France spends billions a year on wine - a venue beneath the streets of Paris wants to show you why - video Dailymotion

Les Caves du Louvre in Paris was once a wine cellar supplying royalty.

Transcript

00:00Deep beneath the streets of Paris is a hidden world.

00:06These are Les Caves du Louvre, an underground network of cellars and tunnels that were built

00:10hundreds of years ago for King Louis XIV.

00:14Back in its heyday, the cellars were the home of one of the 21 wine suppliers to the king,

00:20and the subterranean passages were essential for discreetly keeping him supplied.

00:26These days, the wine cellars host wine tasting events and have an ample stock for sale.

00:33So the cellars that are below us currently, they were built by André Henault to store

00:41the wine for the king.

00:43It was built in the 18th century, and to help facilitate the delivery of the wine to the

00:48king, he built two tunnels.

00:50One of the tunnels was to transport wine from the Seine River, because at that time there

00:54was no trains or cars, the easiest way to transport wine was by boat, and then there

00:58was a second tunnel that was from here directly to the Louvre, where the king was living.

01:04France may have got rid of its monarchy, but it's kept its passion for wine.

01:08Last year, it produced an estimated 46 million hectolitres of the stuff, according to the

01:14French Ministry of Agriculture.

01:16Regions like Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne are renowned for their wine production, but

01:21the rest of the world has barely scratched the surface of what France has to offer.

01:27Most people don't know that we have over 850 grape varieties that are indigenous to us

01:31in France, and we have over 70,000 wineries.

01:35Each winemaker will have a different interpretation of the grape varieties and of their terroir,

01:40their region.

01:42Retail sales of wine in France top 4.6 billion euros a year, with the average person drinking

01:4847 litres of it, according to the data analysis firm Statista.

01:53These caves may no longer stock royal wine, but they're very much open for business, and

01:59have been transformed into a place where people can come and sample French wines and learn

02:04about their history.