An evening cooking in Napa: pork from an enterprising little pig, wine from a splendid small Napa estate. Heaven.

Uncorked, published in The East Hampton Star

Culinary class: I’ll sip, you simmer and stew

Take some Kobe beef and Kurobuta pork from Snake River Farms in Idaho; add one professional chef with two helpers and a small group of amateurs; assemble in the kitchen of a winery on a beautiful hillside in the Napa Valley. Controlled chaos? Or a recipe for fun?

It depends on your view. I took no chances and decided my key ingredient should be poured from a bottle — this was Napa after all and we had a selection of extraordinarily good wines — so it all worked out well.

I had been invited by Ray Signorello to participate in a “food and wine pairing culinary class” conducted by Massi Boldrini in the tasting room of Signorello Vineyards. Mr. Boldrini, a talented chef who trained in Ferrara, Italy, is opening a restaurant named Riva Cucina next month in Berkeley — and he knows how to run a kitchen.

I put on my apron, but I was secretly determined not to get my hands dirty or smelly or greasy, even with elitist cuts of meat. I ambled from station to station in the kitchen, where I uselessly shuffled a few ingredients. As soon as I felt it was socially acceptable to abandon this forced labor, I deserted and headed to a secure out-of-the-heat spot — a barstool at a counter overlooking the activities — and found the perfect white wine to guiltlessly sip while my companions sliced and diced.

The wine, produced there on the Signorello estate, is called Seta, the Italian word for silk. It is an interesting and successful blend of 60 percent semillon and 40 percent sauvignon blanc, produced by barrel fermentation. The taste is, as you would expect, smooth, but beyond that it is layered and complex with a refreshing fruit profile of melon and pear and a tantalizing grassy undertone. It hit the spot as an aperitif with some passed hors d’oeuvres, and was just as good as an accompaniment to a first course of bruschetta made with tomatoes (nicely chopped by my buddies) from the Signorello garden. Seta sells for $25.

Kurobuta pork was new to me. It turns out to be from a Berkshire breed of hog, which, according to the Snake River Farms Web site, was discovered by Oliver Cromwell’s army in the 17th century. It has no connections that I can find to Cromwell’s Rump Parliament. We can only hope the Roundheads butchered their hogs more humanely than they did their king, Charles I, whom they beheaded in 1649.

The enterprising little pig eventually found its way from the bloody English civil wars to Japan, as a diplomatic gift, and then to Idaho on a more commercial voyage. All these peregrinations produce a nice loin, especially enjoyable with a spicy, slightly floral, full-bodied 2004 Estate Syrah from Signorello ($36).

Cabernet sauvignon is the foremost grape of Napa Valley, produced by every winery there that I know, and the version from Signorello, what they call their signature wine, is a splendid example of California winemaking. Lush, rich, and intense, with a nose of cedar and black current, cassis and plums, this unfiltered wine is a sensual treat. It flirts with voluptuousness but never tastes flabby. The winemaker, Pierre Birebent, is French, and manages to keep a certain European finesse in the Signorello portfolio. The 2003 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon sells for $40.

Signorello makes a good chardonnay for $23, but their more unusual direction of Ray Signorello produces small quantities of Padrone (honoring the memory of his father, Ray Signorello Sr.). It is labeled a cabernet sauvignon reserve, but it is actually a Bordeaux-type blend, cabernet sauvignon predominating, with beautiful balance and structure. Hope’s Cuvee (honoring his mother) is a reserve chardonnay blend.

I tasted the reserves on a different evening at a smaller, quieter dinner with Mr. Signorello, and I was highly impressed with the complexity and sophistication of these wines. Signorello Vineyards is the kind of small focused winery that incorporates Italian, French, and American traditions, and demonstrates how special a place the Napa Valley is in today’s wine world.