Dessert at Le Cirque

Posted on April 1, 2016 by thewineraconteur

All good things come to an end, and so did our meal. The dessert course was the harbinger that we were going to get ready to pack up and go home and for my Sister-in-Law and her husband that were going to have a couple more evenings in Las Vegas, including another meal at one of the other restaurants at Bellagio. I guess the dessert course is always bittersweet especially after a fine meal.

Dows Late Bottled Vintage Porto 2009

 

 

Our table was evenly split with the women having Chocolate Soufflé, while the men were ordering the Crème Brule. Since the women had ordered the Chocolate Soufflé it required an additional time for preparation and allowed us a few more minutes after dinner to soak up the ambience of the room and to have some more time to chat and enjoy the wonderful coffee that was also brought out to the table. The last time my Bride and I had dinner at Le Cirque we enjoyed a Bombe, but that was not one of the options. My Bride lamented that the soufflé was not Grande Marnier and the Chocolate Soufflé was not as exciting. On the other hand the Crème Brule was magnificent, as everyone at the table opined, because of course there was plenty of sharing and sampling through out the evening of all the different dishes.

Le Cirque Chocolate Souffle

The wine that was paired with the Crème Brule was Dow’s Late Bottled Vintage Porto 2009. The wines used to be called Port, but since the advent of other wineries years back, especially in America offering tepid imitations called Port, the great Port houses of Oporto renamed their wines Porto and the Porto wines are legendary fortified wines. Most of the grand Port houses have a British name, which shows how much the British valued these fortified wines. Dow’s is over two hundred years old, and has changed hands, but the quality and tradition has been maintained. Dow’s was the first house to receive Royal Assent and was allowed to maintain their own armed shipments of the wine to Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Dow’s also owns four famed vineyards in the Upper Douro Valley and these are considered great vineyards and allows them to make all the different versions of Port wines, including when deemed proper, a vintage year; as not all years are declared a vintage year. The grapes used to make Port wines are a mix and perhaps not even the winemakers can agree on what is the actual percentage of each grape used. The most common varietals are Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz (more famous and recognizable as Tempranillo), Tinto Cao and one can also find Souzao, Tinta Amarela and Mourisco Tinto. Fortified wines like all Porto wines can be cellared for years, and fine old ones must be decanted, as this wine was relatively young it did not require decanting.  Late Bottled Vintage Porto wines are a relatively new type of wine, in that it is made every year, whether a Vintage Year has been declared, and it is aged for about six years before release.  At the end of meal when we all had to leave, sadly, the women were given little personalized Le Cirque boxes with two house made truffles to enjoy later on.

Le Cirque Creme Brule

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Dinner at Le Cirque

Posted on March 30, 2016 by thewineraconteur

What a great way to spend an evening away and to celebrate a birthday at the legendary Le Cirque in the wonderful Bellagio Hotel. The glamour and the richness of the evening were just beginning. We were all doing the three course prix-fixe dinner and we had made our selections and enjoyed our wine, the Amuse Bouche and a wonderful selection of fresh baked breads; and to please my Favorite Daughter there will be more “food porn.”

Royal Tokaji 5 Puttonyos Aszu 2008

For the appetizers we pretty much agreed on the same dishes. My Bride and my Brother-in-Law both had the Lobster and Avocado Salad with Haricot Verts and Black Truffle Vinaigrette. My Sister-in-Law and I both ordered the Sautéed Foie Gras with Apple “Tatins”, Cabbage Croquant with Calvados and Cider Sauce. Cabbage Croquant is the French way to say “crunchy cabbage.” There was sharing of the dishes going on I might add, but the Foie Gras was the winner as far as I was concerned, and I think it was rather unanimous.

Le Cirque Foie Gras

The wine that was paired with Sautéed Foie Gras was a bit of a surprise, but it worked very well. Rather than a Sauterne or a Barsac the wine was Royal Tokaji 5 Puttonyos Aszu 2008 from The Royal Tokaji Wine Company, in the old days of Hungary this wine was produced by the State Monopoly and it was known as Tokay.  The Aszu refers to the special grapes that have the “Nobel Rot” as in Sauternes and the wines of Germany and are placed in special containers known as Puttonys, the plural being Puttonyos, and “5” is the highest designation of Puttonyos that is added to the regular Tokaji wine. The wine is made from Furmint, Harslevelu and Muscat de Lunel grapes. If you notice that the label is accented with red, and that is for the American market, the rest of the world gets labels that are accented with blue.

