Sommeliers do lots of things with their leisure time; cooking for the chefs who employ them is not usually among those things. But on a recent Sunday afternoon, New York’s best-known sommelier, Daniel Johnnes, turned the tables on one of the city’s most esteemed chefs, Daniel Boulud – or tried to, anyway.

In a move equal parts generous, audacious and insane, Johnnes, who oversees wine operations for Boulud’s restaurant empire, invited Boulud and a gaggle of his lieutenants to his Brooklyn residence for a dinner that he prepared. Crazier still, he decided to let the chefs raid his cellar and choose the wines. The result was a memorable backyard party that in its own, very entertaining way, drew back the curtain on the delicate relationship between those who do the food and those who handle the wine.