“Wine dinners 10 years ago were mystical. Restaurants had no problem getting $100 to $150 a head. Now it is almost impossible to charge that – no matter who the speaker is,” says Dale Reitzer of Acacia-Midtown. “So I decided to do something informal, energetic and economical – usually I have [wine] reps come in [and speak] and sometimes winemakers. And I charge a lot less.”

A lot less is $32 to $35 for three-courses of what Chef Reitzer calls “real food,” meaning no dessert. The dinners are hosted the last Wednesday of the month. October was the exception because of Restaurant Week and the attendance at the October 23rd dinner was subdued, for several, likely reasons; the change in date and diner’s anticipation of going out the following week for prix fixe deals.

Oh how little did those diners know. Here’s what they missed:

Course 1: Pear, frisee, pecans, confit salmon, lingonberry vinaigrette with a biodynamic Cote-du-Rhone from top producer Chapoutier

Course 2: Braised beef ravioli, roasted pumpkin, blackberry port wine just with a Cotes du Ventoux from Delas

Course 3: Choice of hickory smoked tuna with parsley risotto or lamb Bourgongne with chestnuts, figs, and homemade egg noodles with a Crozes-Hermitage from Jean Luc Colombo
 
The price? $32, including wine. The best part? The seating.

Instead of starting the dinner at a set time, with set, group seating, Acacia allows guests to make a reservation for a time of their choosing and to sit separately from the speaker. The speaker, instead of standing at the end of a long table of diners and speaking to a group, walks from table to table and personally describes the wines being tasted, answers questions, and tells the stories and histories of the wines’ production.

The formula has been a success for Reitzer, whose wine dinners usually draw anywhere from 80 to 120 attendees over the course of an evening. It also allows him to force his “niche of regulars that keeps me (sic) afloat” to eat outside of their comfort zones and partake of his creativity.

The next wine dinner at Acacia will be Wednesday, Nov. 4, and again, it will be outside the mystery box with a theme of “sustainable seafood” paired with wine. Don’t expect to find local rockfish on the menu, which are “running right now, and look good, but have little meat on their bones,” says Reitzer. Instead, he might prepare some grouper from North Carolina or farm-raised shrimp from Chesterfield.

For details on the Sustainable Seafood Dinner @ Acacia, and upcoming wine dinners, click here.

Disclosure: The wines mentioned in this post are sold by RNDC, the company that employs me in Charlottesville. I was unaware of the wines selected when I attended the dinner, but it is important to point out the connection.