Le Cirque Lobster and Avocado Salad

The pairing for the Lobster and Avocado Salad was Pascal Jolivet Sancerre 2014 from the Upper Loire from the Loire Valley in France. Sancerre is considered one of the two best villages in the Loire Valley for producing white wine and the varietal is Sauvignon Blanc. While Sauvignon Blanc produces great dry white wines in Bordeaux, in Sancerre the wine is much more nuanced and vibrant and can hold its own against full bodied foods, as well as a great compliment to the famed goat cheeses that are also produced there.

Pascal Jolivet Sancerre 2014

The next course was our entrée dishes and here there was much more of an assortment chosen. My Sister-in-Law ordered the Atlantic Turbot with warm Eggplant Salad, with a Coriander and Saffron Sauce. Her husband ordered the Dover Sole Meunier with glazed vegetables and a Lemon Beurre Blanc, and he had just had Dover Sole a couple of nights earlier in Louisville. It is one of his favorite dishes, and he proclaimed that it was the finest serving that he had ever had. My Bride ordered Potato Crusted Mediterranean Sea Bass with Braised Leeks and a Pinot Noir Verjus. I ordered the Cervena Venison with Poached Bosc Pear and Cacao Nibs with a Chocolate Espresso Sauce. I might add that I think that I had the finest meal of the night, in my humble opinion, I enjoy a fine plate of Venison and I like to order it when ever I see it offered. The Cervena Venison is from New Zealand (after I did some research on it) and it is farmed deer that is three years or younger, free range and grass fed with no hormones or steroids added to the feed. Even though I had no knowledge of the pedigree of the venison, it was the finest cut and cooked perfectly and I was so sad to finish the last bite; and as a side note, I always asked that the venison be prepared to the temperature that the chef thinks it should be done.

Le Cirque Sea Bass

One of the intriguing aspects of the meal was that I noticed that my Bride’s dish of Sea Bass was prepared with a Pinot Noir Verjus, and one usually thinks of fish with white wine. The wine that was paired with my Brother-in-Laws Dover Sole Meunier was Bethel Heights Vineyards Estate Pinot Noir 2013. This wine is from Eola-Amity Hills which is in the center of the Willamette Valley in Oregon and the Eola-Amity Hills is a relatively new AVA as it was established in 2006. It was a great wine and I am partial to the Pinot Noir wines of Monterey and of course Burgundy and it held its own extremely well.

Le Cirque Cervena Venison

I was really curious as to what was going to be paired with my venison and it was Rocca di Frassinello “Le Sughere di Frassinello” Maremma Toscana DOC 2012. This wine hit all the right chords with me as it is a blend of 25% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon and 50% Sangiovese. That this area is doing wine properly can be noted by the fact that for years Maremma Toscana carried an IGT designation and now it is DOC. By this time I was in Seventh Heaven and so were the rest of us at the table.

Bethel Heights Estate Pinot Noir 2013                                  Le Sughere di Frassinello 2012

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Le Cirque at the Bellagio

Posted on March 28, 2016 by thewineraconteur

Our last night in Las Vegas for this trip and we went to dinner without the children or the grandchildren, but we did go with family. My Sister-in-Law and her husband came out to Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday and we all got together for dinner, and what a meal it was, and bear with me, because this will be another three part adventure. I also said that I try not to repeat restaurants, but since our other couple had never been there, it was totally do-able. I also don’t think that I gave the restaurant enough glory and exposition in my first article and so this is my “Mulligan.”

Inglenook CASK 2011

Le Cirque began in 1974 at the Mayfair Hotel in Manhattan, then they moved to larger facilities at the Palace Hotel, and finally they moved to the Bloomberg Building. All the while under the careful and watchful eye of the founder Sirio Maccioni and his family and they are now international in scope with their famed restaurant. One of the great chefs that I have had the honor of dining at two of his restaurants Daniel Boulud worked at Le Cirque in Manhattan. Le Cirque means the Circus in French and the charming dining room at the Bellagio hotel evokes the vibrant colors and electricity of the Circus, but be assured that there are no clowns lurking, and on the other side of the windows is the famed water show fountain that most people only see from The Strip. You know that it is my kind of place, especially the original location, because they have a posted “Dress Code: Gentlemen, jackets are required for the restaurant and kindly suggested for the Café. Shorts and open shoes are not permitted. No hats allowed. Ladies, dressy and elegant. Thank you.”

