There is something about the glamour and mystique of old Las Vegas and any of the old casinos of yore.  Unfortunately the modern edifices of Lady Luck may have the glitz and the bells and whistles, the aura is different.  Now I have been known in my youth to have made a wager or two, now a days I prefer to wander the casinos and people watch.  My Bride and I go to Las Vegas at least once a year these days, but it is to visit our immediate family rather then to wager the mortgage payment.

Closer to home, there are now three casinos in downtown Detroit and they appear to be relatives of Las Vegas, but once or twice removed.  One of the casinos is located in the area know as Greektown, and this was an area that I frequented years ago, when it was “Greektown” and not a tourist trap, but that is another tirade.

My dear Bride attends different board meetings and occasionally I get to tag along for dinner and some of the perks.  Once we went to the Atheneum Hotel and Conference Center which is the hotel part of the Greektown casino.  It is a hotel with the trappings of Las Vegas Detroit style.  It is very nice and I am glad to see that there is a renewed interest in people going downtown.

The meeting was held in a banquet room, as opposed to a sequestered room in one of the restaurants in the casino.  It was a very nice affair with an appetizer, salad and a derivation of a “surf and turf” entrée, followed by a dessert and coffee.  It was a very pleasant way to spend an evening and to renew acquaintances.

The planning committee perhaps working with the hotel banquet facility offered a choice of three wines for the evening and they were all from Beaulieu Vineyard of Napa Valley, California.  The winery is referred to as BV by a lot of people as a form of shorthand, which works.  The wines offered that evening were Chardonnay, Merlot and a Cabernet Sauvignon.  These are all good picks of the basic wines of Beaulieu Vineyard and I am sure that if I had been asked, I would have chosen the same three types of wine to offer as a variety.  After the dinner meeting, the majority of attendants decided to try their luck and I guess that I cannot blame them.  As the old saying goes “the casinos are not built off of the winners.”