Events: Tablas Creek at Tam O’Shanter, Olivi at Chianina, G&Ts at Waterloo & City

Anybody have room to slip a special wine dinner into your schedule? These events can be not only fun but educational. Without having to buy an entire bottle, you get to taste wines from a single producer with food that a chef has designed to show them off. And if the winemaker is in attendance, even better.

Here are a few such dinners coming up.

Tam O’ Shanter, the venerable Los Feliz restaurant, steps up its game with a five-course wine pairing dinner Thursday at 6:30 p.m. with Tablas Creek Winery, the Rhone-style wine specialist founded by wine importer Robert Haas and the Perrin brothers of famed Chateau de Beaucastel in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The winery will be pouring four wines with a menu from executive chef Mark Kalenderian. The cost is $65 per person plus tax and tip. For reservations, call (323) 664-0228 or visit TamOShanter.com.

Tam O’ Shanter, 2980 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 664-0228.

On Wednesday, July 16, at 6:30 p.m., Chianina Steakhouse in Long Beach will have a Tuscan wine dinner featuring the wines of the Olivi estate in Tuscany. Riccardo Olivi, who owns the estate with his father, Giuseppe, will be on hand to present five of his family’s wines. The menu starts off with chilled poached lobster with a summer shelling bean salad, followed by rabbit sausage with eggplant, cherry tomatoes and pappardelle. The main event is, of course, bistecca alla fiorentina with two vintages of Olivi Tempore, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Dessert is torta della nonna with vin santo. The cost is $100 per person, plus tax and tip.

Chianina Steakhouse, 5716 E. 2nd St., Long Beach, (562) 434-2333.

On Thursday, July 17, at 7 p.m., the Culver City gastropub Waterloo & City is hosting a “G&T” dinner celebrating local grains with a menu featuring favorites from our local mill Grist & Toll — and, to double the G&Ts in the room, with gin and tonics. It’s a fun idea, but if anybody prefers wine pairings, that’s possible too. The menu begins with a citrus farro salad with goat-cheese-stuffed squash blossoms and moves on to roasted Alaskan halibut with polenta, asparagus and lobster sauce. The main course is oxtail, roast beef and barley, and for dessert, you get a cherry and rye crostata with buttermilk anise ice cream. The cost is $75 per person, plus tax and tip, with choice of either gin cocktails or a wine pairing.

Waterloo & City, 12517 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, (310) 391-4222.

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