Danny Matsushita proudly answers to the description of “the weird dude who buys wine.”

And pours it, pairs it and shares it.

Matsushita — also proud to answer to his email handle of “yneau” (wino, get it?) — is a traveling wine ambassador, host and founder of the West Oahu Wine Group, also known as WOW.

He takes his act to smaller, family-style restaurants west of Aloha Stadium, where chefs are willing to work with him on three-course meals and provide a communal table for his devoted and growing clientele.

“You get all facets, young, medium, old,” Matsushita says of his followers. Some are beginning wine drinkers who want a little personal guidance; others just don’t want to drive to town for a food-and-wine fix.

He provides the wines, glassware, written wine notes and running patter, pouring five wines over the course of the meal — and often refilling a diner’s favorites. The restaurant provides the meal and a server; diners pay a split check, a portion to Matsushita and a portion to the restaurant. Cost is usually $45 to $55, depending on exactly what’s on the menu.

Dinners tend to run midweek, and some of the faithful will attend several in a row.

Susan Higa of Pearl City is a regular at Matsushita’s dinners at the Plantation House in Kapolei and Poke Stop in Mililani. Each dinner is an education, Higa said, with lessons in choosing wines and using the right glassware.

The casual, congenial atmosphere is what draws her. “I don’t have to bring anybody. I make friends.”

It’s a Thursday evening at Poke Stop in Mili­lani. Regular customers approaching the counter for takeout plates and tubs of poke squeeze around the WOW party — a group that seems to be having way too much fun.

Poke Stop chef-owner Elmer Guzman says the dinners give him a chance to flex his culinary muscles in dishes beyond his usual casual fare.

For this menu he begins with tiny malasadas draped with slices of seared duck breast, topped with caramelized foie gras, the plate dotted with prune mui and pickled onion. Matsushita has paired that with a sparkling Italian wine: Zardetto Vino Spumante.

The wines are not particularly expensive, but Matsushita’s message is that properly chosen and properly paired, an inexpensive bottle can be elevated. He orders his wines retail and makes sure all are available.

He’ll occasionally describe a selection as “one of my current darlings. … I have about 17 darlings.”

Second course is a Snip and Serve Salad — hydroponic greens in pots of water with roots still attached — served with scissors that diners used to cut the leaves of their choice. It’s paired with Champalou Vouvray and Poseidon chardonnay to match the papaya seed dressing and pickled vegetable garnish.

The dinner wraps up with braised mahimahi and Kauai shrimp in a red curry broth, paired with Zenato Valpolicella Superiore and Tenuta Sant Antonio “Scaia” Corvina.

Natalie Young-Aranita, a onetime Hawaii resident who now lives in Washington state, is a fan of both the wine program and the restaurant. “Whenever I come back I hope there’s a Poke Stop dinner.”

Matsushita is a certified sommelier, which means he has passed examinations administered by the Court of Master Sommeliers regarding wine knowledge and service skills.

In a previous life he worked for 15 years in an optical laboratory. But when he decided to make something out of his interest in wine, “the happiness level went way up.”

He worked as maitre d’ or sommelier at a number of local restaurants — the former Padovani’s Bistro and Wine Bar, Hau Tree Lanai, Duc’s Bistro and the Plaza Club — and for a time operated the Canadian ice wine shop at Aloha Tower.

He now describes himself as “kinda retired,” with the club being both vocation and avocation.

His first WOW dinner was four years ago at Ricado’s Italian Restaurant in Aiea.

“It started as kind of a lark. I was tired of not having a place I could go to and have interesting wines without going into town,” the Mililani resident said.

The first dinner was “pretty bare-bones,” he said. “I had to rent glasses. I sent out a little blurb: ‘Having dinner, want to come?’”

He started out with a dinner every other month, then it became monthly, now he may do two to three in a week.

The dinners prove how a good meal can bring strangers together, he said. “Once everybody hits the table, that’s the great equalizer. We’re sharing wine, we’re breaking bread. Everybody is just human, we’re having a great time.”