Reflections on the Birth of La Paulee
February 27, 2025
Daniel Johnnes
As I board my plane to San Francisco the reality has sunk in that we are embarking on a nearly two week journey celebrating a quarter century of La Paulée. 25 years is a lot but somehow stating it as a quarter century lends another degree of gravitas.
I could not be more proud.
It all started in the back room of a small restaurant in Tribeca called Montrachet. Tribeca was hardly a culinary destination in 1985. There was the Odeon and that’s it. With the fine cuisine of David Bouley and the front of the house direction of Drew Nieporent, we drew attention to the neighborhood.
Daniel and Drew 1985 at Montrachet
Timing could not have been better. New York was seeing a small culinary revolution, with fine dining starting to move towards a taste for more casual dining. The French restaurants - Lutece, La Cote Basque, La Grenouille of midtown - represented the old guard; Montrachet along with Chanterelle were setting the pace towards a more relaxed experience.
So change was in the air, and not just in the dining room and the kitchen. Wine was growing in popularity. Instead of people ordering a glass of Chablis for just any generic white wine, clients were now starting to know that Chablis was a place and it produced a distinctive wine that spoke of that place.
You also had a new generation of winemakers in the vineyards of Burgundy. The first few years of the 80’s were the years many of my soon to become friends were taking the helm of their family domaines. Dominique Lafon, Christophe Roumier, Patrick Bize (a little earlier), Etienne Grivot, Anne Claude Leflaive were carrying on family traditions but with great interest in the land and improving the quality of their wine through taking better care of their vineyards. They decided to move away from chemical treatments and go towards organic and then biodynamic viticulture. They studied, travelled, and talked to winemakers in other regions and realized that to make the greatest wine possible from the incredible sites they had inherited, they had to produce healthy grapes.
Again, timing was paramount. There I was, a waiter in a restaurant called Montrachet. The name of a vineyard that produces the greatest dry white wine on the planet. I had studied, travelled, lived and worked in France a few years earlier, spoke fluent French and had an interest in wine. Drew asked me to help him manage his wine list of about 75 wines and because of the restaurant name, I had to curate a list focused on Burgundy. Poor me!
The crew at Montrachet 1985.
It didn’t take me long to grow the list to several hundred wines, mostly Burgundy, and then travel to Burgundy to improve my knowledge of the wines I would be selling - also to meet the winemakers and enjoy the culture and traditions of Burgundy.
The namesake vineyard
These encounters led to asking for special allocations for the restaurant. Remember, Burgundy had trouble selling its wine up until that time so, getting serious quantities of village level, premier cru and grand cru wines at very reasonable prices was easy.
I then started inviting my new friends to New York for wine dinners at the restaurant. These dinners grew in popularity to the point where we started a Burgundy Club called “Grand Crew”. With close to 100 members and a deep passion and growing knowledge of Burgundy, it was easy to attract Aubert de Villaine, Jacques Seysses, Anne-Claude Leflaive, Christophe Roumier, Dominique Lafon, Veronique Drouhin, Patrick Bize, Jean-Pierre de Smet and many more for these small dinners.
It wasn’t until 1991 when, at a dinner at the home of Jean-Pierre de Smet at Domaine de l’Arlot in Premeaux/Nuits Saint Georges, that the seed for La Paulée de New York was planted.
The dinner guests that night all concurred that it would not only be a good promotional trip for their wines but fun as well if they came as a group. So, the following year, 1992, we hosted at Montrachet and Tribeca Grill the first of what would become La Paulee de New York.
A lot happened in the next 8 years (saved for another chapter) but after asking permission from the mayor of Meursault and the president of La Paulee de Meursault, we set a date for the first official La Paulee de New York in February 2000.
That first year, 2000, was difficult. A lot fewer people were drinking Burgundy and no one had ever heard of having to bring their own wine to a fancy gala dinner cooked by world famous Michelin starred chefs. These BYO’s are now part of the wine communities’ landscape and they occur all over the world.
After the near tragic financial results of 2000, I decided to bring La Paulée to San Francisco the following year with the hope of recouping some losses and avoiding to take out a second mortgage on my home. The results were less dire but I couldn’t afford to do a third year back in NY. So we skipped 2002. 2003 was back in NY and with the enthusiastic and grateful support of the Burgundians and a burgeoning Burgundy clientele, we started to feel there was a real movement to continue to talk about (and drink) Burgundy. So, the ship had sailed and except for taking off another year in 2004, we have hosted a La Paulée every year either in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and a few mini versions in Houston, Chicago and several times in Aspen. And now, with the Troisgros family in Ouches, France.
Chef Daniel Boulud has been present since the first one. With his help, we have been able to welcome great culinary masters such as Michel Troisgros, Thomas Keller, Regis Marcon, Daniel Humm, David Bouley, Emma Bengtsson, James Kent, Dave Beran, and SF’s very own Michael Tusk, Chris Kostow, Stuart Brioza, Corey Lee, Traci des Jardins, Michael Mina and the late Charles Phan….and many many more.
So I guess I got lucky with timing but honestly, 2003 might have been the last Paulee had it not been for being able to assemble a skilled and passionate team to execute the thousands of moves necessary to pull off a successful event where we must properly take care of the winemakers, the clients, the chefs and the sommeliers so everyone goes home with fond memories. In a reference to baseball, I am lucky to have the “murderers row” of staff by my side. Murderers row described what many believe was the best baseball team in history: the 1927 Yankees led by Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. My murderers row is Jaime Dutton, Raj Vaidya, Justine Puaud, Max Goldberg Liu, Edouard Bourgeois, Nikita Malhotra, Astrid Breggia and my wife, Sally Johnnes. They are the best!!! I could not survive without them. Then there are all the sommeliers… so many!! Many thanks to all who have been with us along the way.
Together we do our best to showcase the beauty of Burgundy, its wines and its spirit.
Today, we are in San Francisco, next week, we will be in Tennessee at Black Berry Farm to raise funds for Sommelier Scholarship and then we have the grand finale back in New York on March 8th. We hope to see you there.
Bonne Paulée!!!
