After the funeral we had a quiet day to ourselves.  We have basically over the years charted about a 10K walk that we do, while in Las Vegas, and we usually end up in Tivoli Village for breakfast at a café. Later that day we walked back over to Tivoli to do some shopping, as I had noticed that they have an RH shop, and I have read about the wine and nibbles offered at most other locations, alas the one in Vegas did not offer such an amenity.

Our casino and hotel does not offer a watering hole, per se, and we lamented that the wine bar that used to be in Tivoli had not made it, during the lockdown period.  One year, we attended, just by happenchance, the Las Vegas Food & Wine Festival there.  I suggested that we try Echo & Rig, as I remember that they have a butcher shop and a bar on the main floor, while the restaurant is upstairs.  Sure enough, the bar was open and my Bride asked if she could have a Negroni.  The young lady behind the bar, asked if she preferred a certain Gin, and I casually mentioned maybe an Italian Gin, she suggested another and made her a Negroni using Black Forest Distillers Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin.  A good third of the ingredients come from the Black Forest of Germany, and they claim that the local lingonberries is their “secret weapon” that shines through their distillation and maturing in traditional earthenware containers.  I normally don’t drink Negronis, but it was a delightful choice and unique.  I looked it up while we were in Vegas, and the Gin is available in Michigan.

While my Bride had her enhanced Negroni, I decided to combat the desert heat with a glass of Chateau Minuty Cotes de Provence “M de Minuty” Rosé 2024.  Chateau Minuty has sixty-five hectares in Saint-Tropez and an additional fifteen hectares on the slopes of Val de Rians.  It is one of the Cru Classes of Provence, designated in 1955, but this effort never really took off, like it did in Bordeaux.  Cotes de Provence is the largest appellation in Provence, though it sounds like it should be a smaller designation. In 2009, the winery constructed a new tank room with temperature-controlled, Stainless-Steel tanks and each individual block has a designated tank and is fermented separately.   This wine is a negociant blended wine with their contract growers and is sixty percent Grenache, thirty percent Cinsault and ten percent Syrah. It undergoes cold pressing and fermentation, with no Malolactic Fermentation.  A very pale coppery-pink wine that offers notes of strawberries and cherries, citrus and white florals.  On the palate this light-bodied, well-balanced wine displayed tones of red fruit, watermelon and peaches and ended with a crisp medium-count finish of fruit and herbs.

We then settled on having some sparkling wine, as we knew that we would be enjoying Mimosas later that weekend with brunch at Echo & Rig and they had introduced us to the appealing offer of a bottomless Mimosa. The sparkling wine that we enjoyed at the bar was Nino Franco Rustico Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG NV.  In 1919 Antonio Franco founded Cantine Franco Antonio Produttore e negoziante in vini.”  In 1966, his son Giovanni (Nino) changed the name to “Nino France di Franco Giovanni” and continued the production of red and white wines.  In 1971, Nino’s son Primo graduated from Scuola Enologica di Conegliano Veneto and began collaborating with the focus of producing Prosecco.  In 1979, Rustico changes from being a white wine aged on lees, to a Charmat Method sparkling wine.  Since then, Primo began other ventures in Prosecco, including vintages and single vineyards cuvee productions.  The company is now over a hundred years of age, making Prosecco wines, using the traditional Glera varietal on mid-elevation vineyards on calcareous substrates.  A straw-yellow colored wine with constant fine bubbles offered note of pears and white florals.      On the palate this sparkling wine displayed tones of white fruit and lemon zest with good acidity and ending with a medium-count finish of fruit and a bit of saltiness.