Secret Wine Door Paris Wine Club

It’s been a crazy few months for my friends in the wine industry. (It’s been a crazy few months for wine drinkers, too… though we are much less affected than the producers and importers selling wine.) In case you missed it, the United States has tried to slap tariffs on all imports, including wine, over the last few months. I say tried because they keep changing what they are doing. Almost laughably, our government officials tried to say that we could just drink domestic and it would help the US winemakers. I say almost laughably because the proposed tariffs directly impact a lot of small wine producers and importers all over the world that we’ve come to know and love as friends… so it’s not actually funny at all.

Bad news for said US government officials: the products aren’t the same for me. They aren’t swappable in my mind. Putting tariffs on wine and champagne doesn’t mean I’ll buy domestic. There’s a difference in products that I (and others) appreciate and find important. And, as with any stupid policy, I like to find ways to resist however I can – and in this case, it means telling you about a French wine club run by our friend Erwan of Secret Wine Door in Paris. I happen to believe that isolationism is a terrible policy for a myriad of reasons, many of which eclipse my appreciation for French wine. That said, if you love affordable French wines and want to see more of it in your cellar, keep reading. Similarly, if you don’t agree, no one is forcing you to stick around or comment. 🙂

Disclosure:  This post contains affiliate links for tours and products I love at no additional cost to you.  You can read my full disclosure policy here.

French Wine Basics

To be clear, I am not an expert in French wine (or any wine). To date, I have not taken the WSET, though it’s been discussed in my house quite a bit. I have learned to enjoy trying wines from the different regions of France because of my experiences with Erwan at Secret Wine Door. I’m also comfortable navigating a French wine list at restaurants because of the knowledge he has shared. I have visited more Italian wineries than French wineries. I think it’s easier to get into Italian wineries, but I love learning from the French when they will have me!

If you’re relatively new to French wines, the first thing you need to know is that you have to know the region, not the grape. If you ask for a pinot noir in France, you may get a blank stare. However, if you order a red from Burgundy, you’ll get a pinot noir. There are so many regions and appellations to learn that navigating French wine can feel daunting. That’s why I LOVE Secret Wine Door (both the wine club and the tastings)! I’ve learned so much more than I ever thought I could about French wines. I don’t think I’ll ever know ever region or appellation, but I’m enjoying the experience of trying to learn them all!

Similar to Italy, there are a few wine classifications that might be helpful to know when you’re deciding to buy a French wine. What I love about Secret Wine Door is that they find wines within every classification throughout regions. It’s definitely taught me that you don’t have to look exclusively for AOC and Grand Cru wines to find good wines… and Erwan has done a great job of sorting through the noise to find a variety of French wines at a variety of price points.

Vin de France (VdF)

This is table wine and the broadest category of French wine. You’ll notice that it doesn’t have a vintage year on the bottle. These wines can come from anywhere in France. This will be your largest productions and the base of a pyramid, if you’re thinking about production by volume.

Vin de Pays (VdP)

VdP is a step up from VdT table wine and it comes from a designated area. You’ll find a specific region and vintage on the label. Vin de Pays don’t require strict production or ratios of grape varietals, so you may some creative wines within this classification. It would be most similar to IGT wines in Italy.

Vin d’Appellation d’Origine Controlée (AOC)

AOC wines are strictly regulated and come from a specific geographic area in France. The controls may include the types of grapes used what the percentage of grapes are required for certain blends. They may also include harvest techniques (hand vs. machine) or cultivation techniques. AOC wines may also be limited in the amount wine able to be produced. It would be most similar to DOC wines in Italy.

Grand Cru Wines

Grand Cru wines in France come from very specific appellations and are strictly regulated. These wines are very similar to the Italian DOCG wines. A step below Grand Cru are the Villages AOC and Premier Cru vintages. In general, you are more likely to find the Villages AOC on French wine lists.

About Secret Wine Door

If you’ve been reading anything related to traveling to Paris on my blog, you know that I’m constantly talking about Erwan’s French wine and cheese tasting experience. These small group cheese and wine tasting experiences is one of our favorite things to do in Paris. We schedule a tasting almost every single time we visit Paris, and if we don’t, we stop by to buy wine from Erwan.

