Follow these tips for buying wine in Paris. Photo: DesignWallah Few beverages seem as intimidating as wine. Images of blind tastings, snobbish conversations about vintages, and hefty price tags immediately come to mind. Coming to Paris, wine drinkers are like kids in a candy store. Affordable and delicious wine flows freely, but travelers can easily be duped. Whether you’re looking for some vin rouge to go with your dinner or you want a bottle for a friendly picnic, here are some tips to keep in mind for picking an affordable wine. Higher prices and pretty labels are not indicative of how much you will like a wine. Bottles at restaurants can cost €20, €40, €60 and beyond. While the wine will probably be good, less discerning pallets can opt for the much cheaper and equally tasty carafe or pichet of wine. This is a house wine that is served in a small pitcher or glass bottle that comes with none of the frills of a Saint-Emillon or Chateauneuf du Pape, but it will still be a tasty accompaniment to most French meals.

Don’t feel goofy asking for a pichet at lunch or dinner, because even the locals will order up some house red, white, or rosé on a typical evening. When purchasing a bottle of wine at the grocery store or wine store, even Cheapos have a limit. Any bottle under €3 is rarely something that you’d want to drink, more often reserved for cooking or wild student parties. Stick to the €5-10 range to ensure that the wine won’t make you wince. Look for the AOC, or appellation d’origine contrôlée on any bottle you purchase. This indicates that the wine is a credible Bordeaux, Burgundy, or whatever other region (origine) it may claim. Without the AOC, there is no way to know if the wine was made by a professional or from some guy down the street in his bathtub. Still, if you go to a wine bistrot like Le Verré Volé, many of their wines don’t have a AOC. However, you can be sure that the specialists in the store have visited the vineyards and know exactly where that wine is coming from.

Box is OK, but plastic jugs might be pushing it. Box wine is not quite trendy, but is accepted with wine stores like Nicolas offering up affordable varieties. The liter-sized plastic jugs at the supermarkets, however, are not to be trusted. Take a tip from someone who may or may not have been there – it’s not worth testing unless you want your wine to double as a paint-remover.sweet red wine 2015 If you taste a wine and it doesn’t suit your tastes, hopefully you didn’t buy a whole bottle of it at a restaurant. 5 french wine regionsThat said, if a wine tastes particularly offensive, with smells and tastes that seem unfit for any mouth, it may be corked, which means the wine has been spoiled in the bottling or aging process.best wine list south beach

While rare, receiving a corked glass or bottle of wine can happen, and if you are really unable to drink the wine, ask your bartender or server what they think and they will usually be honest with you. With aisles devoted to all sorts of regional French wines, Parisian supermarkets like Monoprix and Franprix are acceptable places to buy a bottle for dinner or a picnic.best wine for beginning drinkers If you want to ask questions or are looking for something specific, however, head to a wine shop, or caviste. best italian wine clubNicolas or Le Repaire de Bacchus are two such chains found all over the city. buy white port wineAdditionally, there are countless independent wine shops and bistros that will be happy to help you find what you’re seeking.

Your wine questions or advice? What other questions do you have about wine in France? Have some advice to share with our readers? Join the conversation in our comments section! Also in our guide: Heading to Paris soon and looking for advice on great affordable sleeps? Our editors have hunted down the best hotel deals, all visited, inspected and reviewed by EuroCheapo. Read more in our Paris guide. Note: This post was updated on September 30, 2015 with new links, photos and information.While Paris remains the greatest city in the world in which to drink French wine (no surprise here), where you can experience some of the country’s best wines has changed dramatically. Gone are the days when drinking well meant succumbing to lengthy tasting menus in dusty, heavily draped dining rooms. Today, you can drink rare wines in a casual brasserie setting or  Overnoy alongside craft cocktails at an oyster bar. Below is a list of some of Paris’s best restaurant wine list—and best places to drink, period.  