Inglenook Back Label

As we sat down, the wine tome was handed to me, and I graciously handed it over to my Brother-in-Law, as I have drooled over all of the pages the last time I was there. I mean he blurted out as he was looking and said “what restaurant needs verticals of Petrus, Latour, Cheval-Blanc and Mouton?” Indeed, and I agreed, but that is the charm of the Le Cirque and their legendary wine cellar. We ended up ordering a bottle of wine for the table, and he and I also decided to go with the pairing selection for our meal. The ladies were happy with the bottle of wine, and it was a fine bottle. We had Inglenook CASK Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford 2011, and I am glad to say that Francis Ford Coppola has acquired and restored the old Inglenook Estate under his Niebaum Coppola wines. The CASK wines were originally offered from 1934-1964 and represented the best of winery, and it has been resurrected again, first as Rubicon and now as CASK. While the wine is labeled Cabernet Sauvignon it is only eighty-five percent, the balance being twelve percent Cabernet Franc and the rest is Merlot.

Amuse Bouche

Also bear with me, as I will be posting some “food porn” and I do hope that I do it justice, as I have enough trouble photographing wine labels, but my Favorite Daughter asked me to, for this dinner. After selecting the wine and the dinner, our waiter brought out the Amuse Bouche, which is a fancy term for a small complimentary appetizer that showcases the ability of the Chef. It was about three bites of Smoked Salmon covered with Panna Cotta, a dollop of Caviar topped with Edible Gold. The Panna Cotta is sweetened cream thickened with gelatin and usually found in desserts. The Edible Gold intrigued me and I found out that it is “biologically inert” meaning that it passes through the digestive tract without being absorbed. I also found out that it is usually 22 – 24 K, as it is made with the least amount of impurities. The meal was off to a fine start.

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A Brunch in Vegas

Posted on March 26, 2016 by thewineraconteur

This last trip to Vegas, I broke some of my own rules about not repeating restaurants, which I have already done and I am doing it again. When we were having dinner at Echo & Rig, the manager of the restaurant mentioned a couple of times to us that we should try their Brunch. We could walk across the street from our hotel, so that was easy, and if the Mimosas were good, it would be a very good idea to walk. Writing this blog, breakfasts are an easy item to gloss over, as there have been some excellent places, but I find it a hard item to write about. The best I have ever had was at Brennan’s in New Orleans, the Fontainebleau in Miami and in the Detroit area there is the Beverly Hills Grill.

Wycliff Brut NV

We enjoyed our dinner so much a couple of nights earlier, that we thought that we should try their Brunch. They were so busy in the evening, as well as one afternoon that we had walked by, knowing that we did not have a reservation that we decided to get there as soon as they opened up, which in Detroit time was around lunch time. The restaurant was open, but they were not ready to seat anyone, so I walked over to the bar to inquire about the sparkling wine that they use in the Mimosas, and to take a photo of the label. After that they came and took us upstairs and we sat out on the porch over looking Tivoli Village. My Bride ordered Blueberry Buttermilk pancakes with house made Blueberry syrup. I naturally went big time and chose their featured item on the menu and how could I resist since it was a butcher shop as well as a restaurant. I had Short Ribs Hash and I love Short Ribs and these were Prime, with Yukon Gold potatoes, Bell peppers, Shallots, two Poached eggs and Smoked Hollandaise Sauce. I am sure you would have ordered them as well, and it was delicious and not an ordinary breakfast dish.

NV Echo & Rig BC

The restaurant had “Bottomless” Mimosas and that is why I was at the bar earlier to check out the wine. The bartender not only showed me the label, but he poured me a “taste” in a large water goblet and it was good and tasty. Then he poured a second water goblet full of the wine for my Bride and filled up my glass as well, and then poured just enough fresh orange juice to give the glass some color, my kind of Mimosa. When we went upstairs, I noticed that the other diners had normal flute glasses for their Mimosas, so right of the bat; we were having at least two to one, a great way to start the day. I never expect anything great from a Mimosa, but I have to say that I enjoyed the Wycliff Brut California Champagne NV from the William Wycliff Winery. This winery is under the large umbrella holdings of Gallo Wine and I am sure that the term California Champagne must be legal or it would have said Sparkling Wine. The wine was not Methode Traditionelle and the label read Charmat Method Sparkling Wine, Secondary Fermentation before Bottling, which is the more affordable method of creating Sparkling Wine. The normal grapes used in making “Champagne” are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier and I must presume at least two if not all three of them are used for this wine. We were both enjoying the wine during our Brunch, and I noticed that the bottles were “twist off” caps, and that still did not affect the merriment of the moment. I may not write about the Brunch at Echo & Rig again, but I guarantee that we will stop and enjoy it again the next time we visit the family.

