Beneath the cobblestones of Paris’s 5th arrondissement, 12,000 square feet of climate-controlled space house one of the world’s most storied wine collections. La Tour d’Argent is a gastronomic institution overlooking the Seine and a Wine Spectator Grand Award winner since 1986, home to nearly 300,000 bottles of wine. The owners recently completed a stylish reimagining of the historic cellars and, for the first time, are offering wine lovers the opportunity to experience these hallowed vaults through guided tours.
La Tour d’Argent’s long history begins in 1582, when it first opened as an inn where King Henry III’s nobility could dine. The restaurant was soon among the most fashionable places to eat in Europe, and it was rebuilt after the French Revolution. And in the 1930s, the building took the shape it has today, when the owners moved the kitchen and dining room upstairs to take advantage of breathtaking views of the Seine and Notre Dame Cathedral.
The restaurant began another extensive refurbishing in 2022, at the same time Notre Dame was being rebuilt. The balance between respecting history and looking forward is a principle of the restaurant, according to André Terrail, president of Groupe La Tour d’Argent. When asked how he’d describe this latest refresh of his grandfather’s legacy, he responded, “We are neither classic nor modern. We are contemporary. And when it comes to our wine selections, we simply love great wines.”
Now both diners and guests will be able to learn more about the incredible wine program. For wine collectors and enthusiasts, the upcoming tours represent rare access to one of the world’s most significant private wine collections.
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A Secret Wall That Saved History
The cellars themselves have witnessed remarkable history. During the Nazi occupation of Paris, Claude Terrail—André’s father—undertook a daring nighttime operation that would protect the establishment’s most precious bottles from confiscation.
Working in secret, Terrail and his team erected a false wall deep within the cellars, then strategically placed bottles in front to disguise the partition. “Mr. Terrail came back during the night just to build the wall with the maître d’hôtel,” said Victor Gonzalez, the restaurant’s executive head sommelier. “The Nazis had no idea what was behind it.” For five years, the establishment’s finest vintages aged peacefully behind this hidden barrier while Hitler—ironically a non-drinker—pilfered France’s greatest wines elsewhere.
More recently, however, the restaurant did fall victim to more subtle thieves. In January, 2024, the restaurant filed a complaint with Paris police, reporting that more than 80 bottles, worth $1.63 million, had gone missing from the cellar during the renovations, including bottles from Burgundy’s Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. The culprit and wines are still at large.
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The recent transformation focused on ensuring optimal preservation conditions for what Terrail describes as a collection that must be planned “15, 20, sometimes 50 years” into the future. The cellars, divided across two levels—8,600 square feet on the first basement floor and 4,300 on the second—now feature a completely re-engineered climate control system.
“We’ve been changing the entire air conditioning system just to make sure that we’ve got the perfect temperature for our wines,” said Gonzalez. The challenge in a city of ancient stone buildings is significant. During Paris’ hot summers, historic structures absorb and retain heat, making consistent cool temperatures difficult to maintain. This new infrastructure ensures year-round stability between 12° and 14° C (53° to 57° F), critical for wines that may spend decades maturing before service.
“We can be sure that the temperature will stay between 12° to 14° C,” said Gonzalez. “And I think this is what we need for a long, long, long aging.”
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That belief in long aging ties into what distinguishes La Tour d’Argent’s approach in wine and food. In an era when tasting menus with accompanying wine pairings dominate fine dining, the restaurant maintains a deliberately contrarian philosophy: They serve wine exclusively by the bottle.
“We truly believe in the consumption of wine by the bottle,” said Gonzalez. “It’s a heritage that the family’s founders were already building and defending.”
This conviction stems from both tradition and observation. “A bottle is nice to be shared between guests, between people,” he explained. “And also the wine can follow the entire menu and evolve throughout the service as well.” Rather than brief encounters with small pours, guests experience the wine’s evolution throughout their meal—a living dialogue between cuisine and viticulture.
The philosophy accommodates surprising pairings. While lobster and white wine seem like natural companions, Gonzalez suggests, ”a light red wine with a bit of edge with lobster could work very well.” Even the restaurant’s signature pressed duck—Canard Tour d’Argent—might be accompanied by aged white Hermitage or grand cru white Burgundy rather than predictable reds.
“What is interesting is we’ve been storing and aging these wines sometimes for decades,” Gonzalez notes. “I think it’s nice to respect the wines and to see how they’re evolving. The wine will not necessarily show perfectly right away.”
The sommelier says the approach adds something truly special to a meal. “For me, the best experience is when you pick a bottle and you’ve got every single sip or every single glass that you’re drinking that will be almost a different wine,” he said. “Some people say, ‘Oh the last sip was the best.’ Yeah, because you’ve been drinking the wine the entire meal, so you see the difference”
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Balancing Heritage and Innovation
Terrail acknowledges the delicate dance between honoring tradition and embracing contemporary trends. Former head sommelier David Ridgway made what Terrail calls “one of the most incredible bets” on Burgundy in the late 1980s and early 1990s—a period when the region’s ascendancy was far from certain. Today, the cellars’ strength remains in red and white Burgundy, including “amazing old whites from Burgundy from 40 or 60 years old that are so fresh and incredible.”
Under Gonzalez’s stewardship, the collection continues to evolve. “How do we bring the modern spice?” asked Terrail. “Maybe go for very classic old Bordeaux and have some fun in Jura or some fun in Savoie, with all those biodynamic, sometimes natural wines that are becoming incredibly good.”
This forward-looking approach represents a new chapter for the cellars—respecting the gravitas of museum-quality heritage bottles while embracing what Terrail describes as ”the amazing quality of wine that we have today in general, not just in France, but in general.”
The wine program has also provided a way of building relationships with guests. La Tour d’Argent operates two distinct wine purchasing programs: an invitation-only insider’s circle for ambassadors and close friends of La Tour d’Argent and a more accessible “Personal Wine Shopper” service, which Gonzalez describes as “kind of a concierge.”
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Touring Vinous Paris
The guided cellar tours at La Tour d’Argent will launch in coming weeks. Details and reservations will be available through the restaurant’s website and concierge services. While Terrail prefers to “leave some surprise for the experience,” he hints at the depth awaiting visitors, ”diving in and spending time with the sommelier team, listening to the history of the establishment, also the logistics of the wine cellar, which are very complex.”
Guests will be able to inquire about acquisition strategy, long-term cellaring philosophy and the intricate decisions involved in both building and, critically, selling from a collection of this magnitude. “It’s useless to buy wine if you don’t know how to sell it,” said Terrail, showing the pragmatism of someone stewarding a living collection rather than a static museum.
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