Category Archives: Port Folio Magazine

Whither Virginia Beach?

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FOR PORT FOLIO MAGAZINE
THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1999
BY ALEX MARSHALL

Virginia Beach. The promised land.

It glistens in the sun, a shimmering mecca of backyards, beaches, prosperity and space. A wide open terrain where schools are good and crime is low, a destination, a place to start a life or fulfill one.

It still has that reputation to many, even as the city enters its 37th year and faces trend lines that dispute much of what I just said.

But looking out over the city’s many square miles, that easy optimistic view still has the ring of truth. You see the old grid of streets and homes on the North End, basking in the ocean air and sun, with their gentle, Nantucket-like charm. You see the prosperous resort, hauling in the bucks even while it nicely segregates its often tacky guests and attractions. You see Bob Dylan boogieing at the amphitheater, and kids bowling and swimming at recreation centers that resemble public country clubs. You see Kempsville, a land easy to make fun of as epitomizing suburban vapidity, but fundamentally a place where Filipinos, African-Americans, whites, Jews and Gentiles can all make a life.

But focus the telescope on different places, and you see a different city and future. In this view, you see simple suburban ranch houses around Green Run, Lynnhaven, Hilltop, Bayside and Princess Anne Plaza, their paint fading, the vinyl siding getting moldy, the homeowners converting to renters, and the property values flat or in decline. You see more people leaving the city then moving into it. You see neighborhoods resembling those of Los Angeles, in that they are purely suburban, yet problem ridden and dangerous. You see places where the mother will not walk half-block to the 7-Eleven by herself after dark for fear of being robbed. You see areas where kids with little adult supervision roam across yards, parking lots and roads like marauding tribes. You see a city that is very much part of a region where incomes lag well behind the national average.

Where is Virginia Beach going? The city is on the cusp, at the point of either heading down hill or working out some new trajectory that will keep it, and perhaps the region, a nice place to live.

For most of its life, the city’s biggest appeal has been what it is not: It was not Norfolk, with its declining schools, racial problems, high crime and sagging tax base. Not Portsmouth or Newport News.

The era of Virginia Beach exceptionalism is ending. It has roughly 440,000 people — roughly equal to Norfolk and Chesapeake put together. About 40 percent of the population of the Southside. There is no way something that big can be vastly different than the average.

Virginia Beach used to be richer and whiter than the rest of the region. It is much less so now.

“It used to be different, from demographic to social to economic,” said one planner. “But because it has matured, it has become more like the regional whole.”

It is still the same old Virginia Beach in one respect: It is a gigantic bedroom community, something city leaders loathe to admit. Of the 213,000 Virginia Beach residents who work, almost 100,000 do so outside city borders, according to stats from the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission.

This is a huge number. It’s even bigger in significance when you realize that these people are mostly traveling to the Naval Base, to downtown, to the shipyards in Portsmouth — jobs that drive the rest of economy. These jobs bring in money from outside that can be then spent on lawyers, doctors, newspapers, department stores, homes and all the other commercial and business activity. Without them, the rest of us are out of luck.

What this means is that Virginia Beach is still largely dependent on events outside its own borders. It’s only independent tax base is the resort, which is a good one, but not enough to support 400,000 people.

Virginia Beach’s future is deeply linked with the rest of the region. Even if the city attempts to “go it alone,” it will have deep implications for its neighbors.

As we approach 2000, I see Virginia Beach juggling a collection of political factions, any of which might manage to grab the wheel of the city and steer for awhile: Anti-tax folks. Pro-sprawlers. Light rail advocates. Regionalists. Go-it-aloners.

Here are a few possible futures for Virginia Beach, my hometown.

“REZONINGS FOR YOUR FRIENDS.”

Dean Block, the resident sage of city hall as well as the director of the city’s office of management and budget, once wrote a history of Virginia Beach that packaged its trajectory into four distinct epochs.

1968 to 1985 was probably the most interesting. This was the era where Virginia Beach grew by several hundred thousand people, often without rhyme or reason. The city’s leadership in that era, Block said, made a deal with voters. “The politicians promised to keep taxes artificially low, if in exchange they would be allowed rezone property for their friends,” Block said.

