Wine, beer dinners growing in popularity

PBN Staff

03/28/2009

Winemaker’s dinners have become a staple of fine-dining restaurants over the past 15 years. For the restaurateur, it is an opportunity to show off the expertise of the chef and introduce new diners to one’s restaurant. Visiting winemakers from the Napa Valley, Burgundy, Australia and South America have hosted wine dinners at local restaurants recently.
Wine dinners held this winter around the state have been quite successful. The events hosted by winemakers and local wine personalities spanned the price spectrum. Earlier this month, a $39.95 steak dinner with the Chilean winery Alamos attracted 35 patrons to Pinelli’s Cucina and Grille in North Smithfield. Over the first weekend of March, the wines of Chateau Ste. Michelle were spotlighted at a Wine Weekend at Castle Hill Inn and Resort in Newport. Winemaker Bob Bertheau of the Washington State winery was on hand throughout the weekend giving seminars, tastings and hosting dinners. Wine weekend packages began at $1,134.78.
A wine dinner with Duckhorn wines from California at Castle Hill Inn in mid-March was a sellout. Winemaker Dan Duckhorn was the featured guest who added celebrity to the evening. Dubbed “Mr. Merlot” by Frank Prial of The New York Times, Duckhorn is a highly respected leader in the wine industry. No stranger to Rhode Island, in 2005 Johnson & Wales University awarded Duckhorn an honorary degree in oenology. Len Panaggio, beverage director of the Newport Restaurant Group, said “the real value in [winemakers’] dinners like these is the educational component. The winemaker meets the culinary team, the consumer has the opportunity to ask the winemaker questions about food and wine pairing or about a particular vintage.”
Everyone is experiencing the same thing at the same time, which wine aficionados find particularly appealing. People find themselves striking up conversations and friendships with total strangers at their table. There is a camaraderie that does not take place at an ordinary dinner for two, no matter what the occasion.
The consumer sees wine dinners offering tremendous value even at what appears to be a premium price. (The Duckhorn dinner was $150 per person, excluding tax and gratuity.) The winemaker digs deep into the wine portfolio to bring out choice bottles that do not appear on the restaurant’s wine list. This gives chefs and sommeliers a chance to evaluate new releases for placement on the list in the future.
There is also a marketing cachet for the winery and the property. Wine dinners attract a following from a much wider area than nightly restaurant business. At a 2008 dinner featuring the prized Opus wines, the legendary collaboration between the late Robert Mondavi and Baron Philippe Rothschild, one couple made the trip to 22 Bowens from New Jersey. They had dinner and spent a long weekend in Newport.
“We’re supporting the local economy,” said Panaggio.
Wine expertise is not exclusive to restaurants. Many wine shop owners around the state are well-known for their wine savvy as well. This is not lost on restaurateurs like Panaggio and others, such as the Pinelli-Marra Restaurant Group. At Pinelli’s Café at Night, a West Warwick BYOB, a monthly wine tasting is held with The Savory Grape wine shop located in East Greenwich.
And in January, three winemakers from Burgundy collaborated on a wine dinner at Waterman Grille in Providence with assistance from Elliot Fishbein of Town Wine and Spirits in East Providence. Panaggio called the relationship “symbiotic” between so-called “on-premise” (the trade name for restaurants where beverages are consumed on the premises) and retail outlets. Cooperative events such as the one at Waterman Grille bring the two types of consumer wine sales together.
Beer dinners, a recent spinoff of the wine dinners, have also proven successful.
Newport Restaurant Group threw a dinner featuring the brew master for Samuel Adams during Newport’s Winter Festival that was very popular. And the restaurant group’s Trio in Narragansett will host what is described as an “interactive” beer dinner on April 3, featuring Anheuser-Busch InBev’s brands, which now encompass some of the most acclaimed breweries in Europe such as Lowenbrau, Becks, Boddington and Tennents.
Emmet Murphy, draught beer manager, southern New England for Anheuser-Busch InBev, will lead guests through each selection of beer as they are paired with Executive Chef Maria Evans’ four-course dinner. Panaggio has been seeing many more home brewers in attendance, asking technical questions about brewing techniques. The beverage director and longtime food and wine personality has an abiding respect for beer. To stretch his chefs’ culinary chops, he encourages them to make their own beer. •

Bruce Newbury’s Dining Out radio show is heard on WPRV-AM 790 Saturdays at 11 a.m. He can be reached by e-mail at Bruce@BruceNewbury.com.

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