When you dine out, you might tell the sommelier about the styles of wine you like, discuss the menu options and choose a bottle accordingly. But at a cultivated wine dinner, you don’t just receive a glass of wine—you embark on a culinary tour de force, with wine as your guide. Chefs and sommeliers work together to tailor every aspect of the experience, from the marriage of the food and wine to the conversations that unfold as the restaurant team, diners and visiting wine reps flow through the evening. Guests can drink slower, spending more time nosing, analyzing and socializing with fellow wine lovers, while restaurants take the occasion to go off-script, crafting precise menus that elevate the dining and drinking experience.
You’ll find one of the most robust wine dinner series at Old Vines Supper Club, the intimate, prix fixe-driven counterpart to chef Brooke Kravetz’s Old Vines Naples restaurant at Mercato. Director of wine and educational development Zach Bingham oversees the wine dinners—held every Wednesday year-round—with honed themes like Everything but Champagne, centered on sparkling wine produced beyond the French bubbly capital, and Pintxos and Porróns for a Spanish feast. “My job, my passion, is to ensnare one moment in time and gently unwind it for our guests,” he says. Understanding wine is a living thing, Zach unlocks its multifaceted nature as he guides guests to coax a new dimension from every sip and food pairing. He and chef de cuisine Sophia Kiasi build inventive menus around the week’s chosen producer, region or style of wine.
“My job, my passion, is to ensnare one moment in time and gently unwind it for our guests.”—Zach Bingham, wine director for Old Vines Supper Club
Old Vines Supper Club by Anna Nguyen
Old Vines Supper Club wine glass
Entering the low-slung, 35-seat dining room, a reception wine and an amuse-bouche serve as an ice breaker for the palate. A recent dinner explored the gustatory charm of Santa Barbara County wine. Hot, crispy arancini paired with chilled chardonnay from young Santa Barbara producer Tyler Winery led to lilting conversations surrounding how the wine’s acidity cut through the rich rice. The following course showcased another face of the same chardonnay, this time matched with Peruvian and Asian influences (slivers of scallop crudo topped with coconut leche de tigre foam accented with lime zest and nectarines with pops of golden gooseberries). The first pairing emphasized the soft notes of apricot, pear and citrus, while the second brought out the chardonnay’s salinity. Zach focuses on demystifying the often-intimidating oenophile speak and creating a sense of relatability for drinkers at every level of comprehension. “I ask questions,” he says. “I look for ways to genuinely connect with our guests, to [learn] where they are in their wine journey.” Tables are often arranged family-style, and new friendships develop with each giddying course.
Further north in Bonita Springs, the monthly wine dinners held in season at Angelina’s Ristorante routinely sell out within minutes of their announcement. The wine-centric Italian institution follows the European philosophy, imagining wine as food and an extension of each course; the wine and food should amplify each other’s flavors at every turn. “Wine can be so profound. I have cried over drinking wine maybe three or four times,” says wine director Dinah Leach, who holds an advanced certification from the prestigious Court of Master Sommeliers.
Angelina’s Ristorante by Anna Nguyen
angelinas ristorante wine shelf
Angelina’s Ristorante, in Bonita Springs, pulls from its tower of nearly 7,500 wines for their Italian wine dinners, held monthly in season.
To develop wine dinner themes, Dinah delves into Angelina’s cellar of more than 7,500 bottles and reaches out to industry contacts. Occasionally, she’ll tap vintners, like Naples resident Grace Evenstad of foundational Willamette Valley winery Domaine Serene, to appear as guests. With its extensive portfolio of Italian wines, Angelina’s can host a range of offerings across the wine spectrum, including vertical tastings, with different vintages from the same estate showcasing how the vineyard’s conditions impact the wine year after year. A recent dinner with Uccelliera Brunello di Montalcino, the prized sangiovese known for its complexity and age-worthiness, offered 2018 and 2016 bottlings alongside slow-cooked wild boar over creamy Parmesan polenta and a thick-cut Florentine steak with black garlic creamed spinach, respectively.
Wine dinners are also on the roster at Sea Salt, part of Naples wine scene powerhouse The Aielli Group. For more than a decade, Fabrizio and Ingrid Aielli have helped set the tone of local wine culture. As longtime, high-yield auction donors of the Naples Winter Wine Festival (a single Aielli wine dinner has fetched more than $200,000), the couple maintains ties with the festival’s visiting culinary masters. Sea Salt’s prestige means they can pull in names like Tuscan master Elisabetta Gnudi Angelini and iconic Mount Etna winemaker Antonio Benanti.
Often, the restaurant leans into Fabrizio’s Italian roots for dinner themes, yielding pairings like beef medallions and tightly twisted trofie pasta in a smoked almond-truffle cream sauce alongside a rich Tuscan red. “It’s a cultural and gastronomic experience,” Ingrid says. “Sometimes, we pair the food and wine to the region. We’ll pick Tuscany, Piedmont or Venice and assemble a set menu.” Other times, they’ll focus on the backstory of the wines and build a menu around prestigious family wineries, like Napa Valley Stag’s Leap Cellars or Vineyard 29.
At Harold’s in Fort Myers—where Harold Balink oversees the food and wine (the Johnson & Wales-trained chef is also a Court of Masters advanced sommelier)—wine dinners are reserved for the slower summer season, when there’s more time for creativity and wine exploration. Wearing both hats gives Harold a unique lens as he creates synergistic pairings. “I try to keep it interesting but not so off base that people get lost,” he says. “Besides people, food and wine pairings are what I love best about this business, so we try to take it seriously and hit the high notes.”
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Harold’s by Erik Kellar
harolds red wine glass
Beloved chef and certified sommelier Harold Balink, of Harold’s in Fort Myers, takes advantage of the slow season to unleash his full creative force with summer wine dinners.
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Photography by Dan Cutrona
harolds wine dinner tablescape
He especially likes devising pairings for white wines, which present a more challenging feat to highlight their subtle, layered nuances. He might pair a Roero Arneis with prosciutto-wrapped, crab-stuffed branzino in a caviar beurre blanc or a moscato dessert wine with orange blossom-honey cake, apricot mousse and a white chocolate cage. Both tap into the wines’ gradual, understated floral and fruit-forward undertones.
Each restaurant takes a different approach to pairings, but all emphasize a sense of discovery around their wine dinners. For the diners, who shape the evening’s narrative as much as the food and wine, the benefit goes beyond what they find on the plate or in the glass. “Sometimes, because of where you are or the people you’re with, it’s this magic moment,” Dinah says.