Bertrand Grébaut's Wine Shop That Pours by the Corkage Fee
The 11th-arrondissement bottle shop from the Septime team is a natural wine bar in disguise — and the trick is to shop the wall, not the by-the-glass list.
The wooden chalet façade on rue Basfroi looks like a bottle shop, and it is one, until you notice that half the people inside are holding stemware and eating jambon de bœuf off a plate balanced on a wine crate. This is Septime La Cave, the third leg of Bertrand Grébaut and Théophile Pourriat's 11th-arrondissement wine bar with a retail licence and a shop with a corkage policy, depending on which way you walk in.
The premise is simple and the room enforces it. Roughly 90 natural, biodynamic and small-producer wines line the walls. Ten or so are open by the glass on any given day. The rest are for sale, and any of them can be pulled off the shelf, opened at the bar and paid for as a bottle plus a corkage fee — worth confirming at the counter. That is the whole system. Order a glass, or shop the wall.
The best natural wine bar in the 11th is a bottle shop, and almost nobody uses it correctly the first time.
Editorial Deep
Ten or so glasses rotate daily off a wall of around 90 natural, biodynamic and small-producer wines. That is a serious ratio for a room this size, and the selection reads like what it is — the wine list of a serious restaurant, unbundled and put out for retail. Loire, Jura, Beaujolais and the Languedoc do most of the heavy lifting, with the usual small-grower cast the Septime group has been championing since the shop opened.
The room is a shop first and a bar second, and it never pretends otherwise. Bottles from floor to ceiling on the long wall, a short counter, a handful of bar stools, a couple of chairs pulled up to the window. When the weather cooperates, a few sidewalk tables spill onto rue Basfroi. That is the entire seating map, and most nights it fills by 6.30.
The crowd is the Septime group's crowd, which means 11th-arrondissement locals, a rotating cast of wine industry people, and a steady stream of diners burning an hour before their 9pm table at Septime or Clamato around the corner. Skews 30s to 40s, dressed like people who have opinions about Jura but do not need to prove it. English gets you through fine, though the room is majority French on a weekday. When it is full — which is most nights after 7 — the energy is high without tipping into loud, and nobody is waiting to turn your stool.
The trap is ordering three glasses off the by-the-glass list without ever looking at the wall. Do the math the other way: pick a bottle from the shelf, pay the corkage, split a plate of the jambon de bœuf at €12 and the Comté at €11, and you are drinking and eating well. That is a defensible outing for this quality of pour anywhere in the city, and a very good one for the 11th.
Come back on a weeknight around 6pm with a Septime reservation for 8.30, grab a window chair, and let the staff pick a bottle you have not heard of. That is the night this room is built for — the pre-dinner hour that becomes the better half of the evening. Skip it if you want a table, a quiet conversation, or a cocktail; none of those are on offer here, and the room will not pretend otherwise.
Order this
Drink this.
A bottle pulled from the shelf with corkage, and the jambon de bœuf with bay oil and toasted almonds (€12)
“Shop the wall, not the by-the-glass card. That is the whole review.”
Septime La Cave is a bottle shop with a corkage policy and one of the best natural wine rooms in the 11th, and it rewards a specific move: pull a bottle off the wall, pay corkage, and let the staff guide you. Skip it if you need a table, a quiet talk, or a cocktail. Come early — most nights it is standing-room-only by 6.30, and the handful of window chairs go first.
The Verdict
