La Paulée Burgundy Wine Festival SF February 2026

The world’s premier Burgundy wine gathering is returning to the Bay Area with La Paulée Burgundy Wine Festival SF February 2026. The festival is scheduled to unfold in San Francisco from February 25 to February 28, 2026, following a Prélude event on January 22, 2026. Organizers frame the San Francisco edition as a multi-day celebration that blends private dinners, public tastings, and intimate conversations with some of Burgundy’s most renowned domaines, all anchored by a tradition that blends education, camaraderie, and a deep respect for terroir. The event calendar and tickets are posted on the official La Paulée site, which notes San Francisco as the primary U.S. host city for 2026, before a separate NYC program later in March. The organizers also highlight premium presale access for American Express Centurion and Platinum card members, with general sale opening in mid-December 2025. The official program and tickets for 2026 lay out a cadence that begins with a Prélude, then a sequence of specialty dinners, a high-end verticals tasting, and culminates in a gala and grand tasting. This roadmap is central to understanding how La Paulée Burgundy Wine Festival SF February 2026 will unfold. (lapaulee.com)

The San Francisco edition showcases a curated lineup of dinners and tastings that feature Burgundy’s most storied domaines, including Domaine de Montille, Domaine Matrot, and Domaine Marquis d’Angerville, among others. The program emphasizes not only wine discovery but an immersive educational experience—often with vintners or their representatives pouring library bottles and discussing terroir, vintage variation, and winemaking philosophy. The sequence of events is designed to maximize both intimate dialogue with winemakers and broad exposure to a dense field of wines, with a signature Gala Dinner and a Grand Tasting as centerpiece experiences. The 2026 format continues the festival’s tradition of pairing Burgundy wines with high-caliber cuisine prepared by notable chefs, and it maintains the BYOB spirit that has long defined La Paulée gatherings. (enprimeurclub.com)

The festival’s San Francisco program sits within a broader, bi-coastal pattern for La Paulée, which in 2026 also includes a New York edition and related experiences. The San Francisco Prélude on January 22, 2026, launches a season of Burgundy-focused programming that culminates in multiple events across February, all designed to deliver a immersive Burgundy experience in a major metropolitan setting. The festival’s organizers position the event as a dominant Burgundy platform in the United States, reflecting decades of growth since the festival’s American inception. A key feature of the 2026 edition is the lineup of multi-course dinners hosted at premier San Francisco venues, paired with exclusive wines poured from magnums and a range of library bottles, offering attendees a rare opportunity to compare vintages in a vertical tasting format. The event also highlights a large-scale Grand Tasting, which gathers a broad spectrum of producers and wines under one roof, reinforcing Burgundy’s foothold in the U.S. market. The official communications stress the festival’s ongoing collaboration with American Express on premium access, a sign of the event’s upscale positioning and its appeal to serious collectors and professionals. (lapaulee.com)

Section 1: What Happened

San Francisco Dates and Prélude

The official calendar and venue

La Paulée Burgundy Wine Festival SF February 2026 is scheduled for February 25–28, 2026, with a Prélude event in San Francisco on January 22, 2026. The San Francisco program is part of a larger La Paulée calendar that includes other cities and experiences, but the Bay Area edition remains the marquee U.S. event for 2026. The official site confirms the dates and notes that the SF edition marks the festival’s 26th year in the United States, a milestone that underscores the festival’s growth and enduring appeal among Burgundy enthusiasts. (lapaulee.com)

The structure of the San Francisco edition

The SF program features a sequence of high-end dinners, tastings, and seminars designed to showcase Burgundy across villages, cru classifications, and vintages. The 2026 program features a suite of dinners from renowned domaines, often hosted by the winemakers themselves, and paired with curated menus from acclaimed local chefs. The lineup includes Domaine de Montille, Domaine Matrot, and Domaine Marquis d’Angerville, among others, with dinners spread over February 25–27 and a Grand Tasting plus Gala Dinner on February 28. In practice, attendees experience a day-by-day rhythm: intimate dinners, trade-focused seminars, a mid-cday vertical tasting, and then a grand culmination. The event’s organizers emphasize that many of the wines are presented in magnums for conversation and comparison, aligning with La Paulée’s tradition of generosity and shared discovery. (enprimeurclub.com)

