Feb 28 2009
The “Grand Tour”
This is the 16th installment find the 1st one here
I travel for a living with a major company and I often end up in Las Vegas for national trade shows. I had just returned from one of my many road trips for the company and was sitting down with my wife and sharing a great bottle of pinot noir that Friday evening. She told me that she had debated telling me about a flyer she had opened that was in the mail from the “Wine Spectator” advertising the Las Vegas “Grand Tour” wine tasting event in May. I said, “What a coincidence! I have a show in Las Vegas that same week, so let’s go!” She then informed me that it was $200 per person if booked now and $260 per person at the door. I figured that would be the end of that conversation, but she actually suggested we go. I about had a heart attack! Wow! It can’t be true! Now, my wife always seems to find an excuse to get to Las Vegas, and this was perfect! We ordered the tickets over the internet that very night.
The “Grand Tour” was at the Venetian Hotel on a Saturday night and, of course, we were there early. I saw a map of the floor layout sitting on an easel by the door as to which wineries were pouring by booth number and where they were located in the room. I took as many notes as fast as I could on whom and where I wanted to try that night. We wanted to get in there as fast as we could and got in line so that when the doors opened, we’d be ready. We impatiently stood in that line for 45 minutes and then it started to move onto the event floor. As we entered the last doorway, we received our official book representing all the wineries and our complementary “Ridel” glass.
The first two tasting stops were “top drawer” pinot noirs that I had only been able to read about, since they were in California, very exclusive and not available in Florida. It was like dying and going to heaven! I’d never tasted any wine in my entire life that wonderful. I actually got to visit with the owners who I had seen in the magazines and read articles about over the last few years.
After two or three more stops, my wife suggested that we eat some of the fantastic food before we got ourselves in trouble. (All the “snobs” were spitting- NOT ME!) We loaded our little plates and sat down with two other couples about our age. Naturally, we started to talk about which wines we had tasted already and which ones we’d classify as the “best ones”. This made the rest of the evening fly by with a reason to test my tastes against theirs in cabernets, syrah and many, many more. We managed to cram twenty-one different wineries tasting’s into the three hour event. Though my wife and my tastes are very similar, we did go our separate ways at times and it was sad when it was all coming to the end of the evening. We both admitted that it had been worth every penny of the cost for the event and then to my surprise and delight she said, “I think we should do this again!” Now I know I’d died and gone to heaven! We’ll be back!
Jim Albinger (Andrew’s dad) grew up in smalltown northwest Iowa in the 1950’s. He has been writing down his experiences looking back at all that has shaped his current wine tasting hobby. Expect to see more of Jim’s writings here at offthecork.com.
I just attended the Wine Spectator Grand Tour in Las Vegas for the first time Saturday (May 16, 2009). Here is my experience and tips that I hope will come in handy if you decide to attend this event next year.
My number one tip? Get in line early! We got there 45 minutes before opening time and the line was at least 200 people deep. By the time the doors opened, there was a line about 3 times as long behind us, and they were holding even more people outside in the hall because the queue area was so full. Veterans told us that the crowd this year was much less than in previous years. I cannot imagine going to this event if it was even MORE crowded! This thing was jam packed with people!
While you are waiting in line, you will be given a very nice spiral bound tasting book that has a list of every wine being tasted with plenty of room for you to make any notes. Pens were also provided in case you forget to bring your own. Most people in line where quickly studying the map and making notes about where to go first! I felt very ill-prepared but decided to go with the flow. Your tickets are taken in advance, and you are given a stub to exchange for a Riedel tasting glass once you are inside the ballroom. You get a glass and then wander free to sample hundreds of wines!
Once the doors opened, there was a beeline for all of the French bordeaux. Unfortunately, the layout was such that all of the bordeaux and the big reds that you really wanted to drink were all on the same row. This caused severe bottlenecks. The aisles were so full at times that you could not even push your way through all of the people. A lot of the smaller wineries’ tables weren’t crowded all night. If you don’t care about sampling French bordeaux or Insignia, then you will have a much more pleasant tasting experience. The crowds were never unruly, but it was very unpleasant. There was also a lot of “me first” shoving, with rude people who had a false sense of entitlement just pushing right ahead of everyone else who was doing their best to form an organized line. This happened many times during the evening and there is just no excuse for such rudeness!
