If David Ginola ever gives up football - and the rumour that non-league Accrington Stanley made a tongue-in-cheek bid for the unsettled Everton player recently is enough to prompt anyone to bin their shin-pads - then most people expect him to go into modelling, management or the media. Ginola may well continue to advertise cars, coffee and shampoo, but what he really wants to do is make wine.
'My dream is to buy a domaine in France,' he says, sipping claret at his favourite table in London's L'Estaminet restaurant. 'There are a few places near my home, old bastides and châteaux, that would be ideal.' This isn't a recent obsession either. Ginola tried to buy the Domaine de la Bastide Blanche near St Tropez, a property with 30 hectares of vines and access to a white-sanded nudist beach, a few years ago, but was outbid. 'I'd like to do something that I'm as passionate about as football, but it would have to be something serious. I'd love to make a top quality red in Provence and sell it over here. I've got good contacts.'
Ginola is as Provençal as bouillabaisse. He was born in Gassin, near St Tropez, and still owns a house in Sainte Maxime, where he has a large air-conditioned cellar. In the south of France, drinking wine is like slurping tea for a Brit. 'I started to drink wine as soon as I started to eat with my parents, RenË and Mireille. They drank wine every day at lunchtime and still do. When I was a small kid my dad used to put two or three drops of red wine in a glass of water. It was a gentle introduction to wine, a calling if you like.'
Monsieur and Madame Ginola were not fine wine collectors. 'They didn't have much money, but the cellar was always full of vins de table,' their son recalls. On Saturday mornings, Ginola and his father used to visit the local co-operative in Plan de La Tour. 'We would take three big demijohns with us and fill them with the local CËtes de Provence wine using a hose. It was a ritual in our family. When we got home, my father and I used to transfer the wine into bottles and put the corks in the bottles ourselves. I can still remember the smell of the wine in that cellar.'
A wealthy man, Ginola's got enough money to drink what he wants these days, but when he goes home he still visits the cave co-operative with his dad. His tastes, in food as well as wine, remain remarkably simple, even if he likes to drink top Bordeaux or Burgundy on special occasions. Food and wine are intertwined for Ginola, as they are for most French people. 'A taste for wine begins with a love of food,' he says. 'People who don't like eating don't really like wine. I'm shocked when I see people drinking wine on its own. Without food, wine is just alcohol.'
Being a footballer involves following a strict diet. Gone are the days when footballers refuelled on brown ale, pies and mushy peas. Ginola eats a lot of fish, be it sea bass, plaice or monkfish, and plenty of vegetables; he also tucks into pasta and is delighted that red wine (in moderation) is actively recommended by most sports dieticians, even if most of them wouldn't advise you to drink claret with a large plate of cheese (a favourite Ginola combination). White wines, on the other hand, are proscribed. 'Acid whites, especially champagne, are bad for the tendons, the muscles and the joints,' says Ginola. This doesn't seem to stop British footballers drinking vast quantities of Dom Pérignon and Cristal, mind you.
Ginola is sensible about what he eats, but admits to drinking the odd glass of white wine, usually out of season. 'I like Chablis, white Bordeaux and white Burgundy, and I'm crazy about sweet wines, particularly Alsace Vendanges Tardives and Coteaux du Layon from the Loire Valley. The first time I tasted sweet Chenin Blanc, I hit the ceiling.' For all you single blokes out there, Ginola recommends Vendange Tardive as a great seduction wine. 'I know women who never drink wine, but love Vendange Tardive. It's soft, sweet and intense, but there's nothing aggressive about it.'
A bottle of Vendange Tardive played a role in one of Ginola's greatest gastronomic moments. In 1994, he took his wife, Coraline, to La Tour d'Argent in Paris for her birthday. The Ginolas had a great meal, but before the dessert was served, the restaurant's owner, Claude Terrail, invited them to visit the cellar. 'We walked past all these wonderful wines and eventually we were led to this candle-lit room at the heart of the cellar. And there in the middle, they'd set up a table with our desserts waiting for us and a bottle of Alsace Vendange Tardive.'
For all his occasional sweetness of tooth, Ginola's real interest is red wine. He started collecting wine when he was a player at Paris Saint-Germain in 1993. A French supermarket chain, called Maurepas, 'sort of like a French Tesco', was launching its annual wine fair and Ginola and a few other PSG players were invited to go along. The supermarket had also invited an assortment of French sommeliers and restaurateurs, which is how Ginola got talking to Philippe Faure-Brac, a former World Champion Sommelier and the owner of Le Bistro du Sommelier in Paris.