Premium access and ticketing mechanics

The festival’s ticketing approach in 2026 includes Premium Events Collection presales targeted at American Express Centurion and Platinum Members, followed by a general sale date in December 2025. This structure reflects a broader industry shift toward tiered access for premium wine experiences, where card-member programs can gate early access to limited-seat offerings. The official program page outlines these presale windows and the general sale timeline, illustrating how the festival synchronizes with luxury consumer channels. This pre-announcement of tickets is a notable development for attendees who track high-demand Burgundy events and for wine retailers and hospitality partners who plan around ticketing spikes. (lapaulee.com)

Dinners, Tastings, and the Grand Palette

Domaine Montille dinner and Burgundy verticals

Photo by Maël BALLAND on Unsplash

One of the festival’s anticipated anchor experiences is the Domaine de Montille dinner on February 25, 2026. Led by Étienne de Montille, this intimate dinner is described as a magnum-focused, multi-decade vertical tasting—an opportunity to explore how a single estate’s wines evolve in large formats under a master vintner’s guidance. The Montille dinner signals the festival’s emphasis on high-value, educational formats that pair rare bottles with expert commentary. The vertical concept is a hallmark of La Paulée events, offering attendees a structured way to assess vintage-to-vintage evolution in a controlled setting. (enprimeurclub.com)

Domaine Matrot dinner and Meursault focus

On February 26, 2026, Domaine Matrot will host another dinner at a Bay Area venue, continuing the Meursault-centric portion of the program. Matrot is a six-generation family estate with deep Meursault roots, and the dinner is positioned as a deep dive into white Burgundy terroir, balance, and aging potential. Expect flights that illustrate the interplay between climate, soil, and oak management across multiple vintages. This dinner reinforces the festival’s approach of blending heritage families with innovative tasting formats to deliver a comprehensive Burgundy education. (enprimeurclub.com)

Marquis d’Angerville dinner and the Embarcadero experience

On February 27, 2026, the festival continues with the Domaine Marquis d’Angerville dinner, hosted in one of San Francisco’s celebrated dining rooms. The d’Angerville estate—famed for its Volnay offerings—will showcase signature terroirs alongside possibly a monopole-focused vertical. The hosting Chef’s table and a guided tasting structure offer attendees a layered experience in which culinary artistry and Burgundy philosophy intersect. This dinner underscores the festival’s emphasis on terroir-driven wines and the close engagement between growers and diners. (enprimeurclub.com)

The San Francisco Verticals Tasting and the 100+ wines benchmark

The Verticals Tasting, scheduled for February 27, is a signature La Paulée experience in which a single wine from multiple domaines is presented across three vintages. The SF edition typically features about two dozen participating domaines, each pouring a three-vintage vertical of a chosen wine, enabling attendees to compare style, balance, and aging trajectories across vintages in one immersive walk-around session. While the precise wine lineup can vary year to year, the program consistently emphasizes verticals as a core educational and convivial element of the festival. The 2023 Grand Tasting in SF is noted for presenting more than 100 wines from village to Grand Cru levels, illustrating the scale and breadth of Burgundy represented at La Paulée events. The 2026 edition is expected to sustain that scale through the grand tasting format. (enprimeurclub.com)

The Grand Tasting and the Conservatory at One Sansome

The Grand Tasting stands as the festival’s centerpiece, typically hosted in a striking venue that can accommodate a broad array of producers, vintages, and culinary partners. For 2026, early reporting indicates the Conservatory at One Sansomme as a premier setting for Bay Area Burgundy immersion, with walk-around tastings featuring wines from many appellations across the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune, and from Chablis through the northern Burgundy frontier. The tasting format emphasizes not only wine evaluation but the social exchange that has become a defining characteristic of La Paulée. (vinography.com)

