Moving to France often begins with a romantic idea of what life might look like: long lunches, beautiful markets, local vineyards and a bottle of excellent wine that somehow costs less than the disappointing glass you ordered back home. But as anyone who actually builds a life here eventually discovers, French wine is about far more than what is inside the bottle, because it is connected to geography, regional identity, food, tradition and the way French people think about enjoying everyday life.
In this interview of FAB Expat, we meet Caroline, an American wine expert whose unconventional journey took her from studying archaeology and anthropology at Oxford to competitive blind wine tasting, before eventually bringing her to France and the city of Lyon, where she built her own wine business.
Her experience offers an interesting perspective for anyone thinking about moving to France, because behind the conversations about Burgundy, Bordeaux and whether expensive wine is really worth the money lies a much bigger story about choosing where to live, finding your place in French society and learning that France becomes considerably more interesting once you look beyond Paris.
Why Moving to France Does Not Have to Mean Moving to Paris
For many international residents, France and Paris initially feel almost interchangeable. Paris is where the jobs are, where the international community is largest and where newcomers often imagine they will have the easiest transition into French life.
But France is an intensely regional country, and choosing where to live can completely shape the experience you have after moving.
Caroline eventually built her life in Lyon, a city that offers many of the advantages people seek in France without the scale and intensity of the capital. It is surrounded by some of the country's most important wine regions, sits within easy reach of the Alps and has one of France's strongest culinary identities, while still being large enough to offer the professional opportunities and cultural life of a major European city.
That does not mean integration is automatically easy. Moving outside Paris can mean fewer English-speaking professional opportunities and a greater need to communicate confidently in French, while local social circles can sometimes take time to enter. However, that challenge can also create a much deeper relationship with the place you have chosen to call home.
If you are planning a move to France, it is worth looking beyond the destinations you already know. Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse and dozens of smaller cities offer completely different lifestyles, and the best place to live is not necessarily the place that looks most impressive during a weekend visit.
What French Wine Teaches You About Regional Identity in France
One of the first things newcomers discover is that France may be one country administratively, but culturally it can feel like dozens of different countries stitched together.
Wine makes this particularly obvious.
In Lyon, the surrounding regions of Burgundy, Beaujolais and the Rhône naturally dominate wine lists and conversations, while someone living near Bordeaux will encounter an entirely different drinking culture. Travel into Burgundy itself and regional loyalty becomes even stronger.
The same pattern exists far beyond wine. France's cheeses, breads, recipes, architecture and even expressions can change dramatically within a few hours of driving, and people often maintain a strong attachment to the traditions of the region where they grew up.
For someone moving to France, embracing that regional identity can be one of the easiest ways to begin understanding your new home. Instead of approaching France as a single culture to decode, learn about the specific place where you live, visit local producers, understand what people eat and drink, and discover why residents are so proud of things that may be almost unknown outside their region.
Is Expensive French Wine Actually Better?
France's reputation for wine can make the subject unnecessarily intimidating, particularly when some bottles sell for hundreds or even thousands of euros and famous names appear to belong to a world accessible only to collectors and experts.
The reality is considerably more reassuring. Price can reflect quality, but it can also reflect scarcity, reputation, history and demand. As prices climb into the highest levels of the wine market, the difference in cost does not necessarily translate into an equivalent difference in enjoyment.
For someone moving to France, this is excellent news because discovering French wine does not require an enormous budget. France produces a vast amount of wine intended to be enjoyed relatively young, and local wine merchants can introduce you to excellent bottles from lesser-known appellations and producers without requiring you to understand every classification before walking through the door.
Beaujolais is a particularly good example of how reputation can lag behind reality. The region is sometimes reduced internationally to Beaujolais Nouveau, yet it also produces serious, characterful wines and can offer a much more approachable experience for visitors than some of France's most prestigious wine destinations.
The best way to learn is simply to remain curious. You do not need to pretend to detect seventeen aromas in every glass, and you certainly do not need someone else's permission to enjoy an inexpensive bottle more than an expensive one.
Why Wine in France Is Really About Food, Place and Time
Wine becomes easier to understand when you stop treating it as an isolated luxury product and start seeing it as part of the broader French relationship with food.
France's culinary strength comes partly from its extraordinary regional diversity. Different climates, landscapes and agricultural traditions have created distinctive cheeses, wines, breads and ingredients across the country, and the concept of terroir extends far beyond vineyards.
Living in France gives you the opportunity to experience these products where they actually come from. You can discover goat cheese in the Loire, butter and cream in Normandy, wines in the Rhône Valley and ingredients that barely appear outside their home regions.
This also changes the way many expats think about eating. The experience is not necessarily about consuming expensive food every day, but about paying greater attention to ingredients, seasonality and the pleasure of sitting down to enjoy what you have bought.
For people arriving from cultures where speed and convenience dominate everyday meals, that adjustment can become one of the most enjoyable parts of French life.
Do You Need to Understand Wine Before Moving to France?
Absolutely not. Despite the intimidating language surrounding wine, most people in France are not professional sommeliers quietly analysing every glass they drink.
If you are interested, however, France is an extraordinary place to learn.
Visiting a good local caviste can be far more useful than staring at hundreds of supermarket labels without knowing where to begin. Explain what you normally enjoy, give a realistic budget and ask for recommendations. Over time, you will begin recognising regions, grape varieties and producers, and you may discover that your preferences change according to where you live and what you regularly drink.
The same principle applies to integrating into French life more broadly. You do not need to arrive knowing everything. You need enough curiosity to ask questions and enough humility to accept that some of your assumptions may be wrong.
Can Moving to France Be an Opportunity to Reinvent Your Career?
Perhaps the most interesting part of Caroline's journey for future expats has little to do with wine itself.
Moving abroad does not always allow you to continue your career exactly as it existed before. Qualifications may not translate neatly, professional networks disappear overnight and limited French can make certain jobs inaccessible, even when you have significant experience.
That can be frustrating, but it can also force you to reconsider what you actually want to do.
Building a business in France is not necessarily the easiest alternative, and anyone considering entrepreneurship needs to understand the legal, tax and administrative implications before beginning. However, international residents can sometimes identify opportunities precisely because they see the country differently from someone who has lived there their entire life.
Your previous career, interests, language skills and international perspective may combine in ways you never expected before moving.
What Is the Real Secret to Enjoying Life in France?
There is no single version of the perfect French life, just as there is no objectively perfect bottle of wine.
The more interesting question is what you enjoy.
For some people, that will mean living in central Paris surrounded by museums, restaurants and constant activity. For others, it will mean building a life in Lyon, buying wine from a local caviste and escaping to the Alps at weekends. Someone else may find exactly what they were looking for in a village surrounded by vineyards.
Moving to France successfully is often about giving yourself permission to discover a version of the country that does not match the one you originally imagined.
Watch the full interview with Caroline to discover more about her journey into the French wine world, the truth about expensive bottles, Burgundy versus Bordeaux, French food culture and what building a life in Lyon has taught her about France.
🤝 Follow Caroline:
- Instagram: @winedinecaroline