Retail (Vent au dètail)

As the primary carer (you might find that title in the blog a few times – I figure it’s a rare opportunity to use it), I’ve decided that an analysis of the French retail sector is in order. I find it fascinating – and whether it’s because of my new role, or my innate sense of “why” I’m not sure. But they seem to do retail at the extremes.

Let’s start easy. The French do amazingly big supermarkets. In Australia Coles has taken over Bunnings, and Woolies has made a bid for a hardware store. In France they’ve done that and moved on: companies not only own, but stock under the same roof groceries, hardware, baby stuff (e.g. cots, prams etc), ride on lawn mowers, washing machines, books and saucepan lids. Oh, and of course wine. All in the same store. Seriously cool. (Ok – maybe not cool, but convenient).

And they’ve worked out seemingly obvious aspects of retail to make them more efficient. You weigh your own vegies, and put the sticker with the barcode on the plastic bag yourself (or in some fancy places, there is a dedicated person to do this, but Hannah doesn’t like those shops, because weighing is her job!) which dramatically speeds up the checkouts. Everyone brings their own bags (we almost remember now), and does their own packing – everywhere, not just at Aldi! Environmentally friendly, and quick! And somehow they’ve trained the French to return trolleys to the trolley bays. There aren’t any trolley bays in the supermarket, they’re all in the carpark. So when you park your car, you get your trolley, and return it when you’re finished. Sure you need a coin (like some places in Australia) but I can’t believe the €1 is enough of an incentive – it’s either something more sinister (French mafia?) or perhaps social pressure?

Not that everything is “better” than Australia. Despite having trolleys bigger than a Fiat Panda, they haven’t realised that if all 4 wheels can steer, the trolleys are a lot more manoeuvrable. And given the mind-bogglingly confusing layout of the shops, an easy u-turn capability would be very helpful. Despite being trusted with weighing vegies and returning trolleys, I haven’t seen a self-checkout yet – much to Hannah’s disappointment.

And big doesn’t mean bad. Sure there’s bad stuff, but the quality is generally good, and at times excellent. The hair dryer I bought the other day apparently works well. Food especially is of a good quality, even in the biggest supermarkets. And the range of other goods targets all price points – from the cheapest nappies to expensive champagne. The range is a tad different to Australia though – aisle after aisle dedicated to stuff made from milk (fromage, yoghurt, butter, crème frais etc etc ), but no fresh milk to be found. Actually that’s an exaggeration – in some of the bigger stores, there is one “end” with a display of UHT milk and half a dozen bottles of fresh milk.

But they also do “little” well – far better than I’ve seen in Australia. I’ve already pronounced my love of markets – and from where I live I can find one every day within a 20min drive. And if that’s not enough, I can find permanent shops who only stock fresh food direct from the farmer (often with the farmers bio underneath their beans – which is kinda cute!). And the food is incredible. That feeling I occasionally get in Australia of “wow – this tomato really tastes of tomato” is replicated time and time again (but with different food of course!).

Some of the “wineries” we’ve tasted at are probably the extreme, but a good example of the small retail. We feel encouraged when there’s a sign outside their door telling you their name. If they mention the fact they do tastings, or have opening hours on display, it’s obviously very commercial (not necessarily meaning bad as it would probably be in Australia, but certainly meaning big). We drove through the Appellation of “Bandol” – producer of perhaps the only good wines to come out of Provence (I say perhaps, because I’m certainly not qualified to speak on this subject, but the other wines are typically Rose which says a lot…..) - and you would have needed to stop the car, get out, and read the name on the letterbox to know who was who. If you wanted to taste, it was ring the door bell.

As it turned out this trip we didn’t ring any door bells. We were in Provence (the town of Six-Fours-Les-Plages) spending a few days visiting Lilou, and our foray into Bandol was a side-trip on the way back home - the kids were already in their PJs. Em was keen to at least cast an eye over the vines though, and it was an intriguing detour. We hadn’t done any wine tasting in Six-Fours – there’s something about the southern coast of France that empties your mind of anything that isn’t the magnificent coastline and beaches. Magnificent until you realise there’s no sand – when it gets downgraded to just wonderful.