During this era, the city leaped across Rudee Inlet Bridge, across Holland Road and down to the edge of the municipal center. It left the city with a huge hangover — which voters sought to correct when they elected several anti-growth council members in 1986 that shifted the balance on council.

Starting with that council, the city started playing catch-up — and largely succeeded. Voters approved bond referendums to widen roads, build schools, libraries and recreation centers. The council tastefully renovated the resort strip. The council held the Green Line, and passed the agricultural reserve program, which helps preserve land for farming.

That era, Block said, ended about a few years ago. Now, the city is working out a new trajectory, a path to the future, a path of maturity. Several options exist for this future.

Although Block didn’t say it, one that looms is a return to “rezonings for your friends.” In the past few months, the city staff and council have backed a series of actions that signal the city, armed with Lake Gaston water, may resume fierce outward growth. The council approved the extension of Ferrell Parkway down to Sandbridge, despite environmental objections. City staff considered, and then backed off, from recommending removing the agricultural reserve program from “the transition era,” the land north of Indian River road that many developers are eyeing.

The city has recently elected two council members that are much more friendly to outward residential development, Margaret Eure and Don Weeks. Both recently attended a meeting of rural land owners and developers seeking to develop more property and depose Councilwoman Barbara Henley, whose priority has been protecting farmland.

This could be bad news for the city. More outward growth would eat up farm land, incur more infrastructure costs, make traffic worse by extending sprawl, and push housing values down within the rest of the city. Of course, it would also make a few developers and property owners a lot of money, so we know the vote will be close.

INWARD, NOT OUTWARD.

Contrasting to a return to outward growth is a coalition of sorts, an interesting combination of environmentalists and business leaders, that advocate growing inward. They are also generally the same ones talking about greater regionalism.

Under this path, the city commits money to the light rail system. It not only holds the Green Line, but works for regional growth control. It starts spending its infrastructure dollars where most of the people live, on new sidewalks, parks and other amenities, rather than on new roads and sewers out in Sandbridge and around the courthouse. It starts filling in some of the blank spaces that sit beside perfectly good highways already built. At last estimate, almost 10,000 acres of developed land sat above the city’s Green Line.

Michael Barrett, a city and regional business leader, said growing inward is why the light rail line is such a key question.

“Light rail makes the city look at itself and figure out who it wants to become,” Barrett said. In Barrett’s view, not much opportunity is left for development outward.

“Future development may mean redevelopment,” Barrett said. Light rail would help develop Pembroke, Lynnhaven and the resort into much richer, denser and higher tax-paying areas. He sees “nodes of development” that would pay more taxes and allow for different life styles at the beach.

Such a community, said Jan Eliassen, who recently stepped down from the Planning Commission, would fit with the city’s vision of a place where everyone could live.

“We don’t have as many different communities as the different communities need, from college graduates to empty nesters,” Eliassen said. “The kind of community we ought to design is a place where some of people can walk to work, some can walk to school, some can walk to shopping, and all of them can walk to reliable public transportation.”

The different communities plan would help balance the city’s largely monochromatic lifestyle choice. Some people love Virginia Beach but others hate it.

Andres Duany, the sharp-tongued New Urbanist architect, shocked Virginia Beach leaders a few years back when he called the city “a laboratory of failure for the East Coast.” When people told friends they were moving to Virginia Beach, the immediate response was “Oh, that’s too bad,” Duany said.

The city has never liked admitting this. But for many people, Virginia Beach is the last place on earth they would live. Developing some different types of communities would help change this.

LEAN AND MEAN

The most effective political force in the last half decade in Virginia Beach has been the anti-tax, anti-establishment folk that have pushed for less government, less services and of course, less taxes. This somewhat well organized group, led by former City Councilman Robert Dean and his Citizens Action Coalition, helped kill a bond initiative that would have supported better schools and libraries. They got the council to reverse themselves and kill a tiny new phone tax for a similar purpose.

They are a force to be reckoned with. Although the city’s taxes are some of the lowest in the region, and its services some of the best, they have evidently hit a nerve with their argument to the contrary.

