I recently had the privilege of being invited to a special, one-night only dinner at Gaddi’s, as they presented eight extraordinary wines from the renowned Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande and Louis Roederer Champagne.

Present at the event was the charismatic Michel Jenneau, executive vice president of Chateau Pichon Lalande and Louis Roederer, who wove beautiful tales the company’s history, such as the royal beginnings of Cristal champagne: Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, was an important customer of Louis Roederer. He was upset that everyone was drinking the same wines, so he asked for a special cuvee to be made, and thus Cristal (named at the time because it was encased in a crystal bottle) was born.

The evening’s parade of outstanding wines (Reserve de la Comtesse 2000, Chateau Pchon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 1975, to name a few) was matched only by the stellar cuisine of Gaddi’s chef David Goodridge. His pairings were almost bold in their choices, yet brought out the depth and dimensions of the wines. The evening’s winner for me was the combination of slow-cooked black pork belly with roasted cauliflower and a lemon thyme cream paired with an extremely elegant Cristal Brut 2002.

And over the course of dinner, Jenneau, interestingly enough, told me that the plethora of wine dinners, auctions and books that have somehow elevated wine to the same category as culture and literature was something he disagreed with. He felt all this was making wine something inaccessible and defying, what was for him, its core purpose: “Wine is about seduction – intellectual seduction, culinary seduction,” says Jenneau. “It’s all about its ability to bring people together for a special occasion.”