Porn Names and Handcuffs

I've been slacking off in the wine dinner department.

A year and a half ago, I'd been tasked with keeping the group up-to-date on upcoming wine dinners. Mind you, I didn't ask for the job, but it was mine.

The last time I'd arranged for the posse to attend one, it was February and I'd arrived with the biggest news of the year: I'd accepted a lunch date. And because that lunch was so successful, I'd put keeping everyone abreast of wine dinners on the back burner.

Hell, if I was honest, I'd say I'd moved that pan off the stove entirely. My new love life took precedence over mere wine dinners, even with friends who had a wine jail to keep filled.

But a month ago, I'd gotten an email about Secco's upcoming Vom Boden five course wine dinner with Collin Wagner taking the reins for three courses and all five wines. Secco's wine dinners never disappoint, I was months overdue in my scheduling duties and here was my chance to get back in the swing of things. Beau made the reservation and we were set.

Driving through the Fan to get to Secco tonight, poor Beau had to deal with every possible annoyance: double-parking, unsure turners, darting pedestrians, slow parallel parkers. He got so frustrated he shouted, "City much?" to the last of the automobile-challenged we passed.

That's a brilliant phrase to describe the unfortunate subset of drivers plaguing those of us competent to drive in urban areas.

As we were walking up to Secco, the owner came out to meet us, a concerned look on her face because the dinner was sold out and she hadn't seen my name on the reservation list. I explained I'd been grouped with my friends. Inside, her partner saw me, glanced at his seating chart and took on the look of a deer in headlights. Only once he found out I was part of Beau's party did he relax.

Even better, the owner came over once we'd been seated to say that she'd looked at Beau's last name and assumed he was porn star Jack Vidra, in town this weekend for the Fire, Flour and Fork dinner at L'Opossum.

Instinctively I knew this was an association Beau would welcome. And he did.

Our six top was completed with an IT guy for the Federal Reserve whose wife was pregnant (and why waste five wines?) so he'd come alone and a cop and his German-born wife. To kick things off, we sipped Hild Elbling Sekt until the owner tapped her glass to get the ball rolling.

Almost as soon as she did, a late arrival came in and had to do the walk of shame to his seat at a table in the back while she continued talking. Pru and I just assume that people who would do such a thing were raised by wolves. That's fair, right?

Introducing Collin, who'd started at Secco in 2010 at the tender age of 19, she said that he'd been cooking all over Europe and NYC, at least right up until he'd fallen in love with the Vom Boden portfolio and become a wine rep.

Tonight he was combining both skill sets to dazzle us.

"We're going to drink esoteric German wines you'll never drink again!" he promised, sharing that he was just back from the harvest in Germany. When he returned to the kitchen, the older woman at the table next to us said wistfully to her husband, "Don't you wish you were young enough to go work in the vineyards?"

Don't we all?

Along with the bubbly Sekt, we crunched through wonton cups filled with apple. cucumber and tarragon cream sauce topped with micro-greens. We were that table who, when asked who needed a touch-up on their Sekt, saw every hand go up.

Meanwhile, Beau told us he'd been too busy working night and day last week to see any of Seattle - any, mind you - but he was hoping for better luck in San Francisco when he gets there tomorrow. Pru regaled us with the story of her father coming to visit today, a Time Life book on Nazi sympathizers in hand. I find this hysterical.

I never tire of hearing her Dad stories. I mean, a man who wears a jacket indoors because he's so underweight? A man who claims to be a vegetarian but eats ham and hot dogs? A man who is considering hair plugs at 86? Tell me more, please.

Our first course was smoked Max Creek rainbow trout ("Farm raised fish from a dude named Dave," Collin tells us) in a creamy herb emulsion with kohlrabi and celery, a dish that paired magnificently with Stein Blauschiefer Riesling Trokcen, which caused Collin to brag a little because he'd helped pick the grapes that went into what we were drinking. I loved this pairing and so did Beau, although he had to come around to the wine, which he hadn't liked until he had food with it.

How many wine dinners have I reminded him of this reality and will he ever learn?