Under their vision, Virginia Beach would become a bare bones, self-service city, where you check your own bags and bus your own tables. No more soccer stadiums, amphitheaters, recreation centers and the like. No more “entertainment.” In their view, Virginia Beach has been buying luxuries before it spent on the basics like schools. The city needs to get its priorities straight.

While there is some truth in this perspective, in my view they would cut flesh as well as fat. They also do not understand that economic success is based on government investment. Things like roads, schools, rail lines and maybe even things like recreation centers and amphitheaters. Dean, for example, voted against the agricultural reserve program, despite his credentials as a long-time environmentalist, because it involved a sales-tax increase.

When I asked Dean whether economic prosperity depended on government investment, he didn’t seem to understand the question.

“Under that scenario, we are breading a whole new type of society that expects government to take care of them from womb to tomb,” Dean said. “You have removed self reliance.”

How is building a road or a train line removing self-reliance?

If he were running the city, Dean said, his priority would be better schools. But he wouldn’t allow for new taxes to fund them. It’s true that more money won’t necessarily improve schools. But at some point, you have to grapple with the fact that public investment in a range of things is necessary to create a prosperous and balanced society.

Dean, for example, excoriated suburbanites who neglected their children in order to be able to afford two nice cars. People should consider living with just one car, he said, like they did back in the 1950s.

Well, would you support the type of public transportation that made living like that possible, I asked him, such as better bus service or the light rail line?

No.

“There is no reason that my gas tax should subsidize people to ride light rail,” Dean said, even though he freely acknowledged that car driving itself was massively subsidized already.

Dean also criticized the new companies the city had brought in, like Geico and Avis, as essentially being low-paying call centers. True enough. But beyond improving education — without new taxes — he had no plan for bringing in better companies. He did advocate eliminating the Economic Development department.

If Dean and his brethren get a majority, I see a not very pleasant future. I see a city that would become a place of haves and haves not, where the wealthy hole up in Bay Colony and Great Neck, send their kids to Norfolk Academy, and leave the increasing chaotic Baysides, Kempsvilles and Lynnhavens to fend for themselves.

EMBRACING THE WHOLE

Virginia Beach’s official vision is its “Community for a Lifetime” statement. It’s a bland, PR-ish statement, full of assertions no one could disagree with. Still, as these things go, it has its merits.

Everyone should be able to live in Virginia Beach, it basically says, for all their lives. It should be a place where one children’s can stick around and get good jobs, and where one’s parents can retire.

“That vision is one of an incredible place — a community where you would want to spend the rest of your life,” said Mayor Meyera Oberndorf in a recent speech. The vision, the mayor said, means making the city safe, prosperous and healthy.

Well, hard to disagree with that.

And “Visionary.” Which means thinking strategically about city growth and priorities, she said. Right on. It means accepting that quality of life costs money in taxes. Double Right on. It means acknowledging you can’t do everything at once.

Right on again.

The problem is, few city leaders, including Oberndorf, acknowledge the steps necessary to complete their vision.

If you want to be a Community for a Lifetime, you need to provide a way for a 70-year-old woman with declining eyesight to get around without a car. Or for a young family to live without two cars. But city leaders have been hostile to light rail, which might do this.

There’s another problem with the city’s vision, as told by the mayor. Oberndorf never mentions the word “Norfolk.”

Why should she, you might ask? Well, perhaps because Virginia Beach’s prosperity depends on it.

What is located in Norfolk? A huge port, with both commercial and military activities. Without it, this whole region would evaporate.

If you depend on something for your life’s blood, shouldn’t you mention it when you are figuring out a vision for your city? Shouldn’t you figure out how to keep it healthy? If you can’t stand to say the word “Norfolk,” at least say the word “port.”

No dice. Virginia Beach is basically embarrassed that it still largely dependent on economic activity outside the city, and doesn’t want to admit it.

Not a good policy.

The mayor’s speech, and the official policy it represents, shows the tension between the city’s desire to be its own master, and the realities of its interconnectedness with everyone else. A coalition has emerged that argue the city should embrace regionalism, but they run up against the city’s long history of seeing little gain from working with anyone else.

