{"id":969,"date":"2018-06-29T20:21:02","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T20:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=969"},"modified":"2018-06-29T20:34:08","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T20:34:08","slug":"petits-creux-grands-crus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=969","title":{"rendered":"Petits Creux & Grands Crus"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is the latest in Power Tasting\u2019s irregular series on interesting wine bars around the world.\u00a0 Previous issues have taken readers to locations in Paris<\/a>, London<\/a>, Copenhagen<\/a> and Lisbon<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a street in Qu\u00e9bec City called rue Cartier that is only five blocks long, but is the commercial heart of a sector that is very much Qu\u00e9becois.\u00a0 Not the Qu\u00e9bec of monumental hotels and 18th<\/sup> century architecture, but rather a reflection of the way the people of this French-speaking Canadian province live and think of themselves.\u00a0 For example, there are five boulangeries<\/em>, where you can buy the best baguettes in North America, and as many pastry shops that dazzle the eye as well as the palate.\u00a0 There are trendy clothes shops, a French bookstore, two family-owned butchers, two pubs where you can watch all the hockey games and at least a dozen restaurants all spilling out into the street during the warm summer months.<\/p>\n

And there is one wine bar, a \u201cbar \u00e0 vin\u201d, called Petits Creux & Grands Crus (https:\/\/www.petitscreux.corsica<\/a>), which translates roughly as \u201clittle snacks and great wines\u201d.\u00a0 While it is open year round, its indoor space is rather small.\u00a0 PC&GC comes into its own after the last snows melt and before all the leaves fall, May through October.<\/p>\n

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Now, Qu\u00e9bec City is a very French town as opposed to Montreal, which is more evenly split between francophones and English speakers.\u00a0 In the not so distant past, no one knew about rue Cartier except the locals.\u00a0 Qu\u00e9bec City has always had plenty of tourists but they generally stayed in Vieux Qu\u00e9bec, the Old Town, and were not seen in the residential and commercial areas.\u00a0 Today, you will hear English, Chinese, Italian and Spanish as you walk along rue Cartier (which doesn\u2019t please Lucie, who is from Qu\u00e9bec).\u00a0 The wait staff at PC&GC are adept at both French and English and we have heard conversations in other languages as well.<\/p>\n

With Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s French heritage, you might expect this wine bar\u2019s list to be heavy in Bordeaux, Burgundies and Rh\u00f4nes and indeed there are plenty of those on its rather extensive list.\u00a0 But Marie-Pierre Colonna, the owner, is Corsican-American.\u00a0 So the sp\u00e9cialit\u00e9s<\/em> de la maison<\/em> are wines from Corsica, that island department of France floating in the Mediterranean.\u00a0 Its wines reflect its geography, with the sun producing big, flavorful, fruity wines in both red and white.\u00a0 The Corsican ros\u00e9 served at PC&GC looks more like a light red than a slightly colored white, as found in Provence.<\/p>\n

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Many of the grapes in the Corsican wines are barely known this side of the Mediterranean.\u00a0 There are reds like Neullucciu from the north of Corsica, Sciacarellu from the south and a white grape used there called Biancu Gentile. (Sometimes these grapes are spelled with an \u201co\u201d instead of a \u201cu\u201d but M. Collona speaks in the Corsican dialect.)<\/p>\n

The \u201clittle snacks\u201d as advertised in the wine bar\u2019s name aren\u2019t really that small.\u00a0 You can get boards with meats, cheeses, veggies or seafood but there is nothing much that you would call a nibble. They used to make their own potato chips that were served warm and very crusty but unfortunately they removed them from the menu.\u00a0 \u00a0There are also a few main courses, some of which echo the Corsican theme of the bar.<\/p>\n

Despite the influx of tourists, rue Cartier is still a focal point for the people of the surrounding neighborhood.\u00a0 One of the great pleasures of spending some time at Petits Creux & Grands Crus is watching the parade of the local people passing by.\u00a0 Sure, in one way it\u2019s the same mix of young and old, men and women you\u2019ll see anywhere.\u00a0 But these are the folks of Qu\u00e9bec<\/em>, with their distinctive history, beautiful language and joie de vivre<\/em>.\u00a0 So take a glass or two of wines that you\u2019ve never heard of, much less tasted, and pretend for an hour or so that you\u2019re a part of this wonderful Qu\u00e9becois culture.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is the latest in Power Tasting\u2019s irregular series on interesting wine bars around the world.\u00a0 Previous issues have taken readers to locations in Paris, London, Copenhagen and Lisbon. There is a street in Qu\u00e9bec City called rue Cartier that is only five blocks long, but is the commercial heart of a sector that … Continue reading Petits Creux & Grands Crus<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}