What do pancetta, manchego, and the Bob Dylan songbook have in common? Apparently, they’re all perfect fodder for wine pairing. So learned the well-heeled attendees at Saturday’s Bob Dylan Wine Pairing at TriBeCa’s City Winery.

You are not alone if your first reaction is “Wine? Doesn’t Dylan’s music go better with weed?” After all, this is the man who in 1964 infamously introduced the Beatles to the joys of Mary Jane and to whose music countless teenagers have rolled a spliff, leaned back in bed and contemplated the brilliance of “Like a Rolling Stone.”

However, according to Clinton Heylin's thorough Dylan biography Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited, in those early days, wine was often the singer's drug of choice. Of a 1965 London recording session, drummer Hughie Flint recalls, “I don’t think we played a complete number. It was a real mess. There was a lot of booze there, crates and crates of wine – I’d never seen so much wine, and everybody got very pissed, very quickly, no one more so than Dylan.”

So, the guy liked wine, but clearly Dylan and his entourage were drinking to get drunk, much like the generations of fans who, if they did choose wine to enhance their listening experiences, probably poured it from a box. Times change though, and these Dylan devotees at City Winery seemed to have matured from Boone's Farm to Bordeaux.

To help the eager oenophiles fully appreciate the aims of the evening, the event’s organizers, including Mario Batali’s rock 'n' roll loving partner Joe Bastianich and former High Times editor Mike Edison started the evening off with an explanation.

“Music and wine are similar,” offered Bastianich, reading from his notes, “because they both bring us to a certain place.” He also proposed that the audience try something new :"let’s taste with our ears and listen with our palates.” Mike Edison had a similar entreaty, although filtered through the parlance of his High Times days. “Weird things happen when you open your mind. Dots get connected.”

And with that, Highway 61 Revisited (“the world’s only Bob Dylan Tribute Band”), led by a Dylan look-alike in a bright blue shirt adorned with big silver stars, and accompanied by some of Dylan’s own former band members, took the small stage at the front of the room. As in a more typical pairing, the audience dutifully studied the wine menu and began sipping a 2007 Sauvignon Blanc, the zing of which, it had been pointed out by the hosts, went nicely with the pop of the opening number “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” All of the usual signs of serious palate pondering were immediately in play – sniffing of glasses, closing of eyes, even a little swishing in the mouth.

As the evening transitioned into the rosé period (going electric) and then into reds (ironically, musically matched to the blues), the evening’s hosts provided additional guidance. The earthy terroir of Syrah would match the swampy grit of “Tombstone Blues.” But in spite of Edison’s amusing hypothesis that Dylan was probably “not drinking fucking rosé” back in the day, the hosts had started losing the audience’s attention. After four glasses of wine, people wanted to sit back, listen to Dylan songs, and drink.

By the time Bastianich and company returned to the stage to hand the evening over to the band for the remaining ten songs, they too had relaxed into a wine buzz, and their comments shifted from straight talk of terroir and finish to slightly slurred proclamations that Bob Dylan was an "optimist."

As the lead singer, his shoulder length brown curls now wet with perspiration, gave a rousing rendition of “Hurricane,” the event had become your basic rock show. Fists pumped, heads banged, and glasses were tossed back with abandon – all remnants of swishing and smelling long gone. When things began to wind down with “Forever Young” and a late harvest Riesling, couples were dancing, and you could have sworn that others were waving lighters over their heads in time with the music. Perhaps it was not what he had had in mind, but as Bastianich had predicted, the wine and the music together, had indeed taken this audience some place special, and even if they’d be a little hung-over the next day, the headache from 2005 Cabernet has a much nicer finish than that of boxed wine.