If this changed, Virginia Beach might actually to work not only for the health of the port, but to improve the fortunes of Norfolk’s downtown. With a great downtown, a company would be more likely to move to a corporate office park in Virginia Beach.

Look at Portland. All the great new high-tech companies are not moving to the center city. They are moving to the suburban communities out on the fringes, like Beaverton and Hillsboro. But these places have a symbiotic relationship with the Portland downtown.

The great Portland center city makes the area very attractive to workers, which attracts great companies. The companies might locate ON THE LIGHT RAIL LINE in the suburbs, where they can build a low-rise campus-style office park, but their employees enjoy traveling downtown and might even live there.

But here, no dice. Both sides see the other a threat. If we were really smart, we would start rewriting tax laws so taxes from companies would be spread more equitably.

What would the future look like if Virginia Beach realized it had more to gain from regionalism than to fear from it?

Virginia Beach might take the lead in regional growth management because it recognizes that as a mature city, it has an interest in restraining outward sprawl, and pushing development inward. Virginia Beach would help establish a regional vision, where the various regional parts play clear roles. Downtown with its role as regional center, with sports stadium and urban living and cultural resources; the outer suburbs with opportunities for green-lawn living and amenities like soccer stadiums and amphitheaters; the resort, which with light rail would have a symbiotic relationship with downtown; the rural areas, that can provide good vegetables and open vistas to the suburban and urban dwellers.

With almost half the population of the Southside, it’s clear that if Virginia Beach has a lot of weight to throw around.

“I’ve never understood why Virginia Beach wasn’t the leading proponent for regionalism,” said Eliassen. “They would be in the driver’s seat, because they got the votes. I don’t understand what they are afraid of. They are the political gorilla of the region, but they act like the cowardly lion.”

Eliassen is willing to think about what most people won’t even mention: merging the three cities on one side of the water — Chesapeake, Virginia Beach and Norfolk — into one city.

“They are one city in reality, and they ought to be one city politically,” Eliassen said.

GOING IT ALONE

Since its birth, Virginia Beach has insisted that it is a “real city,” not just a bedroom community thank you. It has resented the lack of respect it has gotten from both the region and the rest of the world. When big-name New York Times writer R.W. “Johnny” Apple visited the area recently, he respectfully used the “Hampton Roads” moniker but, in describing the region’s charms, said scarcely a word about Virginia Beach other than a brief mention of its Contemporary Arts Center.

Virginia Beach does not like this. In this scenario, the regionalists fail and Virginia Beach strives to be an independent, self-sufficient city. It drops out of the light rail system. It goes its own way on recycling, jails, schools, social services, housing. At each of these intersections, it goes it alone. It only cooperates on the one thing it needs to keep life going as usual in Virginia Beach: more roads.

This is not such a great vision, either for Virginia Beach or the region. The city of VB will do okay at first, but gradually, the structural inadequacies will start to mount up. Deprived of Virginia Beach’s resources, the region will start to do more poorly, which will eventually pull down Virginia Beach as well. The region will not have a united front on economic development, or a coherent regional strategy on growth, the environment or transportation. Virginia Beach may get its share of the wealthy, but will not get the higher income jobs that lead to a more prosperous city.

The anti-tax folks are big go-it-aloners. Dean talked of cooperating with neighboring cities to get bulk discounts on “computers or textbooks,” but not much cooperation in larger ways.

WHICH WAY?

Some of these paths are mutually exclusive. Some are not.

The present City Council is steering a course between the shoals of the pro-growth councils of the early 1980s, and the no-tax constituents of the present. All this could change. The anti-tax folk, sometimes allied with the powerful Republican party, are banging at the door. Developers and home-builders are pushing to return to rural-area growth.

The future depends on who makes it to the ballot box.

We will see.


Those Old Rules Can Come In Handy. Just ask James Bond.

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WINE COLUMN
First Published in PORT FOLIO MAGAZINE
SEPT. 23, 1999
BY ALEX MARSHALL

Knowing and paying attention to the old rules can come in handy. Just ask James Bond.

When the Russian agent managed to point a gun at Bond’s heart in the novel “From Russia With Love,” Bondmentally kicked himself for not realizing at dinner an hour earlier that the blond gentleman across from him was not who he appeared to be.