Erwan is a sommelier who left his corporate job to pursue wine. He cultivates an experience dedicated to experiencing a variety of French wines, with a focus on high-quality small producers and great conversation. Secret Wine Door is located on a quiet street in the 15th arrondissement, not too far from the Eiffel Tower. It’s easily reached by metro or on foot.

This wine tasting is complemented by a variety of French cheeses that he expertly pairs with the wine. You’ll try a champagne, 2 white wines, and 3 red wines, all accompanied by water, cheese and endless baguette. When I say that Erwan opened France to us, I say it with complete sincerity. Through his classes, I have learned to venture beyond Comte cheese and Tom has learned to venture beyond popular Bordeaux wines. It’s also significantly influenced our travels through France, which I’ll discuss below.

SWD Wine Club

In a perfect world, I’m not writing this post to sell you on the idea of doing a wine tasting in Paris. (However, if you’re going to Paris, you should totally book a tasting with Erwan! Everyone I’ve sent to him has loved it.) Today I want to convince you to subscribe to the Secret Wine Door wine club if you’re looking to find some interesting French wines, support small wine producers that are still trying to export to the US, AND support the man who finds those wines for all of us! Let’s start by talking about the basics and the benefits of Secret Wine Door French wine club:

• 3 boxes per year (Spring, Summer, and Christmas) – 6 different bottles (if you opt for 12 bottles vs. the standard 6, you’ll receive 2 of each)
• 10% off additional wines purchased / ordered through Secret Wine Door
• Producer notes, wine information (region, grapes/blend %/aromas), and food & wine pairing suggestions (this is HUGE for me!)
• Flexibility to pause, skip or cancel subscription without penalty

If you aren’t convinced to join the wine club, I encourage you to try one of Erwan’s thoughtfully curated wine boxes. You’ll quickly find out (as we did!) that one of the best ways to learn more about French wine regions is to let Erwan choose your wines. It’s not uncommon for me to take our vin valise to his shop and ask for his recommendations to fill it up. Sometimes I’ll ask for our old favorites. And sometimes I’ll let him choose everything. We’re never disappointed.

(If only we could get a Secret Wine Door cheese club… why is French cheese so good and why isn’t the US taking on selling unpasteurized cheeses as a cause yet??)

About the Secret Wine Door Wines

I’m not going to give away all Erwan’s secrets… but I do want to talk about this idea that you can just walk into any shop in France, buy an 5€ bottle of wine, and expect it to be good. This has been a rumor that has circulated since I studied abroad in Italy, and it’s simply not true. Good wines at low price points are hard to source, and this is especially true in France. Erwan takes the guesswork out of finding good French wines at good price-to-quality ratios.

When we stayed in Saint Emilion for a few days last fall, we went to the community wine shop to buy a few bottles to try. Erwan’s recommendation for a Grand Cru Saint Emilion wine was their top recommendation. Not everyone is going to rent a car and drive to Saint Emilion, so you’re missing out if you don’t go see Erwan.

What’s in a Secret Wine Door Box?

Erwan finds small independent producers and brings them directly to you. Our most recent wine club box included two white wines (Savoie and Loire Valley) and four red wines (Burgundy, Rhone Valley, Southwest France, and Bordeaux). The most expensive bottle in the box was €32/bottle. The least expensive was €18/bottle. I promise you that I can’t buy the same quality of US white wine for $18/bottle. The Secret Wine Door prices are extraordinarily fair. (My sister-in-law, who had wine club memberships in California, decided to switch over to SWD after I sent her the cost differentials.)

Our Christmas box, which is notably a celebration box, included 2 champagnes (literally from champagne. Not sparkling wine…), a white Burgundy, and 3 red wines (Rhone Valley, Loire Valley, and Bordeaux). When we took the champagne to our community wine dinner (a notoriously difficult-to-please crowd, especially when it comes to champagne), it was a hit. Everyone was trying to find it in the US. US prices for the same bottle topped out at $90/bottle. Erwan’s champagne? €37/euro per bottle. Could I find a true French champagne in the US for the same price and of the same quality? Absolutely not.