The Gala Dinner and BYOB ethos

The festival culminates in the Gala Dinner, a hallmark of La Paulée’s communal spirit, where guests are encouraged to Bring Your Own Burgundy (BYOB) bottles from their cellars to share with neighbors and winemakers. This tradition creates a dynamic, spontaneous tasting environment that blends prestige wines with personal discoveries, a feature consistently highlighted in festival coverage and participant accounts. The 2026 SF Gala is expected to continue this format, with the SF gala dinner bookending the grand tasting and providing a social capstone to the weekend. Price points noted in 2025 coverage and related reporting suggest premium experiences will carry substantial ticket costs, reinforcing the festival’s high-end positioning. (vinography.com)

Why It Matters

Economic and Hospitality Impact on the Bay Area

La Paulée Burgundy Wine Festival SF February 2026 represents a meaningful moment for the Bay Area hospitality and wine trade ecosystem. The festival invites a high-concentration of Burgundy producers, sommeliers, and collectors, which translates into demand for fine dining reservations, premium lodging, and incremental tourism activity over the event window. While specific local economic impact figures for 2026 are not published in festival materials, historical patterns around La Paulée events indicate a notable uplift in restaurant volumes, private dining demand, and wine tourism spending in host cities. The SF edition’s emphasis on multi-day programming across dinners, tastings, and the gala creates sustained activity in the local supply chain, from restaurants and venues to transportation and hospitality services. The event’s alignment with luxury consumer channels—evident in Amex presales and premium access programs—suggests a targeted economic impact profile that benefits upmarket segments of the Bay Area economy. (lapaulee.com)

Digital Access, Premium Ticketing, and Data-Driven Demand

The festival’s official presale structure, including AmEx Centurion and Platinum Members, is a case study in how luxury wine experiences increasingly leverage data-driven, membership-based access models. Early access channels can concentrate demand and influence secondary markets, while the general sale opens to a broader audience. For organizers, these dynamics create opportunities to model attendance, optimize seating and pairing logistics, and calibrate pricing for premium experiences such as magnum-focused dinners and library-vintage verticals. For industry observers, the presale approach highlights how payment-card brands and exclusive programs intersect with high-demand, experiential wine events to shape consumer behavior and market access. (lapaulee.com)

Burgundy Market Trends and Cultural Exchange

La Paulée is more than a tasting; it is a marketplace of ideas about Burgundy’s evolving profile in the U.S. market. The SF program’s emphasis on magnum formats, library bottles, and verticals offers a lens into aging trajectories, supply chain relationships, and the economics of rare wines in a high-end event setting. The festival’s enduring popularity—reflected in continued expansion and cross-coastal programming—signals sustained interest in Burgundy among American collectors, restaurateurs, and wine media. This aligns with broader Burgundy market narratives about aging potential, scarcity, and the premiumization of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the region. The festival’s historical arc, including its 25th anniversary in 2025 and continuing growth in 2026, underscores Burgundy’s rising prominence within the U.S. wine culture. (forbes.com)

Cultural Context: The La Paulée Tradition and San Francisco’s Role

The La Paulée tradition draws from Burgundy’s La Paulée de Meursault harvest feast, reframed for a global audience through multi-city celebrations in the United States and beyond. This cultural lineage—centered on camaraderie, sharing, and wine education—gives the SF edition its distinctive character. Forbes’ coverage of the 2025 SF edition highlights the event’s blend of world-class wines, renowned chefs, and a community ethos that fosters knowledge exchange across collectors, sommeliers, and winemakers. In 2026, the SF edition continues this pattern, reinforcing San Francisco’s role as a major hub for Burgundy appreciation on the West Coast. (forbes.com)