The gentleman’s English accent had been perfect. But, while chatting with Bond over a nice filet of sole, the beefy guy had ordered a glass of red wine. Bond had noticed this curious behavior, but only now, with his life in danger, did Bond realize that this had been the sign the proper English gentleman was actually a Russian agent.

Bond got out of his predicament, needless to say, and went on to give more lessons on food and social etiquette, which are always woven into every Ian Fleming novel.

But how about that advice about red wine and fish? Does it still hold true?

Absolutely. As a general rule, red wine and fish do not marry well. The tannins and stronger flavors in a red wine often set off a violent chemical reaction with a white fish that can be not only unappetizing but downright unpleasant.

I say this defiantly, in the face of a wave of words from various wine writers who have been proclaiming of late that red wine certainly does go with fish. These nouveau trendsetters say all rules are off, that God is dead, that all is permitted. They will find a way to marry a 20-year-old Bordeaux with a mess of catfish.

Don’t you believe them. In general, red wine goes badly with most types of seafood, unless the seafood is heavily masked by other flavors. I am a conservative in this, but I am also correct. There are some exceptions. But these are ones that prove the rule, not break it.

Salmon, an oily dominant fish, goes well with Pinot Noir, a Rioja or any lighter red wine. The oiliness and strength of the fish holds up against the red wine. I love ordering Salmon in restaurants, for I get to enjoy fish and my favorite color of wine, which is red.

Salmon is the only fish I have found that goes well regularly with red wine.

But a sauce or spice can change the flavor dynamics. Dump a red sauce on just about anything, and a red wine will go well with it. A spicy shrimp Creole or jambalaya has no problem holding up to a Cote du Rhone. But when the primary flavor you taste is tuna, sea bass, scallops or oysters, shun the temptation to be daring and go red. Be a traditionalist instead. Go white.

But what type of white? As a general rule, a Sauvignon Blanc, whether it is from California, Bordeaux or Sancerre, is a my favorite white wine with almost any type of seafood. The crispness frames the fish well, without covering up its delicate flavors. A Chardonnay, by contrast, can overpower fish with its oak and vanilla flavors.

But there are plenty of other white wines to choose from.

A good place to try for yourself is at the Dockside Inn Restaurant in Virginia Beach, in the shadow of the Lesner Bridge, next to Henry’s. The Dockside Inn, which is partnered with the Lynnhaven Seafood Marina, has one of the finest wine selections in the area. The wine department is more like a wine store. It is housed in a small store immediately adjacent to the large restaurant dining room. With most wines, you can go in, pick out your bottle on the extensive shelves, and order the same bottle off the wine list in the restaurant a few feet away.

And oh, what a selection. Just with whites, you can find an extensive collection of Rieslings, Gewurtraminer(sp), Sancerres, Viogners and many others.

The palate and pocketbook behind the wine is Angelique Kambouropoulos, who with her husband Costas, own and run the marina and the restaurant. The wine selection is Angelique’s department.

Angelique agrees with me that Sauvignon Blanc is often her reflexive choice with seafood, because of its crisp acidity. She is fond of those from New Zealand.

Although now she deals with wine professionally, her passion for wine began when she was selling real estate in Northern Virginia 15 years ago. She loved the way it made food taste better, she said. Eventually, she began planning the wine list for her husband’s restaurant.

“I love quality,” Angelique says, as she contemplates her row after row of well-bottled shelves. “I don’t care how long it takes to sell a great bottle. I want the best.”

She offers about 30 wines by the glass. It helps people learn about wine to be able to easily taste a variety of different wines, she said.

I forgot to ask her if she is a fan of James Bond. But on matters of the grape, she agreed with him. When it comes with flesh from the sea, white is usually right.

Searching For The Heart Of Darkness

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BY ALEX MARSHALL
WINE COLUMN FOR PORT FOLIO MAGAZINE
JAN. 11, 2001

The fluid in the glass was black and dark, as if someone had emptied out his fountain pen into a glass of water. I eyed it suspiciously, then swirled, sniffed and tasted.

