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"Silence of the Lambs" (1991)
Director: Jonathan Demme. Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn.
 There's no actual wine in this movie, so if there's a ringer on the list, this is it. But this film is responsible for the most famous wine and food pairing in the history of cinema.
In one of the most famous roles of his great career, Hopkins plays the brilliant psychiatrist, serial killer and cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
Do we remember that Lecter can draw the view from the duomo in Florence from memory? No. Do we remember the ecstatic look on his face as he listens to classical music while killing and flaying two guards? No.
This is what everyone remembers about Lecter. Trying to scare FBI trainee Foster, Hopkins says: "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."
Hopkins then makes a sucking sound as if sampling a wine. Or maybe he's angry at the script being dumbed down.
In the book by Thomas Harris, Lecter prefers an Amarone with human liver, but most Americans are far less familiar with Amarone than Chianti.
Skye LaTorre, a sommelier at San Francisco's A16 restaurant, which specializes in food and wine from the Italian region of Campania, says of human liver with fava beans: "We wouldn't serve it with Chianti, but it would go well with one. The older-style Chiantis have a gaminess to them that would go with the funk of a liver."
Asked what she might recommend as a pairing if human liver were on A16's menu, LaTorre says, "I'd probably do an Aglianico. They've also got the berry fruit and dark notes, and they're kind of angular in style. You need to bring out the redness of liver. Liver can be kind of dense, but lean. You want something with acidity to brighten it up."
Lecter, party of one, your table is ready. Or did you say you're having an old friend for dinner?
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