Antic Wine Shop 'The Flying Sommelier'



Antic Wine Shop ‘The Flying Sommelier’

Lyon, France
Visited 22-12-2010

Last morning in Lyon before departing for Bordeaux, I need to make a list of things to accomplish for the trip. Let’s see…get breakfast, go to the market and buy some fruit for the train, it’s a long train ride, so sandwiches would be good too, see a sight or two if there is time, and oh yeah….go to the best wine shop in town. A no brainer right? Luckily for me, the wine shop I had discovered the night before in Place Neuve Saint Jean was such a place, and was very near to where we were staying. Ask anyone that knows me well, yes I can spend a decent amount of time looking at clothes and shoes and I can spend way too much time looking at bottles of wine in a dusty old shop. Well this place had plenty of the former without being the ladder. The owner, who I think I met, Georges Dos Santos is the ‘Flying Sommelier.’ Fantasy and speculation from this Sommelier would make me believe he has the ultimate job, he flies around and finds rare bottles and buys them and sells them, but to be certain I am not sure as I did not delve too deeply into the name of the place, I was much more concerned with the shelves.

The shop is divided into 3 rooms. I will categorize them, professionally of course, as cool, cooler, and coolest. I knew the place was going to be legitimate when I saw the front shelf of empty La Tache bottles in the window the night before. The main room you walk into is long and narrow, lined with wine on the right and a working desk/bench on the left. Here is where the more basic stuff is located, as well as their more internationally diverse collections. I even saw some Napa Valley Cabs mixed in, which I figured was just for the tourists. Want a bottle of 2006 Fontodi Flaccianello from Tuscany (this was the highest rated Italian wine by WS in 2009 and a Top 10 wine for them at year’s end), its only 70 Euros. How about some old Loire Valley Chenin Blanc, some Domaine de la Roche-aux-Moines Coulee de Serrant Savennieres (that is a mouthful-of flavor!), a 3 year vertical will only set you back about 60 Euros. They had a mixed wooden case of old Bordeaux, including a 1964 Lynch Bages (100 Euro), just kind of sitting there. The place was already blowing my mind, if I spoke French I’d have asked for a job on the spot.

When I entered the shop there was no one in there, just the 2 guys who were working. Like I said I think one was the owner Georges. I told him who I was and it was the last day in town and that I wanted to look around. I was told that was fine and if I wanted to, do not hesitate to look what is behind doors number 2 or 3. Here is what was behind door number 2. The back room was a very small one at that, only myself and Margaux could fit in there, but it was just the better, as if people had seen me and my expressions they may have wondered my sanity. It was a kind of reserve room with some of their best rare bottles. Have you ever had Chateau Petrus from Pomerol? Probably not, given it is ultra expensive and relatively rare even when you have the money. Well I have been fortunate to taste the 1978 vintage (amazing by the way, although I still think a bit more vividly about the 1994 Radikon) and they had a bottle back in that room. I laughed because if you were paying cash for it there they would give you a better price, ha! It was like from one bottle to the next it just got better and better. And not just French stuff either, they had Pingus from Spain and Masseto dell ‘Ornellaia from Bolgheri, two of the most sought after cult wines in their respective countries. And boy did they have some rare French bottles. Old vintages of the ‘La La’ wines of E. Guigal Cote Rotie vineyards, Bordeaux galore, and an impressive collection of Chateau d’Yquem. 1904 people! How many wines can be over a hundred years old and still taste good? This one can. I would have paid the 850 Euro for it just to say I tried it, maybe my next (employer sponsored?) trip to France.

At this point I’m thinking it cannot get better, can it? Well door number 3 just happened to be their underground area where they kept more of their big bottles. Also do not forget that Lyon is in the Bourgogne department, and so the underground area was where they kept most of these goods as well. We are talking DRC (Domaine de la Romanee Conti) and every site they produce, represented in various vintages going back decades. You could find every Grand Cru vineyard and some of the top producers from each. I will mention though that I did look for and never found any Raveaneau? Wines from Chablis, my favorite producer from that area. I figured why split grapes at this point though. Ever seen a white wine from the Cote de Nuits in the Northern part of the Cote d’Or of Burgundy? No right, they don’t exist really, especially a Grand Cru wine….WRONG! It does exist and it is one of the rarest wines in the world. In Chambolle-Musigny, within the Musigny Grand Cru vineyards lies 1.5 Acres of Chardonnay. It belongs to 1 producer and before this day was a wine I had only read about and definitely never tasted. I don’t think I even know anyone who has ever tasted it. Comte Georges de Vogue is the producer, rare and expensive is the bottle. And yes, I saw it and just about fell over.



All in all we were in the shop for about 45 minutes and were never bothered or rushed or looked at oddly. I think the people working there kind of knew it was a treat for me to just explore and look around. It would have been a bigger treat for my credit card company had I not had Margaux there to remind me that I need to have some willpower, thank you Margaux. It was the perfect way to kill some time for before heading to the train station…and to the train from hell…and for me to get to see some real gems. Thanks to the staff and the shop for being so, well, cool.

The gem of a grand collection

The ‘train from hell’ was a short train sent for a long trip that was way overbooked. We spent the first hour, after barely fitting on, standing over our backpacks like sardines in a can. Then Margaux snagged a seat and I got the floor next to her. Maybe 45 minutes outside Bordeaux, so after about 6 hours, I did finally get a seat. The train got in late of course, but only about a half hour, which I was surprised by. Still, in hindsight knowing what transpired in my time in Bordeaux upon writing this, it’s not the worst 67 Euro I have ever spent. Next article we get back to tasting some wines, and my first visit to a Bordeaux Chateau, Salute!

The sun rises on my last day in Lyon