It was wonderful. A rich assortment of tastes cascaded over my tongue, backed up by a healthy dose of tannins. It was like a variation of a good Bordeaux.

I smiled appreciatively at the waitress. I had never heard of the wine she steered me toward: Madiran. I was in a small, French restaurant in Manhattan, Chez Bernard on West Broadway. It had classic French food at reasonable prices — and a wine list worthy of a three-star restaurant in Paris. The waitress had steered me away from the $2,000 bottles of old Bordeauxs, and to this wine I had never heard of, Madiran, for $30.

Madiran, I would learn from her and others, was a small region near the French-Spanish border. The makers used the local “Tannat” grape mixed with more familiar grapes like Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Tannat grape, whose name derives from “tannins,” gave the wine its dark, inky blackness. The one I had enjoyed, a 1996 Chateau Bouscasse by Alan Brumont, was one of the best rated, it turned out.

Impressed with this wine from an unfamiliar region with an unfamiliar grape, I called up some of my wine buddies to get their thoughts.

Phil, who imports wine for a living out in Portland, Oregon, was impressed. “You’ll see a Madiran on the lists of most restaurants in France,” he said. “But it’s not very common in the United States.”

Phil had two on his wholesale list, both made by Domaine Berthoumieu.

After Phil, I called up Jim Raper, my former boss at The Virginian-Pilot and a wine enthusiast par excellence. Raper, who is now in Lexington, Va., had lived near the Madiran region in France for a while. He noted that the Madiran is close to where Armagnac is produced, the competitor to Cognac. He remembered enjoying a bottle one afternoon.

“I was up in there, on the way to Biarritz, and stopped and bought a bottle in a grocery store,” Raper recalled. “It was a 1989. It was fantastic.”

Although still not well known, Madiran is slowly being discovered. Bonny Doon, the iconoclastic California wine company, has begun importing a Madiran. Owner Randal Grahm has called it “Heart of Darkness”, in honor of its color, and slapped on a wild smear of a label designed by Ralph Steadman.

Country Vintner of Richmond is distributing it in Hampton Roads.

“They are big, inky, very different wines, made from old vines,” said Pat Dudding of Country Vintner. “They are awesome, because they have such intensity.”

So I had fun both drinking and investigating the origins of my “Madiran.” But speaking more generally, Madiran is an example of the type of lesser-known but excellent wines you should keep an eye out for. Once found, you get the benefit of a good wine at reasonable prices — and the pleasure of telling your friends about it.

What other nice wines are out there?

David Hollander, with National Distributing Company in Norfolk, said he likes the California wines from the Monterey and Lake County districts, which he said produce great wines but are less famous than nearby Napa or Sonoma.

“You aren’t paying for the expensive land,” Hollander said.

Peter Coe of Taste Unlimited said bottles of Rhone wine from the Costieres de Nimes appellation are flying off the shelves. They retail for $9.95 a bottle.

The trick is to trust your taste buds. Many now expensive wines were not so a decade or two ago. I know people who used to buy Ribero del Dueros, the well-known Spanish wine that ranges from $20 to $50 a bottle, when the were $6 a bottle.

They are kicking themselves now for not buying several cases.

In Paris, The Wine Bar Is The Place To Drink Some Wine

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FOR: PORT FOLIO MAGAZINE
BY ALEX MARSHALL

PARIS — It was with some trepidation that I first walked in off the sidewalk into the small establishment on the narrow Rue Daguerre near Montparnasse with the words “Bar A Vin” written across its front glass window. It was 11 p.m. on a Wednesday night, a strange hour. In Paris, it was neither late, nor early. An uncertain hour.

I had been headed home to my nearby hotel bed, having eaten a full dinner down the street and decided I needed a good nigh’s sleep. But I couldn’t resist the pull of this small restaurant. Inside, I could see people huddled around the small bar, talking and laughing while they swirled liquid in glass goblets.

I was about to enter what I would discover was one of the better examples of an institution that still exists in Paris, the wine bar. Ranging from fancy to casual, it’s a place where you can order a variety of carefully-chosen wines by the glass, and talk with both staff and customers about their various merits or lack of them. The environs can range from fancy crystal and tablecloths, to dirt floors. They are a great place to sample a lot of wines, and gain a familiarity with different regions and grape varieties.

