Jack is a man of appetites.

While mayor of Paris, in one eight-year span he ran up a personal grocery bill of £1.4M (USD $2.63M, €2.08M). That is an astonishing USD $1,920/day, everyday, for the 4-person Chirac household. This prompted an investigation that predictably went nowhere.

More gourmand than gourmet, Jack finds the money to surround himself with people to surround him with the best of everything, which gives him a reputation for refinement that belies his pedestrian appreciations.

Oh, this is not news, but it has recently been in the news with the auctioning of the excellent municipal wine cellar put together during Jack's mayoral tenure.

IN CHIRAC'S VINO SALE, VERITAS:
HE PREFERRED CORONA TO PETRUS

PARIS October 19, 2006 (Bloomberg) - Almost 5,000 bottles of Lafite-Rothschild, Petrus, Margaux and other rare vintages laid up in Paris City Hall during Chirac's tenure as mayor are going under the hammer this week, marking a sign of either fiscal restraint or waning French prestige, depending on your perspective.

Chirac, who was mayor from 1977 until he became president of the republic in 1995, served only the finest French wines to guests... The current mayor, Socialist Bertrand Delanoe, is cracking down on costs: No more fancy dinners, no gifts to guests, and no grands crus except for "exceptional" events.

"Let's just say times have changed and there is a limit to prestige," says Bernard Candiard, head of the city's public bank, Credit Municipal de Paris, which is hosting the auction. ... The sale reflects "the decline of France," says [food historian Anthony] Rowley, who teaches at the elite Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. "Paris missed the Olympic Games bid, and now it shows it can't even keep its wines."

The City Hall collection, to be sold by Paris auction house SVV Giafferi on Oct. 20 and 21 and on view today at Credit Municipal, was pieced together by Bernard Bled, Chirac's mayoral chief of staff. Chirac himself knew so little about oenology that he couldn't tell Burgundy from Bordeaux, Bled says during a talk in his 36th-floor office in La Defense, the skyscraper where he now works as an urban planner. ... How little did Chirac know about wine? Well, says Bled, he taught the former mayor to utter just one word when a sommelier came around: "Chablis."

Given his druthers, the president drinks beer and has a weakness for Corona, say Bled and Rowley.

RATHER THAN SIPPING, PARIS SELLS

PARIS October 19, 2006 (IHT/NYT) - [The current mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë] entertains less, and when he does, it is usually at Champagne-and-hors d'oeuvre receptions. The city's independent auditor reported last year that the mayor's office now serves only about 30 bottles of fine wine a year.

... But the auditor noted that many of the best bottles in the city's wine cellar had appreciated in value to a point that they are worth too much to drink at city functions.

"No municipal reception can justify the consumption of a wine costing hundreds, even thousands of euros," the auditor's report said.

... Delanoë has responded by putting 4,960 bottles of the most valuable bottles up for auction. The official reason given by City Hall is that the wine cellar is at risk of flooding and that it wants to reduce its stock to what it can store above the high-water mark from the flood of 1910, the last time the Seine overflowed its banks in a big way.

... But offended oenophiles say the real reason is political. "This is propaganda," said Anthony Rowley, the food historian, adding that the city could easily reduce its stock without so much publicity. He suggested that the auction had more to do with upcoming municipal elections than it did with the risk of a once-in-a-century flood. "It underlines the modesty of the current municipal administration compared to the past." ... Instead, Delanoë "thinks it is fashionable and modern to serve little democratic wines."

Maratier, the wine expert, who arranges periodic auctions of wine from private cellars, said the City Hall auction was unique because all of the wines are from top classifications and have been stored under optimum conditions without being moved. He has estimated the market value of the wine to be sold at €550,000 but said that based on the interest that the auction has received, he believes it could bring in as much as €750,000.

CHIRAC'S TOWN HALL WINE COLLECTION MAKES A MILLION

PARIS October 21, 2006 (Reuters) - The sale earned 961,030 euros (644,000 pounds [USD $1,211,472.10]) against expectations of up to 700,000 euros, a spokeswoman for the Credit Municipal auction house said on Saturday.

"It all sold very well," the spokeswoman said.

Finally a little something on the positive side of Jack's legacy ledger.

PFFT (What is this?): Excellency in wine 5 | Excellency in governance ¼ | Rayonnement français 2½