For a drink and conversation.(WINE & SPIRITS)

There are more than 500 wines on the menu at Hollywood Prime, the steak-house within the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood. But Robert Sabin, the resort's wine and spirits program director, pours us one that he considers the house wine at his own home: a 2004 Groth Sauvignon Blanc from California's Nappa Valley (on the Hollywood Prime menu for $48 a bottle).

Sabin has chosen the versatile wine not just because he knows the winemaker (a former executive with computer maker Atari Inc.), but because its strong, sweet, grapefruit scent gives way to a melony, not-very-sweet finish, leaving a little bit of heat in the back of the throat. "This is a great wine while you're sitting outside on a great sunny day relaxing with friends," he says.

On the darker side, Sabin says he "absolutely loves" the 2000 Vigne de L'Enfant Jesus made by Bouchard Pere & Fils ($119 on the menu). This red Burgundy from France's Beunne Greves region of Cote-d'Or is a pinot noir. It is, however, an entirely different wine than a pinot noir from California--silkier, with a lighter fruit content, Sabin explains. The vineyard was once owned by Carmelite nuns, and the wine's name literally means "the velvet pants of Jesus."

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The wine does indeed go down as smoothly as its name implies, with tastes of cherry and a bit of oak, and a light tannin structure. It is a wine, says Sabin, that he would open at home with his ...