(Special thanks to PUNCH friends Rajat Parr and Lucas Wittman who have provided invaluable insight.)  1114 Faubourg at Le BristolFew wine lists are as comprehensive as Chef Sommelier Marco Pelletier’s collection of wines distributed across Hôtel Le Bristol's properties. Pelletier (who worked at Taillevant before moving to Le Bristol six years ago) has worked diligently to build a thorough French list that’s as well stocked with Tissot as it is with Raveneau. A man who understands that not everyone can afford a three-Michelin-star dining experience every week (as at Epicure), Pelletier created Winemaker Mondays at 114 Faubourg (the hotel’s elegant, but less-fancy restaurant). Each week, a winemaker hosts a tasting of her/his wines and the ...MORE INFO →KNOWN FORfull menubar foodlow wine markupsChampagnebottle servicehotel barlots of whiskeyday drinkingoutdoors / patiovintage wine2Brasserie Thoumieux At the Hôtel Thoumieux's glamorous all-day brasserie, designer India Mahdavi’s style transports guests back into the art deco era.

Brass railings, walls of mirrors, red banquettes and jade-colored table lamps set the scene for classic brasserie fare reinterpreted to match a wine list that includes everything from Champagne Agrapart to Beaujolais's rising star Anne-Sophie Dubois.MORE INFO →KNOWN FORnatural winebar foodfull menuChampagnelow wine markupshotel baroysters / raw barday drinking3La CagouilleThe façade is more reminiscent of an Auto Grill than one of Paris’s great (if off-the-beaten-path) restaurants. Tucked into the 14ème, this restaurant is known for its fresh and expertly prepared seafood dishes, like classic moules frites, oysters and grilled mullet. And the wine list—particularly the white section—is exceptional and underpriced.MORE INFO →KNOWN FORnatural winelow wine markupsvintage wineoutdoors / patiooysters / raw bar4La Tour d'ArgentAsk any winemaker or sommelier in France which restaurant boasts the greatest list of French wines in the world, and--unless they have a financial stake elsewhere--the answer will be  La Tour d’Argent.

The restaurant, which is said to have been the inspiration for Pixar’s Ratatouille, is one of Paris’s most historic. There are legends that it was founded as early as the 16th century and was frequented by Henry IV, but documentation dates its existence only as far back as 1860. The list is a leather-bound tome no less than ten inches thick, and is so heavy that it arrives tableside on a guéridon.MORE INFO →KNOWN FORfull menuvintage winelow wine markupsChampagnehistoric5Le BaratinA Parisian staple for more than two decades, Le Baratin boasts a deep cellar of natural wines curated by husband-and-wife duo Raquel Carina and Philippe (Pinouche) Pinoteau, both of whom were devotees of these wines long before they became trendy. A cozy bistro typified by a long zinc bar, rustic wooden table, simple glassware and Carina's soulful cooking make the place itself as down to earth as its owners.MORE INFO →KNOWN FORfull menunatural winevintage winelow wine markupshistoric6Le Mary CelesteLe Mary Celeste is named for a 19th-century French ship that went adrift after a wrong turn home from New York, a nautical homage that is supported by nuanced crudo dishes and an excellent selection of oysters.

Chef Haan Palcu-Chang is half-Chinese, half-Romanian, and his culinary training comes from experience cooking in Thai and Classic European kitchens. So it makes sense that his food is a patchwork of ingredients and inspiration, with inventions like Chinese crepes stuffed with pork knuckle and kimchi. The wine list reads like a who's who of the natural wine world right now, with the likes of Arianna Occhipinti, ...MORE INFO →KNOWN FORcheap datenatural winelow wine markupsday drinkingoysters / raw barcraft cocktailscraft beerChampagnefull menubar food7Le SéveroWhen former butcher William Bernet spotted a void in Paris's market for expertly butchered and aged steak frites, he created this tiny venue for meat and wine lovers. With its red leather banquettes, zinc bar and endless parade of steak tartare and entrecôte, the place feels like classic Paris. Add to that a thoughtful selection of competitively priced classic wines, selected by Bernet himself.MORE INFO →KNOWN FORcheap datefull menulow wine markupsvintage winenatural wine8Passage 53Japanese chef Shinichi Sato’s Passage 53, a tiny space tucked away under one of Paris’s oldest passageways, has been an under-the-radar favorite of some of the world’s most discerning winemakers for years.