24 Oct The Fun of La Paulée

Traditionally, La Paulée is a Burgundian celebration held at the end of the grape harvest. So, hosting “La Paulée”, which comes from the French word for sauté pan, poile, during the Santa Barbara Celebration of Harvest Festival, was fitting…..and lots of fun. To kick off the Celebration of Harvest weekend, La Paulée was hosted on Friday night. In addition to a ticket to the event, the only other requirement is to bring a bottle of wine with you. This BYO event does not mean that you grab the first bottle you find or run to the supermarket on your way. What you want to do is look into your collection of wines and bring something that you are proud to share. We entered the room which had two long tables and were told to select where we wanted to sit and placed our bottles down. We then took part of a short reception where we tasted local Santa Barbara wines. We took our seats and everyone started to open their bottles. While we had our seats at the table, the key is to get up and walk around in order to taste the various wines that were on the tables and engage with the other guests. Here are a few key points when attending La Paulée:

• You have to be aggressively friendly. If you want to try different wines, you have to get up, walk around and help yourself to the wines on the tables.
• Don’t over-pour. First of all, you want to make sure that others get to taste the wines as well. Second, there are many wines to taste which leads to the next point…..
• Pace yourself. There are a lot of open bottles and it is very easy to lose track of how much you are drinking.
• Have fun! You won’t remember everything you tried nor will you be able to try everything but have fun!

We tasted so many delicious wines……local winemakers brought new releases and older vintages and many people brought out older vintages from Italy and France. The end of the night may be a blur but I know I drank a lot of great wine and hung out with wonderful winemaker friends. Can’t ask for more.