You can start complacently thinking that France is not where it’s all at, and drink good shit like Sadie or Alheit with satisfaction, and watch intense, dark, complicated Danish TV, and quite forget about la belle France…
And then you stumble across Braquo, a really brilliant French TV series, and episode 5 of the first series brings it all together for the wine-lover, and you get your values straight again. France pulls it off once more. I couldn’t possibly give the detail – suffice it to say in general that this series is all about rogue cops with hearts of gold (well, mixed with iron) beneath and within all the corruption of a whole society, including the police force. In this episode chief rogue cop Eddy Caplan rescues a comrade rogue cop from dreadful torture (he’s a gambler owing money to some pretty serious villains, but loves his children dearly – ok, it’s not without sentimentality, this most gritty of TV dramas, fortunately, but it’s basically pretty tough stuff).
Eddy takes the battered, tortured guy back to his houseboat for a clean-up and a bit of grub. We don’t see exactly what they eat, but the celebratory drink is clearly specified as a good Bordeaux: Chateau Lynch-Bages 1995. Rough, tough Eddy (that’s him pouring it for his buddy in the pic) has been saving it for the right occasion. Who’d have thought? And who could not cheer!
Eddy even has rather smart glasses to drink from. Strangely enough, they’re clearly designed for burgundy rather than bordeaux. But I think we can forgive him that minor faux pas. Au moins, grace à Dieu, they didn’t celebrate with whisky. In France, sadly, anything is possible these days – but, hey, let’s celebrate when they do it right.