While you were allowed to revisit any winery and have all of the tastes you wanted, be warned that many of the wineries ran out of wines - Caymus ran out within an hour after opening, and many of the big “name” Bordeaux producers had poured all of their bottles soon after. I think this reflects poorly on the wineries and they really should be better prepared and come with more product. Apparently Caymus was only “armed” with 16 bottles! Ridiculous! Wineries should be required to bring at least 2 cases for an evening with such a high attendance. What a huge disappointment to miss out on some great wines. Unfortunately, the faster you drink the more wine you get to taste. I felt like the more rushed you were, the more rewarded you were with wine. I wanted to savor and sip and really taste the wines, not chug them quickly so I could hurry up and get another taste of something else before it ran out! This is not the best atmosphere for relaxed wine tasting but it sure is fun.
The large ballroom is set up with booths made up of very long tables. Wines seemed to be organized in the order in which you should try them, with whites on the far left of the ballroom and port on the far right, with everything else in between. Wines were arranged by region as well, with the Italian, Spanish, French, etc. in the same general area. At the end of each tasting row were glass washing stations and baskets of water crackers for palate cleansing. Very nice! On either side of the ballroom were bottles of room temperature Fiji water. The best part of this event was the quality of the wines! Just fabulous!
Now for more bad news: the food was an absolute DISGRACE. The light buffet was filled with cheap, awful food. There was a wild green salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing, a decent cheese tray with run-of-the-mill cheeses, a bread basket with stale hotel-quality rolls, an antipasto tray, several cold dips, and a few hot appetizers that weren’t very appealing or tasty - cheese pizza roll-ups (the crust was so rock hard that you couldn’t bite them with your teeth), miniature chicken pot pies (that were too cold), miniature pork loin “burgers” (again, so hard you couldn’t tear through them with your teeth), and a decent assortment of small chocolates. For $200 a ticket, this was a poor excuse for a buffet. I was so disappointed and the food should have been much better. There were two buffet tables set up, but lines were always very long. We waited at least 30 minutes in the buffet line when it first opened. I wasn’t expecting a gourmet dinner, but at least some tapas that tasted good should have been served!
Another big criticism is the lack of seating. There were some tables set up, but they were packed full, leaving most of the guests no choice but to hover around the room trying to balance plates of food and glasses of wine. Some folks even resorted to sitting on the floor! Ugh! There was plenty of room for additional seating, and this should have been added. If more seating was added, I think this would have helped with the extreme bottlenecks that formed down the tasting aisles. At certain times there were so many people packed in the tasting rows that I literally could not raise my arm to lift a glass to my lips. NO JOKE. If you are very sensitive to crowds, this is NOT the event for you. Trust me!
The good news is that the crowds began to thin out towards the end of the event, so you had more time and room to walk around and talk to the winemakers and winery representatives. After the event officially closed, you were allowed to stay for a bit and enjoy your last morsel of wine. Also after official closing time, many of the wineries just left their open bottles at their booths and you could go around and personally pour as much as you wanted in your glass! As you can imagine, by the end of the night, nearly everyone left in the ballroom was near falling down drunk. They were very polite drunks, however! Ha ha.
My final tip is to get a hotel room. You will not want to be driving anywhere after you leave this event. It is a bit overwhelming and is like being a kid in a candy store with a free pass to eat all the candy you can. It is easy for me to say that I should have tried to pace myself better, but it is just so exciting that you can’t help it. The wines are all so fantastic and there are wines I’d read about and had never tried. It is easy to go crazy at this event, so try to drink lots of water and graze on crackers during the evening. I’d also recommend having a meal before you go in since the food was lacking.
The bottom line is this is a great event for oenophiles and is a fantastic way to try new and exciting wines (or to revisit old favorites). I only tasted a few wines that I really didn’t like - almost everything was just fabulous. Be warned as well that there is NO WAY you can even begin to sample all of the wines - I probably tried 30 wines and I “paid the price” with a big wine hangover the next day! I’ve attended many wine tasting events and festivals, and the Wine Spectator Grand Tour ranked somewhere in the middle - not the best I’ve been to, but not the worst either. I would probably attend again, but I do think the price is too steep for what you get. The quality of wines was fantastic, but the overwhelming crowds and the awful food really soured the evening.