Wine & Dine

Today's special report is written by Paul Gregutt, The Seattle Times' Wine Adviser in the Wednesday Food & Wine section and a regular contributor to Pacific Northwest magazine's Taste column. Gregutt is uniquely qualified to write about the region's wine industry, having reported on it for more than 20 years in publications such as the Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, Sunset and Decanter. He also contributes the Pacific Northwest chapter to Tom Stevenson's "Wine Report" books and is writing a new book on Washington wineries for the University of California Press. Gregutt and his wife, Karen, live in West Seattle and have a small farmhouse in Waitsburg, Walla Walla County.

Are you tired of the same old, same old? Lost in a strange town? Annoyed by high wine-list prices in the hottie spot du jour?

Are you eager to try wines that are new and undiscovered, or old and rare? Or maybe just looking for a great evening of food, wine, entertainment and socializing — at a value price?

I have a simple, two-word solution for you: wine dinners.

I've been to more than a few of these here in hometown Seattle. But cut me loose from familiar ports, and I'm as lost as the next guy. Because, unlike my foodie friends, who spend months making arrangements for the latest can't-even-get-them-to-answer-the-phone restaurant in some obscure hilltop village — unlike those tortured souls, I do no advance planning.

Too often I've found myself wandering dusty streets, straining to read menus posted in windows, desperately pawing my pocket dictionary to find the translation for anatifes (barnacles) or buey (ox) or whatever is being proffered as the specialty of the house. My long-suffering spouse bears the brunt of these searches, and I have become (somewhat) sympathetic. In Italy this past spring, on our usual tour of inscrutable menus, I happened upon a small sign that lit the fires of hope like a lighthouse beacon on a foggy sea. Wine dinner, it read.

"Hallelujah!" I announced, and promptly made reservations. When we arrived a few hours later (the only Americans), we were welcomed like family and introduced to the winemaker. The wines and food were excellent, and the whole thing cost less than standard tourist fare at a restaurant on the piazza.

The moral of the story is this: Once you know what you're looking for, you can do the same thing here in your own town.

Wine dinners are going on year-round, and they come in all shapes and sizes, from elaborate, 10-course extravaganzas to simple, family-style gatherings. Some dinners are for charity, some are to promote an author's new book, many are sponsored by wineries introducing their new vintage. And some are more heady events, staged for the benefit of a visiting dignitary, or to showcase older vintages from a winery cellar.

Christian Sparkman, general manager of Seattle's Waterfront Seafood Grill, presides over one of the city's more interesting wine dinners every month. These generally focus on Northwest wineries, cost $85 (plus tax and gratuity), and offer five wines and five courses over three hours. Many are themed — such as a "Young Turks" dinner featuring five new boutiques, and a "Secret Wines of Woodinville" dinner at which "everybody brought something way off the radar."

Sparkman still speaks fondly of the "crazy" wine dinners he sommeliered at Michael's in Santa Monica, Calif., where a group calling themselves the Royal Order of the Purple Palate brought in such exotica as a 200-year vertical of Chateau Margaux, and a multi-vintage horizontal tasting of all the first growths plus Pétrus.

"That lit my fire in terms of wine," he recalls. "I drank them all. I was 23."

Despite such lofty beginnings, Sparkman remains equally enthusiastic about the intimate dinners (generally for around 40 people) he hosts at the Waterfront. "It's interesting as a seafood restaurant to meet the challenge of red wine," he says. Sometimes a customer will be concerned about whether red wine with fish is acceptable. "We tell them that the guy that made the rules is now dead," says Sparkman, "and you are free to do what you want to do."

Misconceptions and "nervosities" often keep people from exploring wine dinners. So let's put your worries to rest. Here's what wine dinners are not: They are not boring. You will not be trapped in a phalanx of wine snobs, blathering on about clones. They are not high-pressure sales events. Wine dinners are not wine-themed Tupperware parties. They are not stingy with either food or wine. You will not encounter hidden charges. Au contraire, winemaker dinners are break-even affairs at best for the host restaurant and winery.

Sparkman estimates, and I have every reason to believe him, that a typical $85 Waterfront wine dinner would cost each customer close to $150 if ordered à la carte (assuming the wines could be purchased by the glass, which they generally can't). Restaurants and wineries do them as promotional ventures most of the time, and consumers reap the benefits. Some recent examples:

Being Neighborly:

Union Restaurant at DeLille Cellars

Chef Ethan Stowell has done a number of celebrity-studded wine dinners at his highly regarded Union restaurant on the corner of First Avenue and Union Street in downtown Seattle. But at the invitation of DeLille Cellars, he recently staged an elaborate wine dinner out at the winery in Woodinville, right in the thick of crush. The six-course menu was designed to showcase wines from host DeLille as well as a pair of rising-star Napa Valley boutiques, Hunnicutt and DR Stephens.

