City Winery to pair Spike Lee with wine

If you can pair wine with food, why not try pairing it with film? That’s the idea behind an event bringing renowned filmmaker Spike Lee to Napa’s City Winery on March 29.

Lee will be discussing his new film, “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus,” a noir thriller he made with more than $1.4 million raised on Kickstarter.com.

A segment of “Da Sweet Blood” will be shown along with clips from five other Spike Lee “joints,” as the director likes to call his films. City Winery will serve a wine chosen to enhance each film clip.

“Spike’s films are so powerful that they have a terroir,” said City Winery founder Michael Dorf.

A similar event was held last month in New York City. “We knew Spike likes wine and thought this would be an interesting way to promote the film,” he said.

“In ‘He Got Game,’ there’s an emotional scene about generational change and the father-son dynamic,” Dorf said, “so we went for generational change in a winemaking family” and selected Catena’s Malbec.

In “School Days,” there’s “an old-style scene in a beauty parlor with a modern take and music and sexy dancers,” he recalled. “So we found a curvy, sexy wine reminiscent of great beauty. It was an Italian red, a Lambrusco.”

Dorf acknowledged that pairing wine with film is “very subjective” and unscientific. But he believes that “drinking wine while watching a scene can help people enjoy the scene and that the scene can enhance the enjoyment of the wine.”

“Da Sweet Blood,” about an art collector who becomes bloodthirsty after an incident with an African dagger, opened last year to mixed reviews. The film was shot on Martha’s Vineyard and in New York City in just 16 days.

In promotional materials for the film, Lee calls it a “new kind of love story (and not a remake of ‘Blacula’),” but in a review last month in the New York Times, A.O. Scott described it as “a grisly and ghoulish vampire story.” That doesn’t mean it’s a horror film.

“This is, all in all, one of Mr. Lee’s cooler joints,” Scott wrote, “meaning both that it is suavely stylish and feels detached from its own emotions and motivations.”

For Dorf, who opened The Knitting Factory, a New York City club, having Lee appear at City Winery is a thrill.

“Spike is the rock star of rock stars,” he said. “I’ve been a fan since 1986, when I was building The Knitting Factory – I was 23. To have somebody you respect so much and be a conduit between him and his fans, I love that part of what I do. It’s fantastic.”

Lee was not available for an interview, but Chris Denatale, City Winery’s marketing director, said Lee will discuss each film and interact with the audience during the two-hour event.

The roster of films had not been selected at press time, Denatale said. The evening will include music as well.

“Spike has a DJ who travels with him, so we will definitely be spinning some music,” Dorf said, adding that attendees will likely hear some Stevie Wonder songs, as his music is featured in several Spike Lee films.

Lee’s film career has spanned almost three decades. His ultra-low-budget 1986 comedy, “She’s Gotta Have It,” served notice of the arrival of a prodigious talent.

Like Woody Allen, Lee has moved from lighthearted comedies to deeper films with more serious themes.

“Do the Right Thing” (1989) explores racial tensions during a heat wave in Brooklyn, and his sometimes overlooked but brilliant “25th Hour,” released in 2002 and starring Ed Norton, is a haunting elegy for New York after the attack on the World Trade Center.

Social justice is a recurring theme in Lee’s films. His 1997 documentary, “4 Little Girls” explores the racially motivated bombing of an Alabama church in 1963 and the casualties that resulted from this horrific act of violence.

Michael Shapiro, author of “A Sense of Place,” writes about entertainment for The Press Democrat. Contact him through his site: www.michaelshapiro.net.