Wine Dinner Primer

The ins and outs for a grand night out

Every restaurant appears to be having a wine dinner these days. From the strip-mall Indian cuisine at Masala to the classic Canlis, there seems to be a renewed focus on wines. This plethora of options can create confusion, particularly for those who have just awoken to smell the chardonnay. For the un or under initiated the oftentimes steep price leaves one to wonder about the value quotient of a particular wine dinner.

First off, the pricing is all over the map. At Eastlake’s Serafina, a recently held wine dinner offered five courses, paired with Tuscan classics for $85 per person, exclusive of tax and gratuity. Northgate’s Masala presented four courses, paired with an international selection for $30. A recent wine event at Belltown’s Cascadia was priced at $125 per person. In this instance the commanded price came with wines from the famous Cayuse Winery and its winemaker Christophe Baron along with the promise of being given a coveted spot on Cayuse’s exclusive mailing list.

Top Ten Tips for Selecting Winemaker Dinners

Ferreting out the best wine dinner to meet your style, taste and bank account is a challenge. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Set your own expectations. If you are looking for an educational experience or a good dinner with wine and friends your needs will be very different. You will still have a great time which ever you choose; just know what you want to avoid being disappointed.

2. Ask the restaurant who will be presenting the wines. Distributors and winemakers make very different spokespeople. Additionally, this distinction is whether you are paying for a "winemaker dinner" or a "dinner with wine."

3. Groups are great. Go to the winemaker dinner with friends. The more the merrier. Arrange for a cab or car to remove all DUI worries. If you go alone or with just one other person, you could be seated with strangers – which could be engaging or awkward.

4. Go to winemaker dinners where you already know the wine, giving you the opportunity to meet the person behind the wine you like. Or, go to winemaker dinners at restaurants you particularly like to get to know the chef better.

5. Look at the combination of food and wine and see if it works for you. Hopefully you will glean passion and interest and understanding for wine more than the restaurant mounting a promotional exercise to simply feature a winery or the restaurant.

6. Don’t go prepared. Let the chef and wine buyer do the geekie cork-dork research. Then expect that they will put it into consumer-friendly terms. You want to go to a wine dinner to be entertained. There are plenty of wine seminars to select from if you want a heavy dose of education.

7. Seek out restaurants where you like their food, or wineries that you like their wines. Trust your taste and the reputation of your favorite chef or winemaker that they will make the marriage work.

8. Approach a wine dinner as though you will enjoy the wine as another food. At a wine dinner wine is not a single dimensional thing to be analyzed, in that time and place it is meant to marry well with the food and be enjoyed.

9. Drink a lot of water over the course of the evening. Typically, restaurants serve five glasses of 4-5 ounces each over the course of a winemaker dinner. Don’t feel you have to finish it all. If you do, you can ask for more, however don’t expect your request to be honored if the wines being poured are limited.

10. Evaluate the price of the wine dinner based on the wine’s vintages and how each bottle is rated (in Wine Spectator for example) along with the menu. The price can also be elevated when rate and cellared wines, those not generally available in the market, are being poured. The price can also be elevated if the winemaker is coming from an international location.

Additionally, there are a myriad of approaches restaurants take when planning their wine dinner formats.

Some restaurants offer a theme-style seating. Serafina plans their wine dinners around traditional Italian celebrations and invites Italian winemakers giving a true international flair to their events. "We do seasonal festivals as a powerful package, not to just promote a winery or the restaurant, but to actually highlight an event that has import and meaning in Italian culture," says Chef John Neumark of Serafina.

Serafina also joins forces with a wine shop or two to offer the presented wines at a discount to dining patrons. While this appears to bring an easy method of ordering wine just enjoyed, when it comes to hard-to-find selections this partnership is particularly important.

"Customers frequently want to buy wine they have enjoyed, but they forget what they had," explains Check LeFevre, owner of Esquin Wine Merchants. "Having an order sheet at an event is a great avenue for people to purchase something they know they like."

Likewise Assaggio sets its wine dinners in a series format, generally one per month. The series format is important, says owner Mauro Golmarvi. "The wine culture is important to develop. In Italy wine is important in life. Wine and food match, they are made for each other. During our wine dinners we develop our customer’s understanding of wine so when they come back, they order the wines they enjoyed again and again."

Other restaurants, including Masala, present particular dishes with appropriate wines to match. This style of offering is made without the guidance of a winemaker and is available over the course of many days so exact date timing should not hamper your enjoyment. Ponti Seafood Grill in Fremont mounts occasional special menus, paired with wines. These menus are introduced with a food and wine tasting event to introduce customers to the selections. At the W Hotel’s Earth & Ocean, wine dinners are also presented in this casual fashion, available Monday through Saturday. A set menu is offered with a particular winery’s bottles paired with each course. Winemakers, vineyard managers or owners are available for table hopping a few days during the month their wines are being featured.

In Woodinville at The Herbfarm, wine dinners are presented every dining opportunity. Perfectly paired wines with a nine-course dinner are served Thursday through Sunday. The description duties, of both the origin of the ingredients and the lineage of the wine are given throughout the evening by co-owner Ron Zimmerman.

At Queen Anne’s Sapphire, Chef Leonard Rede is the catalyst for the restaurant’s wine dinners. Here special wines are simply shared with guests on a particular day and time. Often a particular style or theme emerges; one recently held event focused on Rosé another on boutique producers of Italy.

"Be sure and ask the restaurant what the style of the evening is," suggests Lori Randall, a local public relations pro specializing in wineries and wine merchants. "Some of the worst wine dinners are those with too much technical chatter. I prefer the style where the winemaker visits with each table or visits with the group at every course – as long as all can hear."

Professional pairing of wine with food takes knowledge, experience and instinct. Assaggio’s Golmarvi describes pairing as finding the heart and soul of the wine. "Spices have to match with the meat, fish or chicken. Likewise wine has to match with the food. You can’t serve an artichoke salad with a heavy red wine. Everything has to match and be well balanced.

To test the chef’s prowess, Randall suggests saving a bit of each wine and tasting it with another course to understand why one wine was paired with a particular food. Be sure to tell your waiter you are saving your glasses. "It’s a fun game. Everybody’s palate is different and there is never one, single right choice.

Mina Williams/Fall 04

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