If you want to drink the finest wines in the world you don’t need to look further than the La Paulee Events and Gala dinner. I’ve had the very good fortune to taste all of the greatest wines from all of the top Domains with the exception of Henri Jayer over the years. You’ll have the opportunity to meet the winemakers along with a room full of fellow enthusiasts from all over the world. I only wish that I had known about La Paulee 5 years earlier.
This years highlights were drinking 1979 George Mugnerets Clos Vougeot with his daughter Marie-Christine Mugneret, 1991 Meursault Charmes & Perrières with Dominique Lafon, 1988 1993 1999 DRC Richebourg, 2000 Richebourg 1996 2009 VR Brûlée’s Meo, 1991 Chambertin Rousseau, 2004 Montrachet Ramonet, 1996 Montrachet Colin, 1998 Musigny 2002 2006 CM Amouruses Mugnier, 1947 & 1988 Bonnes Mares Ponelle & Roumier, 2010 GE Drc, 1999 RSV & other Leroy, and probably the finest old wine I’ve had 1943 Corton Leonce Bocquet mag. Cheers
I have attended a number of Le Paulee. A wonderful event. But, I no longer attend any of the events. I do come to NYC for all the alt things. A whole separate thing has evolved around it. Really special dinners of small groups to savor really special wines. Alt-Paulee is now where you drink truly amazing wines in a relaxed non-big dick way. A lot of people are doing this.
Yes, did a very nice alt-Paulee dinner organized by Rich, with lovely wines and company, including board member Diane Kessler (always great to taste with) and Rich’s friend Aaron, who offered outstanding wine appraisals. I attended the verticals and not the grand tasting or the gala, as I am not buying a lot of current releases and the dinner is indeed a little rich for my blood; also, it seems like there is a lot of jockeying over bottles and I have never been crazy about Restaurant Daniel. (The Chicago version was fabulous, more manageable, and I would definitely go again.)
At the verticals, I found all the Leflaive Batard’s poured there ('05, 01, and '94) mind blowing, and of course no need to worry about premox . The two older Batard’s were especially exciting, in part for how different they were from one another, the '94 showing more (tropical) fruit, though similar distinctive spice on the noses of both and amazing amounts of extract. On reds, the V-R Aux Brulees of Liger-Belair ('12, '10, '08) was the stand-out. Such beautiful wine with great depth and clarity; I think they show better than his Aux Reignots or even his Clos at a young age, and I was told that he only bottles these in magnum to bring to these sorts of events, no retail. On qpr for me, the Chablis of Christian Moreau was the find in whites (Vaudesir '10, '09. 05) and Didier Fornerol, mentioned by others in the grand tasting thread, was that in reds. Finally, given the coin asked, the food was rather disappointing, a small range of charcuterie and cheese and some crackers–grand tasting does way better in this respect. Still, already looking forward to 2020.
If you can put together a dinner with 7 Leflaive Grand Crus and seven Roumier Bonnes Mares, you probably don’t need to go to the gala And I definitely agree, you get a much better appreciation for the wines in a smaller setting than you do at the gala. I realized very quickly that the winemaker sitting across from me was immediately dumping everything he didn’t love, so followed his (unspoken) advice. Of course, that meant there were some things that improved in the glass I missed out on, and you simply can’t wait.
I went in part because while I can bring a few interesting things, I haven’t been drinking Burgundy quite that long so can’t compete with those kinds of wines (I’ve never had a Roumier Bonnes Mares). I had a good time, though I do agree that some of things people started opening at the after party were probably unnecessary. It’s always nice of people to do so, but I don’t think we were even going to get much out of them.
Plus, there’s the fun experience of offering some of my wine to Laurent Lignier and then talking to him about it for 5 minutes.
EDIT: Also, they definitely don’t serve enough food at the dinner. I joked to one of the people sitting next to me that I was hoping not to be the first person at the dinner to get sick and he told me I definitely wasn’t going to be given what he’d already seen.
How do you mean trade? i guess maybe high level how does the gala dinner work? you pay $1500 and that gets you the dinner/seat…
you then carry around bottles and trade pours with people? or only with people on your table?
what if some one brings a crappy/cheap bottle? i guess that seems like a really odd setting…
The somms bring your bottles to you, at which point you typically pour for everyone around you and then, if you want, you can walk around other tables and pour for other people. So, for my wines, I found some people I knew (and people around them) and poured for them as well as a couple of the winemakers I’d talked to at the tasting or whose wines I buy.
The quality of the wines tends not to be an issue because there’s so much wine, and a lot of people bring great stuff. Plus, the producers tend to bring very large formats.
The R-C 1928 must have been authentic. This is the only time I’ve heard any report of a Rudy wine that was anything other than spectacular. I always thought that should have been a major red flag.
The Gala Dinner is a huge tasting event to discover new wines. It may be excessive but that’s one of the goals. Unfortunately the way prices have escalated recently it may be the only way to experience some of the wines now.
I’m curious abou this – were the premoxed separated from the corked or was there some way to tell which was which? And can you give a guess about what that means about the ratio of good to flawed wines that night? 10 to 1? 20 to 1?
No, all the wines were just put on shelves randomly. Many of the whites could have been corked as well, but there was certainly a lot more than reds. I was just struck by how many great wines were on those shelves, that were cherished for so long, and never made it. I was quite drunk at the time, and I tended to get quite philosophical.
As for how many wines were consumed that night, I seem to remember somebody saying there were 440 people there, everybody bringing multiple bottles, so figure at least 1000 bottles.
you can do with your wine what you want. But you complained about an After Show party when people could barely speak and stand due to intoxication. And then you reported about a better event you did participate when the average amount per person was roughly two and a half bottles? Hmmm. Latest after 1 liter of wine it doesn’t matter much what you drink. The subtleties of fine wines get lost. IMHO. The comment that some of these rare and expensive bottles weren’t finished isn’t a calming info either. Why wasting great wine? Sure - one can consume the leftovers the next day (if able or willing to do). But if old wine is open for so long you will not have proper quality any more.
. The two older Batard’s were especially exciting, in part for how different they were from one another, the '94 showing more (tropical) fruit, though similar distinctive spice on the noses of both and amazing amounts of extract. On reds, the V-R Aux Brulees of Liger-Belair ('12, '10, '08) was the stand-out. Such beautiful wine with great depth and clarity; I think they show better than his Aux Reignots or even his Clos at a young age, and I was told that he only bottles these in magnum to bring to these sorts of events, no retail. On qpr for me, the Chablis of Christian Moreau was the find in whites (Vaudesir '10, '09. 05) and Didier Fornerol, mentioned by others in the grand tasting thread, was that in reds. Finally, given the coin asked, the food was rather disappointing, a small range of charcuterie and cheese and some crackers–grand tasting does way better in this respect. Still, already looking forward to 2020.![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}