As the argonauts found in the 1850s, when the pay dirt plays out, you improvise.

That's what's happening at Carpe Vino, the classy wine shop and restaurant in the heart of Auburn's historic Old Town.

Six years ago, Gary and Laura Moffat took over a red-brick building that since the 1850s had housed a succession of business at the prized intersection of Sacramento Street and Lincoln Way.

After a painstaking restoration of the quarters, they kicked back to run a wine shop and tasting bar, but in the spring of 2006 they bowed to customer demand for fine food as well as fine wine.

Chefs Courtney McDonald and Eric Alexander came aboard to oversee dinners among the wine racks. The arrangement worked out wonderfully, with the pair receiving raves for their artful and seasonal New American cooking.

They're still there and the food still is a study in how the artistic can be both fresh and accessible.

But early next year, probably in February, McDonald will leave Carpe Vino to intern with Highland Farms, an Auburn ranch raising grass-fed lambs and goats. She and Alexander, graduates of the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, N.Y., hope to develop their own farm and see this lesson in animal husbandry as a step toward fulfilling that dream.

Alexander is to continue cooking at Carpe Vino, and while the couple's culinary style will remain intact, the menu will be retooled in favor of a small-plate format.

"Fine dining is tough to sustain in this economy, especially up here. Fridays and Saturdays are great, but not the rest of the week. It's not a model that works for us anymore," says Gary Moffat.

In other words, diners who have come to appreciate the full range of the couple's style have just a few more months to experience it.

While the menu isn't long, it is diverse. Starters form the most extensive section of the menu and provide a hint of the sort of food that can be expected when the format changes.

They include, for example, roasted pork meatballs with cognac-soaked prunes, roasted almonds with smoked paprika and rillettes of house-smoked salmon on toasted pumpernickel.

If we're lucky, Alexander will retain the exceptionally sensuous mousse of foie gras and chicken liver, brightened with sweet-and-sour quince ($14). When spread on toasted brioche, the combination isn't far removed from an ice cream sundae.

Equally as delightful were medjool dates stuffed with chorizo and bacon, topped with shaved manchego and served in romesco, an original composition in which meatiness, fruitiness, sweetness and the heat of spice balanced each other with remarkable acuity ($10).

A salad of roasted beets, belgian endive, candied walnuts, blue cheese, frisée and pear was marvelously cohesive ($9.50).

The couple's presentations always have been attractive, but they're more inviting than ever nowadays. Among the entrees, an imaginative osso buco of braised pork from Niman Ranch was both elegant and dramatic ($23). The tender meat, standing upright on collard greens and white-corn grits, was topped with a dice of root vegetables and sweetened with a sauce of maple syrup and bourbon.

Orecchiette tossed with braised Highland Farms lamb, broccoli rabe, shell beans and olives arrived in a foamy tomato confit, making for one diverse yet harmonious dish ($18).

Pine Hill Orchard of Loomis provided the fruit for two fresh and intricate desserts, profiteroles filled with ice cream of late-harvest viognier and accompanied with caramel-stewed peaches, rich in flavor, light in build ($8), and a subdued panna cotta with almond pound cake, poached pears and pear sorbet ($8), as autumnal and sparkling as a tree shedding its leaves in one glorious shower.

Carpe Vino has its idiosyncrasies, none more apparent than the lack of a wine list other than wines by the glass. If you want a bottle, you get up and stroll about the racks of wine until you find one or two that captivate you, and the price can't be beat – retail plus $5 to open, decant and serve with fine stemware. If you're ordering the osso buco or the orecchiette, Owen Roe's youthful and lean 2007 Columbia Valley Sinister Hand, a blend of grenache, syrah and mourvedre, has the fruit and spice to match both ($25).

While Carpe Vino's tasting bar can get crowded and jovial, the dining room, looking out across Old Town, is relatively calm and civil. Flowers on each table were fresh, and so was the water in their vases. Servers Paul and Ada were precise and gracious. Keep in mind that Carpe Vino is primarily a wine shop, so patrons must be at least 21.

Make no mistake: Carpe Vino isn't going away. Its food format may be about to be scaled back, but I suspect it will remain a spot worth visiting when you pull off Interstate 80 at Auburn.

Call The Bee's Mike Dunne, (916) 321-1143. Read his blog, www.sacbee.com/appetizers. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/dunne.