Talley and I had finished the wine list for The Boot, and construction of the restaurant was completed. The official opening was in a week.

In the meantime, Chef Kenny had been experimenting in the kitchen, and invited me and his business partner, Mary Melons, to try some of his dishes.

After parking my orange truck, I walked into the restaurant. It was clean and modern, done in brilliant white and gray, with photos of boot-making hanging on the walls.

I was met by the glamorous Kandi Cane and the handsome Chef Kenny, and was led to a table where Mary Melons was seated. She looked tanned, fit and fabulous. The blonde beauty had a small part in the new James Bond movie, and had just returned from shooting on location in Brazil.

Mary gave me a giant smile. “I have been looking at this wine list that you and Talley created,” she said in her melodious voice. “It looks good, but it seems to be small.”

I was waiting for that. “That’s right. I think most wine lists have too many wines,” I said. “You go to a fine-dining restaurant and you get a wine list as big as the dictionary.”

“I do find that annoying,” she agreed. “The restaurateur is just on an ego trip or pandering for a Wine Spectator award.”

Chef Kenny and Kandi sat at our table and brought a bottle of Carpene Malvolti Prosecco. Chef Kenny poured each of us a glass of the wonderful bubbly. “What is the point of these giant wine lists with thousands of entries?” he asked. “You’re only going to have a couple of bottles with dinner. There’s no point in dining in a warehouse of wine. At The Boot, we have a liberal corkage fee – just $7 – so you can bring any wine you want and enjoy it with your meal.”

“So you can have limitless possibilities when matching the food with wine,” Kandi added.

I took a sip of bubbly and said: “The wines on these huge wine lists are so overpriced – three to five times the cost. Here, we decided we want to sell the wine on our list because it matches the cuisine so well. So we marked up our wine to only two times above cost.”

Mary looked at the wine list. “There isn’t any chardonnay or even pinot grigio on the list,” she remarked.

“Yeah, Talley and I decided we would exclude all varietals not native to Italy,” I said. “So there aren’t any cabernets or merlots on the list either.”

Pouring another glass for Talley, Chef Kenny chimed in, “We wanted to open the doors to the beautiful Italian wines that are not often thought of, let alone drank in California.”

“For the white wines, Talley and I picked a Barberani Orvieto, a Teruzzi & Puthod Vernaccia di San Gimignano and an Umani Ronchi Verdicchio, which is considered to be the finest white wine to pair with seafood. We also chose a Mastroberardino Greco di Tufo, which is smoky and has nice minerality, and a fantastic La Botina Tocai Friulano.”

I paused to take a bite of the prosciutto and honeydew melon Chef Kenny had just served. “The red wines on the list include a Boscaini Valpolicella and a Poliziano Rosso di Montepulciano, which is a light and delicious sangiovese wine, as well as a Felsina Chianti Classico and a giant, explosive Fattoria dei Barbi Brunello di Montalcino. We also picked a beautiful montepulciano wine from Marche, an Umani Ronchi San Lorenzo Rosso Conero. I have always loved Montefalco by Caprai, which is a blended wine from Umbria with sangiovese and sagrantino, a plummy-tasting grape – heaven on the palate.”

Mary interjected: “I have always adored Aglianico del Vulture, an earthy red wine from Basilicata. I’m glad to see it on the list. I’m also happy to see a Ratti Dolcetto D’Alba – what great fruit that wine has to offer, and God knows I think Barolo is the greatest big red wine in the world. I like the producer Francesco Rinaldi.”

“I love amarone,” Chef Kenny said. “And I’m glad you’ve included my favorite producer, La Ragose.”

“To round out the rest of the wines on the list, besides this lovely prosecco and a red, fizzy Scarpa Brachetto D’Acqui that tastes like sweet strawberries, we included the great, golden-colored dessert wine Avignonesi Vin Santo, which is pure honey and walnuts,” I said, happy that they were pleased with the list.

After the opening and rave reviews from food critics, The Boot, I am happy to say, is a wonderful restaurant and a success.