If you’re thinking of celebrating Valentine’s Day at one of the city’s gourmet paradises, such as Per Se, Alain Ducasse, Jean Georges, or Daniel, forget it. They’re all booked.

If you’re up to a pre-Valentine’s Day special, however, and you’re willing to pay a little extra, Alto, an East Side northern Italian restaurant, could fit the bill with a five-course dinner replete with a dozen vintage wines – a meal that might even impress the likes of Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg.

The dining extravaganza, which will feature Chateau Latour vintages dating to 1928, is to take place Monday evening at Alto, an upscale 9-month-old restaurant on 53rd Street between Fifth and Madison avenues. The price per person: $2,200. You’ll be pleased to hear that taxes and gratuity are included.

If this is the kind of dinner that you would like to experience with a group of friends, sorry, but that’s not possible. The event, the second in a series of Alto’s Great Wines of the World which will be held in one of the restaurant’s private dining rooms, is nearly sold out, Alto’s 44-year-old owner, Chris Cannon, tells me. There are just two seats left, he says.

Actually, the dinner, given the limited number of Chateau Latour vintage wines, is confined to 14 persons. All told, each person is expected to consume about a bottle of wine.

“We don’t make a lot of money on these dinners, maybe a profit of 8% to 10% on the whole affair,” Mr. Cannon says.

Then why do it? “Because,” he explains, “it’s a good way to get people to know about the restaurant and give us a chance to showcase our cellar of some 1,300 wines.”

The restaurant’s first wine series dinner, held last month with a price tag of $2,500 a person, featured Petrus vintages, including a 1961, one of Bordeaux’s greatest years.

In the works at Alto are three more dinners organized around wine. One in March will feature Cheval Blanc; in May, Haut-Brion, and in October, a truffles dinner, accompanied by Barolo and Barbaresco vintages from two of Italy’s top wine producers, Bruno Giacosa and Angelo Gaja. Each dinner will cost about $2,200.

While some of us may consider $2,200 for dinner rather pricey, Mr. Cannon doesn’t share that view. In fact, he regards it as “very reasonable,” considering, he says, that the wine alone costs about $16,000 for each dinner.

What’s on the menu at Monday’s $2,200 dinner? Aside from a vertical tasting of Latour selections, paired with each course, plus an opening glass of champagne, and a meal-ending glass of sauterne, the menu consists of the following:

* Roasted glazed sweetbreads with Guanciale, black barley, and porcini soup.

* Duck confit and seared foie gras with fruit bread Panzanella, black truffles, and walnuts.

* Stewed chestnut risotto with braised wild boar and black truffles.

* Stuffed saddle of grass-fed lamb with winter vegetable Stufato and white truffle dumplings.

* Roasted apple with apricot compote and honey ice cream.

Meanwhile, Alto, which seats about 110 and aptly means high in Italian, is off to a solid start in its first year, according to Mr. Cannon. He figures first year sales should be about $5 million. An average check per person, before tip and taxes, runs $110.

If $2,200 is more than you want to spend on dinner and wine, as an alternative you might try a wine-tasting dinner at the Four Seasons on February 17, featuring Barolos and Barbarescos. Compared to Alto, it seems like a steal at just $225 a person.

Italian restaurants are one of the city’s most competitive businesses. To survive, it helps to be different. On that score, Alto certainly qualifies.