On a cold, sunny January morning, I arrive at Oyster Membership, a relaxed restaurant in Paris’ Marais neighborhood, only a brief stroll from the Seine. Town remains to be waking up and contained in the restaurant, the one sounds are the purr and rattle of the espresso machine. Daylight streams in by way of the big, street-facing home windows and spills over the wood bar. The decor is rustic-nautical, with reclaimed wood tables and porthole mirrors adorning the partitions. Mollusks from Brittany and Normandy are the home specialty.
It’s a shade earlier than 10 within the morning when Adèle Grunberger and Tanguy Thomassin, the younger proprietors, supply me a huître. Thomassin speedily shucks then palms me a single shivering oyster. “It’s a must to eat the adductor muscle,” he says. “Lots of people go away that behind.” I do as informed and my mouth salivates immediately, flooded with the style of the ocean. If solely it weren’t too early for a sip of chilly wine to go along with. Because it occurs, that’s what we’re there to speak about: the very best wines to pair with uncooked, briny oysters.
Based on an age-old rule of thumb, oyster season runs from September by way of April, additionally known as the “R months.” Abstaining from oysters throughout the summer time months is partly a copy situation; the annual spawning interval renders oysters “laiteuse,” or full of a milky liquid, giving them a creamier mouth really feel that most individuals—round 80 percent of consumers, according to some counts—don’t like. (Although I ought to word, some, together with my mother-in-law, relish their oysters laiteuse.) It was additionally a refrigeration situation. Based on Thomassin, coastal places apart, oysters needed to be transported lengthy distances by horse-and-carriage, sans cooler. You possibly can think about why it turned commonplace to keep away from such a positive delicacy throughout the canine days of summer time.
As of late, yow will discover good oysters year-round. “The height copy interval normally lasts lower than a month,” says Thomassin, and to regulate for that window of time, Oyster Membership sources from a number of producers to keep away from serving laiteuse varieties.
When contemplating the oyster, sure taste profiles come to thoughts: briny, creamy, metallic. On their very own, the species might or will not be an aphrodisiac, however washed down with the proper wine, it’s laborious to argue with the truth that they make you are feeling a sure approach. The basic French pairing, in response to Grunberger and Thomassin, is Muscadet from the Loire Valley. Produced from the Melon de Bourgogne grape, Muscadet has excessive acidity, a contact of salinity—which performs significantly effectively off the oyster’s brininess—and attribute mineral notes. “Our shoppers love minerality with oysters,” Grunberger tells me.
Wines made with the chenin blanc grape, which additionally has excessive acidity, are by no means a nasty thought. Considered one of Grunberger and Thomassin’s favorites embody a Savennières from Domaine des Forges. The dry white from the Loire River’s north financial institution is cultivated on schist soils lined with aeolian sands, which impart a deep, oyster-friendly minerality. Thomassin palms me a bottle of an natural chenin blanc from a family-run winery in Chinon, Domaine de la Marinière; after I style it later, it’s tannic and dynamic, with shiny acidity that calls out for shellfish.
One other attribute Thomassin suggests shoppers take into accout is alcohol stage. “We attempt to serve gentle wines as a result of the oyster is so refined,” he says. “An excessive amount of alcohol will dominate the flavour and go away no room for the oyster.”
Oyster Membership additionally recommends dry Champagne or any related glowing wines. Cremant from the Jura or Loire Valley, for instance, enhances oysters’ salty-sweet “noisette” taste. Once I counsel that the increasingly trendy pét-nat may maintain its personal, each Grunberger and Thomassin agree, particularly in the event you’re after a wine with a gentler effervescence, as pure fermentation tends to provide softer bubbles. Grunberger additional means that an edgy orange wine—with pithy citrus notes and a tinge of bitterness—also can present an fascinating counterbalance to the oyster’s brininess. Considered one of her favorites is Orange Is The New White, a skin-contact pét-nat from André Kleinknecht in Alsace.
Winemakers, after all, have their very own methods for pairing with oysters. Based on Marianne Fabre-Lanvin, co-founder of Souleil, a brand new natural wine firm from southern France, terroir will also be your information. Like long-lost siblings, wine and oysters produced in the identical area have an plain correspondence.
“For our white wine, we use a grape known as piquepoul,” Fabre-Lanvin tells me. “It’s indigenous to a particular space within the South of France and has a uncommon salinity as a result of the soil will get a variety of salted water from a close-by lagoon and the Mediterranean. Loved collectively, each the wine and oysters are particularly refreshing.”
That stated, whereas terroir could be a information, Fabre-Lanvin doesn’t really feel it must be a limitation. “I had oysters with a good friend in New York the opposite night time,” she says. “We paired Lengthy Island oysters with Souleil’s white and it was good.”
An oyster aficionado raised within the South of France, you may say Fabre-Lanvin and her enterprise companion, Thomas Delaude, developed their white wine with a plate of uncooked oysters in thoughts—I can attest, the mix makes for a chic apéro. In actual fact, the pair are so keen about aquatic creatures that Souleil immediately helps nonprofits that defend them. Mentioned Marianne, “Thomas and I grew up subsequent to the Mediterranean, so we launched our firm to assist shine a lightweight on nonprofits that target ocean preservation. Our group participates of their clean-up occasions, and we rally our buddies to make a better impression.”
Made largely with grenache, Souleil’s rosé additionally makes a positive match for oysters. “It’s an indulgent pairing, particularly in hotter months,” Fabre-Lanvin explains. “They’re each lush and gourmand.” Dry rosé usually goes effectively with oysters, she provides, as long as it’s well-chilled, in order that the fruit notes don’t overpower the seafood. “But it surely shouldn’t be too chilly both,” she warns. 50 to 55 levels Fahrenheit is an effective goal.
Impressed by these conversations, I later determine to journey to Cancale, a small city in Brittany identified for its oyster market. Oyster Membership sources a few of their oysters right here, as did Louis XIV—rumor has it he had the city’s contemporary mollusks delivered to Versailles every day. The market is perched alongside the Mont Saint-Michel bay, overlooking rows of oyster beds. Seagulls swoop for emptied shells discarded like shrapnel beside the plankton-filled water.
Along with my husband, Guillaume, and my daughter, Mimi, we peruse the handful of blue-and-white-striped stalls, every providing a collection of oysters for as little as 5 euros a dozen. We select a vendor—a girl sporting the native uniform of puffer jacket and rubber wellies—then idle whereas she shucks as effortlessly as one may butter a toasted bagel. Close by, just a few folks stand in line by a wine truck promoting chilly bottles of Muscadet and Sancerre, the din of the market often punctuated by the pop of one other bottle being uncorked.
With our plate of oysters, adorned by a single halved lemon, we sit on the stone steps between the market and the bay. I cross Guillaume the chilly cremant stashed in my tote bag. He offers it some muscle, and pop, our drinks are prepared. Mimi stomps on piles of empty shells, proof of many a glad buyer, as Guillaume and I toss again the briny, faintly nutty oysters—adductor muscle and all—and sip the intense and minerally glowing wine. It’s as positive a pairing as nature might have created. We polish off a dozen in minutes, together with our wine, and a hazy contentment settles over me.