My wine bar had bare wooden tables and no formalities. In fact, the “Bar a Vin” seemed a step back in time. The customers, mostly in their 30s and 40s, were dressed without any fashion in particular. It had a tile floor, a pewter metal bar, and an old coat rack in the corner. A soft yellow light spread across the whole restaurant, giving everyone a soft glow.

But it also had the air of a thoroughly neighborhood place. Everyone knew each other, or so it seemed. When I entered, everyone turned and looked at me, a tall, obviously foreign, stranger. They weren’t smiling.

The waitress behind the bar, who was pretty in a kind of timeless Gallic way, with a thin face and aquiline nose, came over and said shortly in French, “What do you want.” I had hardly had time to even glance at the blackboard where the names of ten red and ten white wines were scrawled.

“Give me a minute,” I stammered. She shrugged and walked away. When she came back, I ordered a glass of “Chinon” quickly, thrown off by her bluntness.

Chinon is the region in the Loire Valley named after the city of the same name there. Made with Cabernet Franc, the wine can be like a Bordeaux in its better years, that is austere and flavorful. But this one tasted mostly just austere.

As I sipped the wine, I looked around the restaurant. This was a place for people serious about wine. The half-dozen men and women grouped at the pewter bar were having fun, laughing talking and of course smoking. But they were taking their wine seriously. At each swallow, they would sniff deeply of the glass, tilting it to the side so as to favor one nostril. This seems to help odors penetrate one’s head more deeply. Once the liquid was in their mouths, they would aerate it by sucking air through it, which makes a gargling noise.

After Chinon, I tried something called Vin D’Ardeche. This was a small named region inside the Cote Du Rhone. The wine was marvelous, really special. It had a huge, intense jammy taste, with little tannins. It was similar to an Amarone from Italy, with its raisiny full taste.

I was starting to make inroads with this crowd. The guy behind the counter, who was the manager, recognized I wasn’t a complete slob. He poured me some “Saumur,” the red wine from the Loire valley, and I won points when I noted that it was made with 100 percent Cabernet Franc grape.

The manager seemed classically French. Years of drinking wine had not given him the bulbous nose and layers of flesh sometime typical of wine lovers; instead, it had cured and condensed him. He was lean, with dark hair and a taught face showing a 11 p.m. shadow.

Beside me, an older man, dressed more formally dressed in a tweed sport coat, was talking intensely with the bartender. He turned out to be the owner of the Saumur vineyard that had produced the wine I had just tried. He started talking very animatedly to me about his theories of wines and vineyards.

The Loire Valley has traditionally been considered too cold to produce wines as good as Bordeaux and Burgundy. But global warming, he said, would change this.

Then he started criticizing American wines, particularly those from California. They were, he said, like a woman who used too much perfume. They deliver the “attaque spectaculaire” that unexperienced wine drinkers liked, but which was similar to a woman who wore too much perfume. The odor you were appreciating was more of a created effect, rather than the natural odor, like the natural scent of a beautiful woman.

I was grateful to this Frenchman for conforming to national stereotypes. Not five minutes into a conversation about wine, and he was comparing them to women. Great! I considered running further with this metaphor. Could California wines be considered like their women? Too “easy”? Did French wines require more finesse in their approach, as did their women? I had better stop such thoughts.

I was feeling better. From the tall, awkward, foreign stranger who they looked at suspiciously, I was now the tall awkward foreign stranger who they looked at with some amusement.

The wines the restaurant served said a lot about wine drinking in France. The establishment served almost nothing known to your average American wine drinker. I had noticed this trend in other restaurants and brassieres I had visited. The famous wines were too expensive for daily drinking.

I wrote down the red wines the “Bar a Vin” was serving that night: St. Joseph, Alsace Pinot Noir, Patrimonio, Chinon, Bandol, Cote du Rhone, Cairanne, Vin D’Ardeche, Anjou Village. These were regions, not grape varieties, as is the tradition in France.

I asked the bartender why he didn’t include more well-known regions. “Because Burgundy and Bordeaux are too easy,” he said. “You open a book and there they are.”