine bar for illegally using the title. The signboard is still the original, only with an extra stroke of paint… now, meaning the Baron moves.

Le Baron Bouge
1 rue Théophile Roussel
75012, Paris
Tel : 01 43 43 14 32
Métro : Ledru Rollin, Bastille