T.J. Martell’s Best Cellars unites country stars and oneophiles

Wailing and wining

Published On: May 26, 2010

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It was just another ordinary Monday night in Nashville. Well, for most of us it was nothing special, but for the intimate crowd gathered at the Hutton Hotel for the T.J. Martell Foundation’s Best Cellars Dinner, it was something quite extraordinary. Each year, the Foundation brings in a world-renowned chef to cook for country music’s best sellers and oneophiles with the best cellars. The combination of these seemingly incongruous groups makes for one hell of a party.

Here’s a sampling of the music folks enjoying the best of food, wine and music: Dierks Bentley, Phil Vassar, Blake Shelton, Martina McBride, Jewel, Julianne Hough, Gary Allen, Sarah Buxton, Danny Gokey, Big Kenny and Kelli Pickler. Frances Preston, David Preston, T.K. Kimbrell, John Huie and Joe Galante. On the wine side, Tom Black, Billy Ray and Nancy Hearn, Bill Hearn, Keith and Deby Pitts, Jim Clendenen, Jenne Bonaccorsi, Larry and Jamie Beckwith and a host of others with excellent noses. If Sotheby’s were to insure this group of talented noses and throats, there’d be lots of money exchanging hands.

Now onto another one of the senses trumpeted during the evening. Taste. Yes, yummy taste. Chef Josiah Citrin, chef/owner of Melisse Restaurant in Santa Monica prepared one fierce meal, starting with crispy prawn fritters, grape and goat cheese spheres and abalone and eel skewers with sea urchin at the reception. Again—not typical Monday night fare.

Then, it was onto dinner and a live auction where guests bid on trips to the wine countries of France and California while dining on suckling pig, rib eye of beef braised short ribs and caramel tarts—all accompanied by fabulous wines, bien sur.

But let’s not forget what this evening actually benefits: cancer research at the Frances William Preston Laboratories at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Now that’s something to say santé about, n’est-ce pas? EN

—photographs by
sinclair kelly