‘These parties illustrate a desire for excess and a willingness to spend’
THE BIG APPLE loves a wine party. Fortunately the city’s most important ones – la paulée, Rieslingfeier, Burdigala and la Fête de Champagne – are not crammed into a single month, but instead dotted across several.
I have been reflecting on just what these extravaganzas say about the city and its elite drinkers. For one thing, they illustrate a deep desire for glorious excess and a willingness to spend. The exclusive ‘Methuselah’ package for Burgundy bash la paulée, in March, which included the priciest tastings, seminars and meals would have set you back $14,000.
All of these one- to several-day events have at least one big tasting with winemakers and a costly gala dinner to which producers and attendees bring fabulous old bottles from their own cellars to share, which just goes to show how social the city’s wine lovers are, no matter what they like to collect.
This story is from the July 2017 edition of Decanter.
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This story is from the July 2017 edition of Decanter.
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