What’s Next

Key Dates to Watch

Photo by Gordon Mak on Unsplash

• January 22, 2026: La Paulée de San Francisco Prélude (San Francisco) kicks off the 2026 program. This prelude sets the tone for the multi-day Burgundy immersion to come. (lapaulee.com)
• February 25–28, 2026: La Paulée Burgundy Wine Festival SF February 2026 unfolds in San Francisco, featuring a slate of dinners, verticals, tastings, and a Gala. The Domaine Montille dinner on February 25 and the Domaine Matrot dinner on February 26 mark the early high-water points, followed by the San Francisco Verticals Tasting, the Marquis d’Angerville dinner, the Grand Tasting, and the Gala Dinner on February 28. (lapaulee.com)
• December 2025: Premium presale windows for AmEx Centurion and Platinum Members begin, with general sale commencing mid-December, guiding early ticket access and planning for attendees and partners. These timelines are important for collectors and hospitality professionals planning around peak demand. (lapaulee.com)

Next Steps for Attendees and Media

• If you’re a Burgundy enthusiast or wine professional, monitor the La Paulée official site for final event details, seating allocations, and menus as the festival draws closer. The site provides the most authoritative program updates and ticketing information for the SF edition. (lapaulee.com)
• For media covering the event, plan to attend the Grand Tasting on February 28 at The Conservatory and the Gala Dinner—both are traditional anchors of the SF edition and offer rich opportunities for reporting on wine trends, hospitality design, and the social dynamics of a high-end Burgundy gathering. Vinography’s coverage of past SF Paulée editions highlights the kind of scene reporters can expect—an intricate blend of wine education, social exchange, and culinary collaboration. (vinography.com)
• Watch for the annual evolution of the event’s format, including potential new domaines, guest vintners, and collaborations with SF Bay Area chefs. La Paulée’s ability to evolve while preserving its core BYOB ethos will be a focal point for market observers and attendees alike. (enprimeurclub.com)

Attendee Experience and Practical Considerations

The SF edition features a mix of intimate dinners and larger-format tastings that appeal to serious collectors and wine professionals, while also inviting curious enthusiasts to join in the broader Burgundy conversation. The approach to magnum-based tastings and verticals provides a structured way to evaluate vintage performance and producer style across decades, an educational angle that aligns with data-driven analysis of wine markets. Practically, attendees should anticipate:

• Dress and etiquette around high-end Burgundy events, with a traditional emphasis on smart attire and a respectful, participatory tasting culture.
• Navigation of multiple events across San Francisco venues, including responsible transportation planning, given the high-value wine focus and the potential for late dinners.
• BYOB dynamics in the Gala, which invites guests to contribute meaningful bottles to a communal exchange that underscores La Paulée’s convivial spirit. The festival’s public communications emphasize these traditions as a core feature of the experience. (vinography.com)

Closing

La Paulée Burgundy Wine Festival SF February 2026 represents a notable convergence of Burgundy’s winemaking heritage with San Francisco’s dynamic hospitality and wine culture. By combining a Prélude, a slate of producer-led dinners, a vertical-focused tasting, and a grand culmination in the Gala, the festival offers a data-rich lens on vintage development, terroir, and market dynamics within a premium-setting framework. The event’s structured ticketing, including AmEx presales and general sales, highlights how luxury wine experiences are increasingly coordinated with branded access programs to balance demand with guest experience. As Burgundy’s profile continues to grow in the U.S. market, La Paulée SF 2026 serves as a bellwether for consumer appetite, venue partnerships, and the evolving economics of high-end wine events in an era of digital ticketing and experiential branding. (lapaulee.com)

If you’d like, I can add a companion sidebars with quick-reference timelines, a glossary of key Burgundy terms you’ll encounter at the festival, and a short explainer on magnum formats and vertical tastings used during La Paulée SF 2026.