Whining About Wine In Las Vegas - Xtine Report

The following is an excerpt from Xtine's latest post at GrooVes Girl In Vegas. The complete post can be read here.

Fresh and Easy Market Is A Good Source Of Inexpensive Wine

We're getting a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood market in our neighborhood to replace where the CVS pharmacy has closed down. I wondered what type of store Fresh & Easy Neighborhood market is. After doing a bit of research on the "2 buck chuck" types of wine, I have learned that Fresh & Easy is like Trader Joe's. Yeah! It's going to be great to dash over to our Fresh & Easy to get some inexpensive wine. I browsed the blog for the chain, which is part of a company called Tesco. I noticed that Fresh & Easy claims to use a Master of wine to choose their wines. Apparently there are fewer than 300 Master of wines world-wide. They sell about 65 types of wine, many of which are less than $30 a bottle and two that are only $2.99 a bottle in their stores in Nevada and Arizona. In California the same wines sell for $1.99. I can only imagine that it's due to the competition from so many wineries in California that contributes to the price reduction.

Wine Lingo Or "Name That Wine"

While doing some research for this blog posting I ran across an interesting web site called "Appellation America." I learned that "Appellation" means "Origin." The web site is dedicated to informing the public about the over 300 officially designated wine regions in North America. That wine may seem confusing to people because it's known in this preferred order: Appellation/ Origin, Producer, then grape. Not to mention price and paring with cuisine. And Awards!

Vintage Vegas

With many drinks dished out in the state of Nevada, something like $50 billion worth annually state-wide I wondered what the wine drinking scene is like in Las Vegas. I have had the privilege of tasting some great wines at a few local charity events such as Taste of The Nation in The Las Vegas Convention Center, a benefit for Share Our Strength food program, Splendor in the Glass, a benefit for KLVX, Las Vegas' PBS station, and UNLVino has been doing an event for scholarships and higher education philanthropy in Las Vegas for 32 years(usually in May).

For locals and tourists alike there is a valuable resource in the local media to help guide you to where the wine is by way of The Las Vegas Review-Journal's Gil Lempert-Schwarz.

Mr. Lempert-Schwarz is the chairman of The Wine Institute of Las Vegas which serves to inform and educate Las Vegans about wine. I noticed that there are events on a monthly basis in Speiedini in the J.W. Marriott in Summerlin that pairs several wines with several courses of fine cuisine. Viaggio in Henderson, NV offers wine tastings with appetizers often as well. On the Las Vegas strip there are many restaurants that have earned awards from Wine Spectator for their wine selections. I noticed that the Bellagio has six restaurants that have the Wine Spectator's seal of approval. You shouldn't be afraid if you end up in a 'chain' restaurant such as Smith & Wollensky or Ruth's Chris Steakhouse while in Las Vegas if you want some great wine as they are on the award-winning list as well. There are two Asian restaurants that earned the Las Vegas wine list awards: Chinois in Caesar's Palace, and Dragon Noodle and Sushi Bar in The Monte Carlo Hotel.

The Orleans buffet will sell you a whole bottle of wine for as little as $5.00 and cork it for you. If you're not driving,i.e. taking a cab, travel van, bus, limo, etc. you can take it home or to your hotel/ motel or friends house. You can have open alcohol in Clark County if you're not the insured/ licensed driver of the vehicle that the open alcohol is in. When you consider that many times a bottle of water can set you back $5.00 it makes sense to get into drinking here!

My girlfriend and I went to a Rock N Roll wine event a few months ago in Studio 54 in MGM Grand. There were tons of people there. Jeremy Cornwall performed. I loved his sets of music! There was wine from all over. The tickets for the event are $20 or $30 in-advance. Local radio station 94.1 FM MIX sponsored the event. The headliner entertainer was the lead singer Patrick Monahan from the band Train (single "Drops of Jupiter". People often ask me while I'm out and about in the clubs especially, "Where are all the women in Vegas?" I can assure you that the local girls go to events like the Rock N Roll Wine Events.

Las Vegas women repeat after me: "Wine me, dine me!"

Respect, Peace and Light
Xtine on the sin city scene

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Global Peace GrooVes w/ Xtine

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