Bardot Has Wine as Lively, Fun and Weird as Owen Wilson's Dream of France

Or just go for the blind flights and try to get wine for free.

By Matthew Korfhage

The high-ceilinged hall of downtown's Brasserie Montmartre building has been home to Portland's dreams of Frenchness since opening the first time in 1978 with swank bistro food and crayons on the tables.

The new Bardot wine bar (626 SW Park Ave., 503-914-5799, bardotpdx.com) brings the New Portland ideal: mixed use, with a wine shop, bar and basement event space. In the back, Park Avenue Wines' vast international showroom of bottles sells both traditional wines and wild-style ones from local iconoclasts like Swick and Bow & Arrow.

Related: Forget Mom's Pinot—We're Witnessing the Birth of a Wild and Wonderful New Oregon Wine

But in the front, Bardot's small hardwood bar, old-school tavern mirror and smattering of tables serves as a modern pregame spot for West End dinners and nights at the Schnitz. Sure, you can hit up a skin-contact orange wine or crazy-jammy local pinot by the glass ($8-$13), a $6 beer from Wolves & People, or an $8 Atxa vermouth-and-cola cocktail.

But stop in Tuesday for blind flights. Pay $15 for three wine pours and then try to guess where they're from and how old they are. Get it all right, and they're yours for free.

Otherwise, might we recommend a DIY cheese-and-meat pairing and a rare $17 bottle of St. Reginald Parish's the Marigny? Bardot charges $10 corkage, but damned if that wine ain't the best low-cost party bottle of carbonic pinot gris you'll ever have—as lively, weird and fun as Owen Wilson's dream of France in that Woody Allen movie. By the time the bottle is done, both of you will feel like cheap dates.

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.