Business · galette des rois · January
Wine for the galette des rois at the office: sixty people, one hour, about twenty bottles
Eight galettes (the Epiphany almond tart), one paper crown, an hour on your feet at 5:30 pm on a Thursday in January. For sixty colleagues, the count comes to 19 bottles, almost all sparkling: that is a purchase from a local wine shop, and this page tells you so. What changes things is when the galette becomes the company's New Year wishes, with clients, a speech and an extra hour.
The numbers for your galette
Set for 60 people, one hour, 85% drinkers, and 80% sparkling to 20% white. Fifty-one drinkers, two glasses each: 102 glasses, 17 bottles before margin. With the 8% margin, rounded to the bottle, the calculator shows 19: 15 sparkling, 4 white. Below 24 bottles, it tells you that you don't need us.
What to serve with the frangipane
The galette is sweet, rich and flaky. A very dry brut champagne tastes more acidic with it than it really is; it still works, and that is what most offices serve. Three choices hold up, depending on what the galette is meant to say.
Champagne
Brut for those raising a glass, demi-sec if you really want the match with the frangipane. Served at 7 °C, in flutes. This is the version that turns the galette into a small event.
Crémant
Crémant de Bordeaux, available on request, makes the same gesture for a little over a third of the price. At 5:30 pm, between two slices of galette, nobody compares the bubbles.
The white that really works
The 4 bottles of white in the count can be a sweet Bordeaux: a Sauternes, or its cheaper neighbours across the river, Loupiac, Cadillac, Sainte-Croix-du-Mont. A small glass is enough, and it is the truest match with the almond.
Guide prices: sparkling at €32 a bottle for champagne, €12 for crémant. Cider, the other galette drink, is not part of what a Bordeaux wine merchant offers: get it from a producer or the supermarket. Sweet wines are covered on the Sauternes page, and other dessert pairings on the wine with dessert page.
Galette on its own or company New Year wishes
Many companies do both in one: the boss's New Year speech, with the galette as the buffet. The count is then different, because the audience, the length and the level of wine all change at once.
| Galette among colleagues | New Year wishes with galette | |
|---|---|---|
| Who comes | The team, sixty people | The team, often clients and partners, eighty or more |
| Length | One hour | An hour and a half, speeches included |
| Bottles | 19, by the bottle | 42, in cases |
| When | Any day in January | The second or third week |
| Where to buy | A local wine shop, a good supermarket aisle | A quote, delivered to the office |
The count for New Year wishes for 80 people, the champagne or crémant choice and the early-January delivery slots are on the wine for company New Year wishes page. Firm orders for delivery before the year-end closure are placed before 15 December; the full calendar is on the festive season: when to order page.
How many bottles for a galette des rois for 60 people?
Seventeen before margin, 19 with it: 15 sparkling and 4 white, for one hour standing with 85% drinkers. That is a little over two flutes per drinker. For a different headcount or length, the general calculator redoes the count.
What wine goes with a galette des rois?
Sparkling, out of habit and because people raise a glass: a demi-sec champagne goes better with frangipane than a brut, and a crémant does the job very well. For the truest match, a small glass of sweet Bordeaux. Red has no business with a galette.
Is it legal to serve alcohol at the office for the galette?
The French Labour Code (Code du travail) only allows wine, beer, cider and perry in the workplace: champagne and crémant are wines, spirits are excluded. The company's internal rules may restrict this further, for safety reasons. Check them before ordering, and have something to drink for those driving home.
When to hold the galette des rois at the office?
Epiphany falls on 6 January and is celebrated in France on the first Sunday of the year, 3 January in 2027. At the office, the galette is shared all month, and that helps: after 8 January, deliveries have restarted and wines in stock arrive within a week. The rules for company purchases, invoice and VAT included, are on the corporate event page.
Galette mistakes
- Ordering a case of each colour. Three cases of sparkling and one of white, 24 bottles for seventeen needed, means a case sitting in the office until summer. Here, you count by the bottle.
- Warm sparkling. A bottle taken from a cupboard at 21 °C cannot be rescued in ten minutes. A 100-litre tub, 12 kg of ice and a handful of salt: twenty minutes for the 19 bottles.
- Forgetting the drivers. At 5:30 pm in January, half the team drives home in the dark. Sparkling apple juice in the same flutes, no comment. The wine and drivers page counts the soft drinks.
- A red “for those who don't like bubbles”. Nobody drinks it with a galette. The white, dry or sweet, fills that role.
Galette and New Year wishes on the same invoice, or several sites to supply in January? Request a quote for the galette, reply within 48 working hours.