Stowell says doing wine-themed dinners at Union is no big deal — "we've got all the right glassware; we might as well use it." But cooking dinner for 40, with a wide-ranging menu that began with chilled heirloom-tomato soup served in tiny china mugs and wound its way through crab salad, ahi tuna, braised veal cheeks, grilled beef loin, a cheese course and dessert — that was a challenge. The chef had never worked in DeLille's outdoor "kitchen," a series of propane grills under a loose canvas tent.

"I don't over-think it," he explains, "but you have to be cautious. You want the food to be good and creative, but the No. 1 goal is to make sure that people have a good time. You can be adventurous, but in a format you know will work."

Jay Soloff, a founding partner in the winery, says they've been doing these dinners since 1995, featuring a celebrity chef, a sampling of DeLille wines and wines from a visiting guest winery. "At first it was all about association," he explains. "In 1995, no one knew who DeLille was. But that first year we had Quilceda Creek, Andrew Will, Chateau Ste. Michelle and Columbia as guest wineries." Attendees couldn't quite grasp why a brand new winery was promoting other people's wines, but the tactic worked perfectly. DeLille, by association, gained instant credibility.

Now one of the state's premier producers of Bordeaux blends and syrah (under their Chaleur Estate and Doyenne imprints), DeLille finds itself the name brand that up-and-coming wineries want to be associated with.

"It's the neighborly thing to do," says co-owner Greg Lill. "It's touchy-feely stuff; people love to feel they're getting something special and unique. And they love to hang out at a winery."

Which is why, apart from the outstanding food and wine, these DeLille dinners are exceptional. The winery dining room is large enough to accommodate all 40 guests at a single table, which was once the chairman's table in the board room at Washington Mutual. The bank was going to throw it away, Lill discovered. "We got it for almost nothing," he grins. "They said, 'Who can use a 40-foot table?' and I said, 'Me!' "

The winery is attached to an old farmhouse overlooking the Sammamish River Valley. Guests sip a glass of Chaleur Estate Blanc out on the patio, surrounded by gardens and sheep pens, then move inside to sit at the beautifully Martha-ized table, where seven more wines are offered in a succession of generous courses.

The cost, $140 per person, is not cheap, but is far below the value of the meal. DeLille wines sell for $30 to $50 a bottle, and guest wineries DR Stephens and Hunnicutt are equally pricey. Lill figures that the admission cost covers the food and service, but not the wine. "Even figured at wholesale," he says, "if you count the cost of the wine we'd be one or two thousand dollars in the hole."

Among the wines this night are exceptional bottles of a Doyenne 2004 Roussanne, the winery's first ever; a stunning DR Stephens 2003 Carneros Chardonnay and the 2001 Chaleur Estate Red, now acquiring the layered opulence that bottle age brings. Friends Barby Cohen and Nancy Dorn, who attend at least one wine dinner a year together, are already smiling happily, and the evening has barely begun. Asked what they like about these events, they briefly stare in disbelief, then quickly chime in together. "The wine and the food!" No argument there.

Reaching For The Stars:

North Berkeley Imports' Burgundy Dinner at Campagne

"I've been underwhelmed lately by traditional winemaker dinners," says Campagne's sommelier and wine director, Jake Kosseff. "So I've been looking for some way to focus them besides just the winemaker. I want to give guests a different take on the wine-dinner event."

Campagne's wine list runs heavily toward France, and Kosseff has one of the more adventurous palates in Seattle. But on a recent occasion he went right to the heart of any French wine lover's dream, presenting a marvelous array of Burgundies from some of the region's new-school, modern producers.

He teamed up with North Berkeley Imports, a California-based company that specializes in such wines. The importer does an annual trade tasting in Seattle to present its new releases, and it made sense to tie that in with a special dinner.

Working with executive chef Daisley Gordon, Kosseff and importer John Bigelow put together a list of featured wines and paired them with a six-course menu. "The hardest part of pulling the event together," Kosseff explains, "is sorting out a selection of wines that is both available and interesting."