The thing is, even though the exterior is uninviting, it doesn’t seem to mean they don’t want you to stop by! Last week we had Toby and Ana from London, and Carli and Nick from Hong Kong visiting, and of course had to try out some of the local wine tasting (are there other tourist attractions? Not really it seems if you stay with the McCutcheons!). We headed south (the appellation of Cote-Rotie for the wine buffs out there) and had a coffee at Ampuis before walking the streets, looking for wine tasting. Em had the address of somewhere she thought was good, so we walked down that street. We worked out which house it was, but couldn’t really find a way in, until Toby chatted up someone who was working on a tractor. We presume he worked there, because he invited us in for a tasting. Fifty minutes later we emerged from the cellar. We’d tasted about 4 different wines, including a couple of good ones (Em’s tasting notes will know exactly how many and which ones!) but the impressive thing was the time he spent with 6 randoms off the street. Especially considering vintage (ie picking) was starting the following week.

And that experience has been reflective of most of our visit to France. Initially, you’re not sure they want to interact, but once they do (which unfortunately with my French, can take some time, if it all) they are extraordinarily hospitable, informative, interested, and welcoming. The time this experience probably hasn’t been reflected, was when we visited the town of Chateaunerf du pape. This place embraces tourism and buses of people and flashing signs (not just at the hair dressers). Their wine is obviously well known overseas, and they play on that. And while you felt very comfortable walking in to a place to taste (especially if the sign in English said “Open for tastings”) – somehow you felt the people serving were really only interested in making a sale.

On the way to Six-Fours we spent a night in Orange, staying with Lilou’s parents. Lilou’s parents were amazingly hospitable. I don’t think we stopped eating the entire time we were there, and each meal was an extraordinary salute to food from the region of Provence. From the simple (grilled bread; fresh garlic; prosciutto; fresh, fresh tomato) to the very French (mustard Rabbit) to the incredible (zucchini was made not only to be eatable, but wonderful!!). It was a very enjoyable few days.

On the way we to Orange we decided we would stop in Hermitage (or “ermitage” as it is sometimes written; I presume so the Americans don’t pronounce the H!) . Em asked her bosses which places we should visit; so they decided they had best accompany us on our tour! They had both previously worked there, and thought they wouldn’t open the really good bottles unless they came too. So Cyrille and Yann both did – despite it being their day off. And the promise of extra-ordinary wine being opened at Chapoutier was delivered upon. I haven’t tasted too many €200 bottles of wine in my life – but I look forward to tasting many more (hopefully a few more while we’re here!).

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2006 Le Pavillon Ermitage - Vanilla, plum and hints of cassis. Medium to full bodied with an intense and concentrated flavour. Great complexity and length. Tannins incredibly chewy but not out of balance. This wine could be aged for 20+ years.

2001 Le Pavillon Ermitage - Meaty, gamey nose with smoky oak. Well balanced in fruit and complex flavours, with softer tannins than the 06 but could still age for 10+ years.

2001 Vin de Paille - Intense dried fruit aromas with pan epice (gingerbread), golden syrup and vanillan oak, toast and honey on the palate. The flavour is intense and sweet without being cloying. The winemaking is done by drying the grapes on tables for 3 months before pressing and fermenting the wine.

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A discussion of French retail wouldn’t be complete unless it included the toll roads. I’ve got no idea if unlike Australia they’ve worked out financial viability yet, but given the high tolls, and volume of cars using them, I wouldn’t be surprised. But despite the financial pain, I love the toll booth experience. It’s the best adrenalin rush in France. For those that haven’t experienced it, a toll booth on a motorway is at least 20 booths wide. Each one has a dazzling array of illegible icons above it, indicating which vehicles can use it, and which forms of payments are accepted. As traffic comes off the motorway, it zig-zags its way across the expanse of bitumen, searching for the shortest lane. Seeing a car travelling at 90 degrees to the traffic is not unexpected: at either 100 km/h or 1 km/h depending on congestion. As it’s your turn to pay, the heart rate raises a little as you work out whether any of your currency will be accepted. If you find yourself in a credit card only booth, you start the game of roulette, cycling through the cards, hoping one will be accepted. Behind you cars start to line up, and with each failed credit card you realise the prospect of needing to reverse - causing a tsunami like wave of cars behind you – grows ever closer. Finally, mysteriously, a card is accepted. The boom gates open and the 20 lanes of traffic embark on an enormous drag race to the 2 or 3 real lanes in the distance. The whine of tiny French car engines and the occasional enormous German car engine at full rev mixes in your head with the sound of your own heart beat racing. In a hire car, nothing but redlining is acceptable. It’s an amazing sensation: the only thing that compares with scorching across 20 lanes of traffic to get the prized fast lane is in sailing: crossing the fleet on port tack. And while we remain somewhat landlocked, I’ll make do with my toll booth adrenalin fix – beats scanning your own vegies in my opinion.

More photos by clicking on the image below:

Retail