Chai Christine Cannac: A naturally-good wine bar

Christine Cannac of Chai Christine Cannac.

French speakers will immediately catch the play on words in the name of this wine bar in Bédarieux, a small town in the Languedoc-Roussillon’s Hérault department. “Chai” is French for an aboveground structure used for wine storage and aging. The French word “chez,” which has the same pronunciation, refers to someone’s home, or, in a commercial sense, to a store or place of business, as in “Chez Auchan” (the Auchan supermarket).

The play on words works well, as Chai Christine Cannac is a friendly, homey place to drink a glass of wine and to enjoy some local food specialties. Christine Cannac is from the Bédarieux area. She grew up on a family farm, among cherry, chestnut and olive trees, and vineyards. She says that her fondness for the area, and the countryside, is what drew her back here after working in the food service industry and as a restaurant sommelier in Paris and elsewhere for 17 years.

She had had enough, she explained, of too chic, too expensive, too overly-hyped wines, and she wanted to offer people natural, unpretentious wines that go well with simple foods. The wine bar, which opened in 2006, is located in a small square at the feet of Bédarieux’s town hall. In summer, there are several tables in front, providing customers with a view down Bédarieux’s main street. Inside, it’s cozy and intimate, with a half-dozen, wooden tables of various sizes, a small bar with stools, and two walls of 70 or more natural wines from winemakers from throughout France.

She learns of the wines from wine salons or through word-of-mouth, she told me. “I’ve visited all but three of the vineyards which provide me with wine,” she said. “They’re all natural wines, with natural yeasts, and with a minimum of sulfur added as a preservative.”

She poured me a glass of sparkling wine made in the mousseux ancestrale method, where the carbon dioxide is the result of a natural fermentation in the bottle. Bibonade, which is made by Jean-François Coutelou, owner of Mas Coutelou just north of Béziers, is refreshingly dry, with just a slight tingle of carbonation to give it some added body. She explained to me that it was slightly cloudy because it’s unfiltered, and that the temperature is lowered to stop the fermentation, leaving a slight amount of sugar in the wine. Its lemonade-derived name and the wine’s honey and apple flavors conjure up images of a summer picnic in an orchard. The naturally high acidity of the Sauvignon Blanc used to make this wine gives it just the right tanginess and tartness to keep the residual sugar from making it too sweet or cloying.

Equally appealing was the local, Bédarieux specialty—the bougnette, a country meatball mixture of minced pork shoulder, combined with breadcrumbs, eggs and a number of spices—that she offered me to taste. She thinly sliced the bougnette, placed it on slices of crusty country bread, and then placed the open-face sandwiches in a small toaster oven to heat up for several minutes. The salty, spiciness of the bougnette was the perfect complement to the Bibonade’s dry, effervescence.

Cannac offers a wide variety of local specialties, besides bougnette, including several types of charcuterie and goat cheeses; an unpasteurized Conté cheese that’s been aged for 21 months, accompanied by crème de noix (a rich, wonderful walnut cream made by crushing walnuts and sugar together in a mixer and then adding eggs and crème fraîche to it); an organic Gouda cheese, homemade tapas, a spaghetti with homemade pesto sauce, and a variety of salads.

During July and August, Chai Christine Cannac is open every day from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., except Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, when she goes to local markets to get her food supplies. She closes for the month of January, but outside of that month, and the previously mentioned summer months, she’s open from Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

She organizes several wine tastings throughout the year, where 20 or 30 of the winemakers come and pour their wines. These are marvelous opportunities to taste a variety of natural wines and to speak directly with the winemakers. There are not many opportunities to do that in such a friendly, open atmosphere. And the price is just €5. The last such event was the end of April, and last year she organized a similar event around the time of the annual Bédarieux Fête de Chataigne (Chestnut Festival) in October.

Chai Christine Cannac, 3 square Robert Schuman, 34600 Bédarieux
Tel: +33 (0)4 67 95 86 14

Tagged as: Languedoc, Wine