The other thing I love about the wines Erwan find? They come from places we probably wouldn’t find or try at our local wine store in Dallas. How often have you come across a Corsican wine on a restaurant wine list outside of France? For me, that answer is probably less than once. What about a Jura wine? Or, a Beaujolais (not nouveau)? Secret Wine Door finds wines that we wouldn’t come across in our ordinary lives, and our palates are better for it! One evening, I sent a photo of this Vouvrey from the Loire Valley to my friend Eric in DC. He and his wife had opened the same bottle (different vintage) from their neighborhood wine store that same evening. After that text, I started to look for it in Texas, and it was nowhere to be found. If you have a great independent wine store in the US, thank them by continuing to purchase wines from them.

How Secret Wine Door Changed Our France Travels

If you’re lucky, you might travel to France once. You might travel to Paris once. (I don’t take the ability to travel lightly.) If you’re traveling with someone who doesn’t enjoy wine, you might never take a trip to Bordeaux or Burgundy, let alone the less popular wine regions in France. And, Bordeaux and Burgundy wines are super expensive if you don’t know much about them – or know where to find more cost-effective wines. (This was 100% us.) Because Erwan teaches you to appreciate the specific appellations of French wine, it’s easy to come up with ideas on where to travel in France beyond Paris. We love to see which wine regions Erwan recommends, and we build our France trips around his recommendations. We’ve been able to experience so much more of France because his enthusiasm for helping us better understand France geography and how it impacts wine (and cheese! And cuisine!).

Four Trips to Bordeaux

When we tried Erwan’s Saint Emilion Grand Cru, we knew we had to go to Bordeaux. We tried some great wines in Bordeaux through some great tastings, but we wouldn’t have been there without Erwan. Erwan helped us discover Pomerol and Margaux, both wines that seemed absurdly expensive without his help. (Sacree Fleur, one of my favorite steakhouses in Paris, introduced us to Fronsac, also in the Bordeaux region.) We went to Bordeaux 4 times in less than a year because we enjoyed it so much. Bordeaux is a quick train ride from Paris.

A Trip to Carcassonne

A trip to the Rhone Valley

Traveling along the Languedoc, we ended up in the Rhone Valley last summer. Before we traveled to Avignon, we basically only knew of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Through Erwan, we tried Vacqueyras, Cotes-du-Rhone (red and white), and, most recently, had a mind-blowing Lirac. Once again, I will point out that this is known to be a very expensive region for wine. But, if you have an expert who can source great wines from independent winemakers, you’ll probably find more than a few bottles and regions that you love more than the wines that have a great marketing budget and team. (There’s nothing wrong with either one of those things, but it does skew what we know about French wine in the US!) The wind in Avignon is no joke, but the Rhone Valley another place that I would really enjoy visiting again outside of summer. I really wish I had more time to travel in the fall, but I think winter in Avignon and Provence would be very nice. I haven’t been to Provence since I studied abroad… but we’ve had some Bandol wines that we really love in the last year.

A trip to Savoie

Okay, so Erwan’s wine selections didn’t have quite as much to do with why we took a trip to Annecy. HOWEVER, his cheese is part of why I wanted to go to Savoie. I LOVE Reblochon and the only reason I know about it is because of Erwan. (Also, I wanted to go to Annecy because it looked beautiful.) And, Annecy is beautiful, but OMG finding Savoie wines in Savoie was HARD. (I’m not even talking about good Savoie wines. I’m talking about ANY Savoie wines. The wine lists were very internationals.) When I told this to Erwan at the end of our trip, he sent me home with a few bottles to try (red and white), and I have a bottle in the cellar from the spring SWD club box! While this is not one of my favorite regions of France for wine (yet?), it’s fun to try new regions. Maybe, just maybe, I would go back to Annecy for Christmas markets. TBD, TBD. There are more places to go for now!

Two trips to Beaune and Burgundy

I feel so conflicted about our trip to Beaune. First of all, we would have never visited Burgundy without Erwan introducing us affordable wines from this area. Every single Burgundy that people bring out at wine dinner is stupid expensive. Few of them are worth it (in my mind). Visiting wineries in Burgundy is tough, and it often feel unnecessarily hard… though I understand why it’s hard. It’s just really different than visiting wineries in Italy and what I’m used to, and it requires a lot more advance planning than we typically do for our trips. We’ll see if we can get in this year with a little more planning.

