Napoleon had been dead in Saint Helena for a year, reigned in Paris Louis XVIII and the Paris region was full of vineyards and good wines. Nicolas is the local wine cellar for Parisians and the Ile de France300 shops on the counter.
So he’s a real gentleman Louis Nicholas who in 1822 moved to Paris to sell wine in a first shop located 53 Sainte-Anne Street in the first arrondissement, warehouses in the suburbs in Charenton.
In 1895, Etienne Nicolas, Louis’ grandson, modernized the company, captain of industry out of the ordinary, he develops home delivery. First barrels and then bottle racks, everywhere in Paris, motorized tricycles in the red color of the wine merchant criss-cross the city and deliver Bordeaux, Côtes du Rhône, Burgundy and Champagne. But Etienne Nicolas’ stroke of genius was advertising and from 1922 he was driving the production of advertising films in cinemas, leaflets, enamel signs in the metro and on buses as well as radio commercials.
To identify the brand, a funny character appears: a wine delivery man with rebellious mustachesslightly hallucinated, designed by Drancy who is nicknamed Nectar. Etienne Nicolas, always at the forefront, calls on renowned painters and poster designers for the various advertising campaigns: Villemot, Loupot, Cassandre, Dufy, Derain and Buffet design posters and in catalogs always with this slogan “Nicolas, fine bottles“.
1984, end of the family saga, the Nicolas group is taken over by the Cognacs Rémy Martin. Four years later, the brand passed into the hands of Peter Castel8th fortune in France, creator of private label wines: Castelvin, La Villageoise, Listel, Kriter or Baron de Lestac.
So, a little thirsty, an impromptu dinner, a birthday, an invitation, rush quickly to your wine merchant in the four corners of Paris and let’s have a thought for Nectar and his son Glouglou who are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Nicolas cellars with dignity.