As plates were being cleared, I noticed that the cop's wife hadn't eaten her trout and asked why not. Seems she doesn't like smoked fish, so I offered to take it off her hands, knowing Beau would aid the cause. Let no smoked trout go to waste at my table.

By that time, tongues were loosened and people were talking across tables. When Beau and the father-to-be discovered they made their livings in the soul-sucking field of technology  IT security, they turned toward each other and the rest of us could have spontaneously combusted and they'd not have noticed.

Another gorgeous pairing, JB Becker Walkenberg Riesling Kabinett Trocken and rye, farro and wild rice cooked like risotto in brown butter, garlic and thyme, then crowned with the thinnest of matsutake mushrooms slices, and even the naysayers were starting to believe in the power of Riesling. Collin came out to rave about the strong and powerful 2008 wine, which, of course, was only available in very limited quantities.

The father-to-be shared the names he and his bride have chosen for their daughter once she arrives - Hannah, Eleanor and Kara - and we took a vote on it. Looks like she'll be Eleanor, though they have a cat named Theodore, so they have some concerns about establishing a theme.

It didn't take much wine for Pru to learn that the older couple next to us are also denizens of Church Hill and from there, it was all about upcoming holiday events in the 'hood. When we complimented the lovely mauve jacket the wife had on, she said she chose such colors because she'd always had to wear black, navy and gray when she was a businesswoman.

Naturally, I had to know what her business was (fundraising for MCV) even as I admired her gold shoes.

Collin returned to rave, first about the Free Union Grass farms roasted duck we were about to eat and then about his enjoyment of the Shelter Winery "Lovely Lilly" Pinot Noir. Secco's owner jumped in to talk about procuring the 40 pounds of duck required at the South of the James Market, where she had to endure listening to vegans discuss "salad and houseplants" while wearing Uggs and giving the duck the stinkeye.

A shame for them, really, because the platter arrived piled high with duck breast that was rosy and medium rare and confit duck legs with crispy bits that would rival any cracklins. I know because Beau and I sampled enough to find out. Along with the mound o' duck came freshly made steam buns, housemade hoison sauce, sliced scallions and cucumbers and pickled carrots for an assemble-your-own kind of meal.

Don't get me started on those who ate theirs with fork and knife. They're buns, people. Pick 'em up and eat 'em.

Pru wasted no time in finding out that, like her, the cop's wife had been a financial analyst and since the IT boys were still mooning over each other's RAM, that left me and the cop to find common ground while the others bonded. Pru tried to help, saying, "Both you and John are into handcuffs," a joke that went nowhere since it wasn't true.

I mean, John obviously is because of his job, but other than that time a fellow guest unexpectedly handcuffed himself to me at a dinner party in 1991, I really have no experience with cuffs. And the cop wasn't talking about his.

The gentleman at the table next to us sported a spectacular handlebar mustache and Van Dyke, leading us to compliment both while his bride was in the loo. Curious about the handlebar's origins, we learned from him that he'd had a regular mustache when he'd met his wife 20 years ago and she'd been the one to suggest waxing and twirling it.

When she returned to find what we were discussing, he said he'd told us that she was responsible for his mustache. "You should tell them that," she said with all the authority of a woman who had helped her man become more attractive.

We were, it turned out, a table full of fig fans, so when fig Lintzer cookies showed up, we were a happy bunch. Paired with the delicately sweet Julian Haart 1000L Riesling Feinherb, it was each of our duties to find room in otherwise overcrowded bellies for such a well-crafted final course. I recalled my mother's rule - "There's always a corner left for dessert" - and polished off two cookies with no shame.

If you don't consider housemade fig jam a thing of beauty, truly you are missing out.

But my posse - minus two charter members tonight, but they checked in with humor mid-meal - is no longer missing out on wine dinners because I am back on task, in search of grape and food pairings that double as social occasions. At least, in between everything else life entails now, I am.

Wine dinner much? Not lately, but tonight's esoteric German wines and strangers' back stories were enough to remind me why I should.

Even if I wasn't at Jack Vidra's table. Too bad. I'd love to hear his handcuff stories.