Here’s an event that will help you impress people at your next dinner party. How about a wine seminar with the new sommelier at Lemaire?

Steve Fox, a local free-lance wine consultant, will give a guided tasting seminar featuring seven wines at the Downtown Club of Richmond at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 4. The cost is $40 and includes the tasting seminar, wine-and-food-pairing exercise, tax, tip and indoor parking. Reservations are due by Friday, March 30. 644-4051.

With that out of the way, on to the big dining news on everyone’s lips last week: the closing of the Frog and the Redneck.

Yes, the unthinkable came to pass two Saturdays ago when chef and media glutton Jimmy Sneed served the last meal at that brightly lighted establishment. He also closed Carnivore’s, the sister restaurant next door.

The news received a huge story in the Wednesday, March 21, edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch Business section.

So what’s up?

“I am working on a new project, a very exciting project for downtown,” Sneed says, reasoning that this project will take all his time. (He also told the T-D that the two restaurants weren’t making enough money anyway.)

A very exciting project for downtown, huh? Connected with the new arts complex, maybe? Or the Canal Walk? Tell us!

“No,” Sneed replies. “But I’m very excited.”

Sneed’s national rep made his restaurant a feather in Richmond’s cap for almost eight years, and the Frog and the Redneck was one of the first places in that part of town that business people voluntarily visited. So it’s unlikely that any of the folks behind the Canal Walk or the embryonic arts complex would balk at Sneed’s presence.