Staff at the family-run restaurant in Little Clarendon Street have teamed up with wine expert Toby Chiles.
Last month, diners enjoyed French onion soup, steak and frites and a pear tart, combined with a wine flight featuring seven Rhone wines. A selection of cheeses were provided by Oxford Cheese Company.
Mr Chlles, from Abingdon, who works for Midlands-based wine merchants Frazier Jones, has worked in the wine trade for 35 years.
It was while he was in France in the 1990s that he went to pick grapes in the Beaujolais region and fell in love with wine.
Toby Chiles (Image: Toby Chiles)
“We went out in the fields and came back to the farm at the end of the day for a meal in a big barn and then did it all over again,” he said.
Mr Chiles started specialising in wine and spirits wholesale in 2007. He is well known in Oxford University circles and has hosted many wine tasting sessions with the colleges and other establishments in Oxfordshire.
The wine expert is a brilliant raconteur and can talk for hours about wine although he kept his briefings reasonably short to allow the waiters to serve the delicious food.
French onion soup (Image: Mercy Ffrench)
Afterwards he was happy to reveal that he had once been a contestant on The TV quiz show The Weakest Link, and was subjected to “rude comments” by host Anne Robinson before making it through to the final and losing to another contestant.
Mr Chiles added: “I love sharing my wine passion with different people, and people who are new to wine, on a weekly basis.
Muscat De Beaumes De Venise, a dessrt wine (Image: Andy Ffrench)
“It gives me a sense of pride to help someone create their wine offering for their customers and to teach staff about wine.”
Perhaps Mr Chiles saved the best wine until last – the dessert wine – Muscat De Beaumes De Venise, which he revealed came from 50-year-old vines, hand harvested, and fermented in steel and concrete vats.
Staff at Pierre Victoire are also celebrating the award of an AA Rosette.
A salade nicoise at Pierre Victoire (Image: Pierre Victoire)
On November 16, Mr Chiles will host another wine tasting at the restaurant, with seven festive wines paired with a three-course menu at 6.30pm – price £75 per person.
The Oxford restaurant opened in 1996 as part of the Pierre Victoire group, before becoming independent in 1999.
Danny, one of the owners, said: “We came to it first as people who loved eating here, and our priority has been to preserve the things that made us return year after year.
“When we took it on, the outgoing proprietor described it to us as ‘the most reliably good plate of food in Oxford’, while almost everyone else seemed to offer the same advice: “Don’t change anything’ – particularly my parents.
“We strive to uphold the standards, tradition, atmosphere, generosity of portions and depth of flavour that made us love it in the first place.”
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