Wine Pairing Dinner • Classic's Restaurant & Lounge, W6026 Lake Drive, Shawano, WI 54166, 715-524-8711

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Wine steward (sommelier) Wayne Czypinski examines the way light shines through a glass of wine that was part of a recent wine pairings dinner at Classic’s in the Town of Wescott. Above, the salad course: a Caesar salad in a parmesan cheese basket.

Wine dinners meld flavors for gourmet experience

By Tim Ryan
Shawano Leader Reporter
Sunday, January 11, 2009

or Wayne Czypinski of Suring, the Classic’s Restaurant in the Town of Wescott became a regular stop on his way home — which says a lot about the restaurant, considering Czypinski has been in the business for 30 years.
    A former restaurant owner and longtime sommelier — wine expert — Czypinski got to know Classic’s owner Robin Kammerer and the chef, Nicki Himebauch, who is Kammerer’s sister.
    “She’s very creative,” Czypinski said of Himebauch, who prepares “dishes you wouldn’t normally find on a Wisconsin menu.”
    Naturally, the subject of wines came up.
    “We started talking,” Kammerer said. “Wine is a passion of his and he’s obviously got a lot of background.”
    Czypinski suggested trying something here that had been a big success for him at other establishments — wine-pairing dinners, where customers would be treated to a different wine for each part of a five-course meal.

The New Year’s Eve dinner menu. Wine pairing dinners are offered on the last Thursday of the month. For information or reservations, call 715-524-8711.

Czypinski’s background in wines stretches back to his ownership of a restaurant in Lake Tahoe, Nev., when he and a wine broker traveled to Napa Valley and Sonoma to buy wines for the restaurant.
Later, Czypinski was sommelier at the Woodstock Inn and the Simon

Pearce Restaurant in Vermont, where he oversaw wine-pairing dinners.     “They became quite successful,” Czypinski said. “Within three months we had 365 people per dinner.”
    Kammerer agreed to give it a shot at Classic’s.
    That was a year ago and the monthly dinners are still going strong.
    “We take about 30 people with reservations per dinner,” Kammerer said. “We started doing it twice a month during the summer.”
    The restaurant is back to its once-a-month schedule now, but will probably bump it up to twice a month again this summer.

KAMMERER

    “It’s a night out for dinner and its entertainment and it’s learning something about the wines and kind of a whole package all in one,” Kammerer said. “It’s an experience people really enjoy and they don’t forget about.”
    The dinners last about two hours and are naturally a little more expensive than the usual dinners at $50 per person, wine included.
    “There’s not really anybody else who does it and the food isn’t the same as anything else around here, either,” Kammerer said. “It’s nice to have that to offer to people in the area.”
    Czypinski saw it as a tremendous opportunity to get back to something he loves.
    “I do love the restaurant business. For me it’s fun,” he said.
    The dinner planning starts with Himebauch’s menu, which determines the types of wine Czypinski will choose.
    “I want it to be something different,” Himebauch said, “but I don’t want it to be so far out there that people from this area would turn their noses at it.”
    Himebauch describes it as “gourmet, with a little twist.”
    “I definitely put my flavorings into it,” she said. “I come up with what I come up with because that’s definitely what I would like to eat.”
    Himebauch, a professionally trained chef, previously worked at Gilbert’s in Lake Geneva, a four-star restaurant, and just prior to Classic’s at the Oneida Golf and Country Club.
    She has been at Classic’s since it opened in February 2006.

After a year of preparing the wine-pairing dinners — which have required her to spend about 12 hours a day in the kitchen the day before and the day of — she has yet to repeat herself, Himebauch said.
“It gets a little tricky because there’s only so many foods out there and you can only do so many things with them,” she said.

HIMEBAUCH

    As for the amount of time she puts in, she doesn’t mind.
    “I enjoy it other wise I wouldn’t do it,” she said.
    Working from Himebauch’s menu, Czypinski puts together a wine list with the help of a wine broker from Left Bank Wines in Sturgeon Bay.
    “We’re able to get some wines at bargain prices from all over the world — Chile, South Africa, Sicily, Australia, France, some domestic and even some from Wisconsin,” Czypinski said.
    There are a number of things to consider in pairing wine with each course. Is it a heavy dish? A light dish? What kind of sauce or dressing will be used? Then there are considerations for the wine, such as acidity or sweetness.
    “You don’t want to overpower the dish, you want it to work with it,” Czypinski said. “It’s a little science and a little art.”
    If this sounds a trifle elitist, you’d be wrong.
    “We try to keep it friendly, low-key, informal,” Czypinski said. “I hate a snobbish affair with boring statistics. I try to keep it fun.”
    Feedback suggests the approach is working.
    “They all say it’s one of the best dinners they’ve ever had and they learned a little bit,” Czypinski said.
    Kammerer said customers for the wine-pairing dinners have mostly been from the Shawano area so far, but she expects word of mouth will spread to reach a wider base.
    Czypinski said his wine-pairing dinners in Vermont even brought visitors from as far away as Europe, which Kammerer said she would certainly be open to.
    “Sure, why not,” she said. “We’ve got an airport down the road.”

Leader photos
by Curt Knoke