What's Pressoir Eating and Drinking?
By Justine Puaud & Edouard Bourgeois
We always have our little routine after each La Paulée festival. We meet in a casual restaurant, open fantastic bottles, share some laughs and relax. This year was special. Not only because La Paulée was virtual or because we were less hungover than we used to be after La Paulée’s after party but also because we haven’t hung out with the whole team since La Paulée 2020.
We all met in the private dining room upstairs at the Winner Cafe & Bakery in Brooklyn and had a delicious late lunch. Daniel Eddy, founder of Winner and former chef of Michelin-starred Rebelle, opened Winner right before the pandemic. It quickly became the new Park Slope spot. This place is known for its sourdough baguettes, roasted chickens and delicious doughnuts. They tend to sell out of most of the day’s bread by 3pm so don’t wait and come early.
I think we will all remember this lunch for the best roast chicken ever! Winner’s chickens are salted, smoked, spatchcocked, and roasted. The chicken’s fatty drippings are used to baste butterball potatoes, and are then reduced into a dark, malty-tasting jus. We all finished this dish by dipping bread into the delicious chicken jus…Check out the Winner Chicken Dinner here.
And then came the wines…with members of our La Paulée team living in different states, it was important to open serious bottles to properly celebrate being together after weeks of hard work! Early nostalgia of La Paulée Mondiale inspired us to open wines in connection to the different events of the last festival edition. Starting with mouth-watering, saline Chablis from the venerable Vincent Dauvissat and Raveneau brothers, their Forest 1995 and Montée de Tonnerre 1989, respectively, may not have been Grand Cru though they were the perfect kick start to this joyful meal. In time for the chicken, Daniel popped open two different bottles of Clos-St-Jacques. Rousseau’s version of the flamboyant 2009 offered animal, meaty notes and power while the signature cherry fruit of Fourrier’s 2005 stood out. To the recurrent question on the iconic Gevrey-Chambertin’s climat deserving Grand Cru status or not, I’m still unable to answer. I know it is certainly a vineyard able to provide an intense and singular drinking experience. The high quality of the wines produces there is undeniable.
We finally revisited the “ Les Amoureuses” thanks to a generous gift from Christophe Roumier himself, who gave us a bottle each of his 1983 and 1988. Some wines have the power to impose silence around the table, a phenomenon some call a religious experience. This famously sensual Premier Cru of Chambolle-Musigny is often described as “the iron hand in a velvet glove”, or “la force tranquille”, a reference so eloquently suggested by Frederic Mugnier. I could not agree more with these comments. The 1983 clearly showed a more advanced stage but didn’t lack to impress, offering tertiary notes of tobacco and damp earth. The 1988, on the other hand, was still fresh as a daisy, gushing with sweet fruit in a mesmerizing finish.