HOWEVER, Beaune itself is quaint. It effortlessly combines the grand French architecture and the comfortable half-timbered architercture of Honfleur and Alsace. The food (read: snails. I LOVE escargot!) is AMAZING. It’s hard not to like Beaune because the food is so good. We went for the first time last summer, and we’ll be going back this year. Time will tell if we get to visit any wineries. If not, we’ll just buy more affordable Burgundy wines from Erwan. 🙂

Countless Trips to Alsace

In all truth, we started visiting Alsace before we met Erwan. Alsatian wines were the first white wines I ever enjoyed. (Our first trip to the Alsace was the last trip we took in 2020!) We shipped countless bottles of Alsatian wines to Paris before going back in 2022. However, Erwan has exposed us to new producers and older vintages of Alsatian wines that we probably would not have tried on our own. (We are creatures of habit – can you tell??) In our (limited) knowledge of wine, Alsatian wines are fresh and meant to be enjoyed immediately. Secret Wine Door has shown us that they do have some aging potential.

A trip to Reims and CHampagne

I have to be honest. I was not a sparkling wine or champagne drinker. I’m not even a champagne snob, I just don’t find bubbles I like very often. (Example: I was gifted a 2008 Dom Perignon for being in Time Magazine in 2021. It was good, but it wasn’t *that* good.) Erwan has helped me evolve. He find some really great bubbles. He also helped us understand the best use of time when visiting Champagne is not visiting the big champagne houses. It’s finding the smaller producers. He sent us to a small champagne bar in Reims, and we were able to do a tasting that helped us understand that not all champagnes taste the same. We were able to truly taste the difference in flavors. From there, we also visited Champagne Gardet and Francois helped us better understand the differences between the types of champagne.

While the jury is still out on whether we’ll go back to Reims this summer, we know we’ll be picking up some bubbles from Erwan because our wine community loves his champagnes. (I will say that it was such a treat to sit on our balcony at La Caserne Chanzy and watch the light change with a glass of champagne though…)

A Few Final Thoughts about Trusting Sommeliers

Wine is so intensely personal. I go back and forth about wine chatter on social media platforms. On one hand, I LOVE to see what people are drinking. It’s so fascinating to see what people think about different vintage years, food and wine pairings, and what they love. On the other hand, a lot of people have a lot of opinions about wine and folks who sell it, whether that is the vintner or the wine shop owner. I love meeting both people. Winemakers are fascinating to me – I love learning more about their creative process. It takes a special type of person who can adapt their taste to the external factors and create something that you (and I!) will drink and buy. What you like may not be what I like and that is okay. It takes all varietals.

Similarly, I’ve come across some truly incredible people who source wines very well. This is another gift and sometimes you’ll pay a premium for that ability. More often than not though, the people I’ve found that source wine well are genuinely excited to share what’s good. In March, we were visiting Montalcino, and despite having paid for a tasting of 6 wines, I think I counted 18 glasses on my table at the end of the tasting. It wasn’t that we were being upsold, it’s that the sommelier could tell I was into the vintage, and he wanted me to see all expressions of it. And, in the end, we bought a lot of different bottles than we would have at the start of the tasting.

Our relationship with Erwan and the wines at Secret Wine Door has evolved the same way. He knows what we like, and if I tell him to choose wines for me, he will make his best recommendations based on what he thinks I’ll like or what he thinks is interesting. This has opened up so many more wines to us. If I listened to the loudest people in the wine field, I would have missed some truly great wines.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people think they know better than professionals. I live in a country where profit is prized over almost all else, so I understand why that happens. There is also more access to information than there ever has been. Again, I understand how it happens. However, I’ve been so pleasantly surprised when I let people do what they are good at and share that knowledge with me. Secret Wine Door is one of those places where that magic can happen. (It also happens with Paul, the head sommelier at Fearing’s at the Ritz Carlton Dallas… and Matteo and Francesco at Le George Paris)

If I can leave you with one piece of advice (beyond joining the SWD wine club), I would say to let go of what you believe to be true and trust the professionals to guide you towards something unexpectedly wonderful. Your life and experience may be far more rich for it.