Cin Cin Dinner...I Second That Emotion

Just last week, I had the opportunity to spend an evening with friends and fellow wine lovers at Cin Cin Winebar and Restaurant in Los Gatos. Chuck Easley, my good friend and the owner of T-Vine Cellars in Napa, and I hosted a five course dinner that paired extraordinary food with a total of five of our wines.


What made this dinner unusual and special was a suggestion by Chuck to make an emotional connection with the wines and the audience. So for each course, there not only was a wine and a dish, there was a song to set the tone for that course.

For the first course chef Chris Schloss paired a Smoked Alaskan Black Cod with the 2007 Steven Kent Merrillie Chardonnay. I chose the song "Roll Me Away" by Bob Seger. The pairing was particularly poignant for me in that it brought back a memory of an experience with this wine on a houseboat at Lake Powell in Utah. On the most beautiful day possible, on the most gorgeous lake imaginable, I shared this wine with my wife and my father and my sister as that great song wafted from our boom box...just a beautiful confluence of people, place, and wine.

And it was this confluence that we alluded to over and over again during the dinner. Wine is not about fermentation and aging regimes; it is not about how many points it got in the wine magazine; at its best, wine is about the people with whom you share it and the experiences and memories you create together. The cost of the wine, the relative prestige of the brand, are immaterial if it's shared with the right people. The most expensive wine in the world is just a glass of fermented grape juice if you're sitting by yourself.

Chris and I paired a couple of La Rochelle Pinot Noirs (Sleepy Hollow '08 and Deer Park '07) with John Hiatt (Duck Confit Dumplings) and Bruce Springsteen (Milk-braised Berkshire Pork Shoulder and Belly), and Chuck paired his wines with songs by Marvin Gaye and Eric Clapton (the T-Vine Grenache, Chocolate Fromage and "Sexually Healing" course was very popular!). The wines were tremendous, the food was spectacular but, again, it was the vibe of the place, and the happiness of the diners that was the best pairing.

I want to thank Lisa Rhorer, Don Durante, Chris Schloss and their team for helping to make this a wonderfully successful evening. The food at Cin Cin is consistently great, and the wine program and hospitality are also first rate. I highly recommend you check them out.

Thanks too to Chuck Easley for his consistent support, friendship, and generosity. His wines are wonderful and should be part of your cellar.