'Philippe told me what to buy and became a bit of a mentor. He helped me to get my cellar off to a good start, with lots of 1989 and 1990 Bordeaux, a case of 1986 Château d'Yquem and some 1982 Gruaud-Larose.' Even Ginola blanched when Faure-Brac told him to invest in a case of 1982 ChËteau PËtrus, however. 'It cost me nearly £3,000 a case even then. But it's being sold at auction for around £16,000, so that has to count as a good piece of advice. I opened a bottle with 10 friends recently and it was a sublime moment.'
Enthused by his new-found passion, Ginola decided to add some red Burgundy to his collection. Somewhat naively, he picked up the phone and called the Domaine de la RomanËe-Conti in Vosne-RomanËe. 'I'd like to buy a case of Romanée-Conti,' he said. 'The1990.' Slowly and with great diplomacy, the domaine's owner explained that 'Monsieur Ginola, we do not sell that wine by the case. If you buy a mixed case of all our red Burgundies, it will include one bottle of Romanée-Conti.' Ginola agreed to the house rule and he's still got the case at his cellar in Provence.
That cellar is full of good bottles, ranging from local ProvenËal wines to the likes of 1990 Château Latour and the cases of 1982 Pétrus and 1990 DRC. 'I've got about 3,000 bottles in all,' he says, 'and I keep a cellar book with a record of what I bought where and when and the people I drank it with. I buy wine to give other people pleasure. The whole idea of wine is to give, rather than receive.' For Ginola, modern football contains rather too much of the latter. 'When I started playing, clubs were like families. Players and their wives used to eat together and socialise together. These days it's chacun pour soi.'
There are exceptions, however. Ginola once drank two bottles of wine with Kevin Keegan when he was a player at Newcastle. 'It was the first time I'd had a relationship like that with a coach. One Saturday after a match, Kevin and his wife invited me to their home and Kevin and I sat up drinking red Bordeaux. He's a very warm and generous man. We played golf the next day in a charity event called The Ron Atkinson Challenge and I remember seeing two balls on the first tee.'
The other example of footballing camaraderie came at the Hotel du Vin in Birmingham. Ginola used to live at the hotel when he was an Aston Villa player and regarded the place as his (rather special) canteen. 'I discovered lots of new wines thanks to Gérard Basset, the owner, and two of the sommeliers, Corrine and Cyrile. I drank wines from Beringer for the first time there and Brown Brothers. They used to do blind tastings for me - I love that place, it has the feel of a Parisian brasserie with old posters and wooden floorboards. I really miss it.'
After training, Ginola sometimes used to invite his fellow players back to the hotel. 'What was the point in staying at Villa if you could eat there? We had some great times, with a group of people from different backgrounds and cultures sitting around a table and enjoying food and wine.' Most British footballers drink beer, if they drink anything, but this was different, according to Ginola.
Ginola's favourite wines are all French. 'It's not a nationalistic thing,' he explains, 'it's just that I know my limits.' There's the 1982 PËtrus he bought at Maurepas ('exclusivity, prestige and incredible concentration'), the 1990 Romanée-Conti ('pure elegance and silky tannins'), a 1989 Sélection de Grains Nobles, Kaefferkopf from Alsace ('soft and sweet, it fills your palate with lovely flavours'), a 1970 Haut-Brion ('classic red Graves from a great vintage') and 1981 Côte Rôtie, Chapoutier ('a wine to drink with strongly flavoured dishes like wild boar and game').
His sixth wine probably says more about the real Ginola than any of the other five, no matter how posh or expensive they may be. The 2001 ChÝteau de Rasque Côtes de Provence Rosé, made at a domaine owned by a family friend, is something Ginola keeps in his fridge 'every day of summer when I'm at home. It's fresh and it's fruity, you can almost drink it like water. It's so hot in Provence in July and August, that rosé is ideal, especially with coquillages.' Ginola left home at the age of 13 to play football in a career that has taken him from Nice to Toulon, Paris to Newcastle, London, Birmingham and now Liverpool, but he says that Provence represents 'my life, my youth and my roots. I love the smells of the south: the pine trees and the lavender and the thyme. I love the sea, I love the sound of cicadas and I love the taste of garlic, outdoor grillades and wild mushrooms. Last autumn we went out on a mushroom hunt en famille. We were standing in this forest when it stared to rain. Everyone else went back to the house, but I stood on a cliff for two hours rubbing lavender between my hands, just smelling the south.' Football fans will miss his intricate skills, but Domaine David Ginola cannot be far away.
David Ginola's top six
1982 Pétrus
1990 Romanée-Conti
1989 Sélection de Grains Nobles Kaefferkopf
1970 Haut-Brion
1981 Côte Rôtie, Chapoutier
2001 Château de Rasque Côtes de Provence Rosé