Burgundies present a particular problem, because many of the most desirable wines are made in ridiculously small quantities — a couple of barrels — and the few cases available for sale are snapped up instantly. Apart from the expense and the labyrinthine Burgundian appellations, it is this that makes it so difficult for most consumers to find any but the most pedestrian examples for sale at retail.

So a dinner such as this, with a cast of small, artisanal producers including Verget, Barraud, Dureuil-Janthial, Boyer-Martenot, Besson, Arlaud and Magnien, is a Burgundy-lover's fantasy. The cost — $135 per person — is a fraction of what it would take to pull together such a meal with all the wines. Even if you had the right number of people in your party to order a full bottle of each wine with dinner, notes Kosseff, the cost per person would be well above $200. "My goal should be to put together a scenario that would be impossible to replicate on your own," he believes. Mission accomplished.

Moving well beyond the easy appeal of a Burgundy dinner, his future plans call for dinners showcasing wines from thrillingly obscure corners of France. A Cafe Campagne event will feature the super-concentrated, old-vine wines of Coteaux des Fenouillèdes, the hilly, northwestern corner of the Roussillon. The restaurant and café will feature several of these wines by the glass in the weeks leading up to the dinner, to build excitement for the event. "I wouldn't expect anyone who isn't out there scouring the world for wines to know about Fenouillèdes," Kosseff admits.

For me, this is the lasting allure of wine dinners. Good food, good wine, good people can all be counted on. But beyond that, for wine enthusiasts, there is the chance to explore wines that you are not likely to encounter elsewhere. Some wine-oriented discussion will be wrapped into your evening, to be sure, but don't worry, it will pass, and rather quickly, after the first couple of glasses have been consumed.

"It's inherently uncomfortable for anyone to sit down at dinner with someone they don't know," agrees the Waterfront's Sparkman. "But the ice gets broken between the second and the third courses. Friendships are made. By dessert, there's a roomful of very happy people."

All In The Family:

Fielding Hills at Waterfront Seafood Grill

Fielding Hills Winery, located in the Wenatchee area, makes about 800 cases a year of red wines from grapes grown at their RiverBend Vineyards in Mattawa. Owners Mike and Karen Wade are primarily apple and cherry growers. Karen, who manages the marketing while Mike handles the vineyard and winemaking, modestly calls the winery "a small, glorified hobby."

Nonetheless, their first few vintages have impressed a number of critics, myself included, with their balance, clarity, definition and complexity. The Wades release all the wines at the same time. When the first group was ready to be introduced, in the summer of 2002, they decided, Karen explains, to have a dinner. "We actually had wine in the bottle, and it was drinkable! We wanted to celebrate getting 'on the map,' so to speak."

The annual dinner has become so successful that this year, for the first time, they hosted a second event in Seattle. The menu planning is straightforward; "Mike," says Karen, "likes things smart yet simple." Fruit and cheese with a bit of bubbly for the reception/welcome; a salad course with the merlot (Mike likes iceberg lettuce); a palate-cleansing sorbet (a family tradition); a beef course with the two main reds; and a dessert, preferably chocolate, to accompany the two newest wines, a syrah and a cabernet franc.

Waterfront was chosen as the Seattle venue because, says Karen, it is the only restaurant in town carrying Fielding Hills on its wine list. Though it's not one of the wine dinners initiated by the restaurant, it fits the same general mold, and offers its guests the pleasures of tasting new, hard-to-find wines, served in a classy, comfortable yet informal atmosphere, with the owners and winemakers right at hand.

Unlike a large tasting event, such as Taste Washington, these casual dinners provide an extended opportunity to meet and talk with winery owners, who eagerly want every guest to feel like a close friend, not a customer. "Sometimes during the menu planning the chef just rolls his eyes," says Karen, "but for us it's more about celebrating the release of the vintage than a true gourmet pairing of the food and the wine." Gourmet you can find in many places, but a genuine welcome and a chance to dine like a member of the family, well, that's special.

Wine dinners are special events, and not just for the guests. For the wineries, chefs, importers and sommeliers who plan and stage them, these are welcome breaks from the routine, a chance to show people something new, something special. They do it for marketing, and they do it to generate business, of course. But they also do it for the sheer pleasure of it.

"We have actually had people come to our dinners and refuse to drink wine," says Sparkman. "They ordered Bud Light. And you know what? We welcome them, too."

Paul Gregutt writes the Wednesday wine column for The Seattle Times and covers Northwest wine for the Wine Enthusiast magazine and Tom Stevenson's Wine Report books. Write to him at: ine@seattletimes.com. John Lok is a Times staff photographer.