Of all of the events at the Boulder Burgundy Festival (now in its eighth year, my fifth as official blogger), there is no more spirited gathering than the “Paulée-Inspired Lunch.”

For those not familiar with the term paulée, it’s an annual party thrown in Burgundy to celebrate the end of harvest (paulée means literally a panful or the amount a pan holds, a reference to the early years of the outdoor celebration when attendees made single-pan meals). The Burgundian paulée was also inspiration for the New York and San Francisco wine festivals known as La Paulée.

Every year, on the Saturday of the Boulder festival, top Burgundy collectors bring prized bottles from their cellars to share liberally with other guests. It always makes for an extraordinary luncheon, this year hosted at Boulder’s excellent francophile Mateo where the kitchen turned out classic French country dishes including escargots, coq au vin, and the boeuf bourguignon in the photo above (the food was fantastic).

Yesterday’s meal happened to find me seated with a high-profile distributor who sells, among other fine wines, the highly coveted Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. And as it so happened, one of the guests (a very generous collector) sent over a glass of 2001 Échezeaux Grand Cru by the storied estate.

As we shared the wine (a small taste for each of us at the table), the conversation turned to the exorbitant cost of these wines and how they are allocated throughout the world.

According to WineSearcher.com, the current release price for this wine is around $1,650 per bottle (yes, per bottle). And the market price for the 2001 is around $2,300 per bottle.

But even these sums pale when compared with the current release price for the domaine’s top wine, the Romanée-Conti Grand Cru, which retails today in the U.S. for roughly $17,000 per bottle. (To wrap your mind around these astronomical prices for 750ml of wine, see this Barron’s article.)

One of the neatest things about my career arc is that so many Italian collectors enjoy sharing their wines with me. And over the last five years, my work with the Boulder Wine Merchant and the Boulder Burgundy Festival has given me the opportunity to taste some extraordinary French wines otherwise above my pay grade and beyond my reach.

But I had never touched my lips to the holy grail of fine wine, D-R-C as it is known in the trade by its initials.

It was an emotionally charged moment, I have to admit. And the wine, however youthful 17 years since it was harvested, was utterly and thoroughly delicious. With rich fruit, elegantly balanced acidity, and fine texture and weight, it really delivered greatness and wholly lived up to its name.

Will I taste it — let alone drink it — ever again? Probably not. And that’s okay by me. It’s kinda like the old bit about the rabbi who enjoys a bite of a ham sandwich but then notes that he can live without it (that’s not really how the joke goes but you get the drift).

I would have been happy with the fat glass of 1997 Latour Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru (one of my favorite appellations of all time), poured for me by a friend at yesterday’s event. It came from her father’s cellar and still had the price tag affixed: $125 per bottle, presumably purchased in the early 2000s before Burgundy’s prices began to skyrocket.

All in all, it’s been one of the best festivals of my run and I feel truly blessed to be a part of it.

Heartfelt thanks goes out to festival founder and organizer Brett Zimmmerman, who invited me up here for the first time five years ago, and to all the amazing sommeliers who have poured me truly unforgettable wines.

It’s always a wonderful gathering, attended by some of the best and brightest in our community, and I can’t recommend it enough to you.

Now I’m off to the last three events: Chablis brunch, Gevrey-Chambertin seminar with Pierre Rovani and Kelli White (both super cool wine writers), and grand tasting. Nice work if you can get it (as the song goes).