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Grape Street

Posted on March 24, 2016 by thewineraconteur

Another beautiful day in Summerlin during our trip to Las Vegas and of course in the morning hours our grandchildren were in school; so what to do? There is always shopping to do and we found ourselves in Downtown Summerlin, which is really an outdoor mall that rather meanders around different major chain department stores and the usual collection of specialty stores that are found in most major malls across the country. It is the homogenization of America, as there are very few stores that are unique to any city any more. The same can be said for the selection of restaurants, as one finds the same chains where ever one travels to. For all intents and purposes, Las Vegas is a created city, so one does not really look for a certain type of cuisine that can be identified as local.

Balletto Rose of Pinot Noir 2014

As we were wandering around we saw an outdoor patio adjacent to a restaurant, which is not that uncommon, but the name of the restaurant caught my eye. Grape Street Café Wine Bar & Cellar was intriguing, and we went in and discovered that we were in not only a restaurant, but a retail wine establishment as well. One could buy a bottle of wine for fifty percent off the restaurant wine price, or could buy a case for sixty percent off. As we were led to our table I also noticed that several of the tables had been recycled and were paneled with the end crates of wine, like Far Niente and Domaine de la Romanee-Conte. The tables were expensive. We just wanted something light to eat and of course a glass of wine, and the menu was very impressive; and there would have been many different directions we could have gone off for, if we were in the mood. Since it was a Friday during Lent, my Bride would not eat meat, so she selected a Caesar Salad and she asked if it could be topped with salmon, instead of shrimp or chicken, which they obliged to on the spot. Of course I may never get used to her ordering Caesar Salad when I think that she makes the best in the world, so I usually never order it out, out of deference to her ability. I ordered a Steak Salad and it was with Flank Steak, but what really sold me on it was the mixture of ingredients, as I dislike when a salad appears with just some lettuce and dressing. This salad had red and green onions, cucumbers, cherry hot peppers, pepperoncini, tomatoes and lemon-oregano dressing. My only request was to hold the Feta Cheese and our server suggested white cheddar instead and that sounded great. When the orders arrived, we were surprised at the size, we could have ordered one salad and split it between ourselves, but I have to admit that we did finish them, in spite of the size and we were very happy.

Morgadio Albarino Rias Baixas 2014

The wine carte was very nice and it was a challenge to settle on just two wines. My Bride since she has discovered Albarino decided that was what she wanted and she had Morgadio Albarino Rias Baixas 2014. Albarino is the star of Rias Baixas in Spain, as it accounts for almost ninety per cent of the wine production in the area and the varietal is grown in Spain, more than any other part of the world. Her wine was delightful, especially on a sunny day and it was one that I would have enjoyed drinking as well. I wanted a lighter wine as well, since I was having a salad, and I found something that sounded interesting. The glass of Balletto Rose of Pinot Noir 2016 from the Russian River Valley of Sonoma County and it was kind of a red wine to compliment the meat in my salad. It was a very good choice, as it was a nice crisp Rose without the sweetness that one can find often and I attribute it to the Pinot Noir. The color was pretty, maybe a bit frou-frou for me, but boy did it hit the spot during that lunch. Grape Street offered us a nice break from shopping, but it resumed after lunch.

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Echo & Rig

Posted on March 22, 2016 by thewineraconteur

While we were in Las Vegas, my favorite daughter wanted to go to this new restaurant and it was right across the street from where we were staying, and it was in the Tivoli Village in Summerlin. We are well acquainted with the location, because we go to a wine bar there, that I have written about over the years as well as just recently. Echo & Rig is rather unique at least to me, as they are not only a restaurant, but a butcher shop as well, a very upscale butcher shop, I might add. The possibility of purchasing aged beef as well as their charcuterie was very impressive. We had reservations for dinner, and the restaurant was jumping when we got there, in fact the downstairs where the butcher shop and oyster bar was mobbed and I was a bit concerned when I saw the crowds as I wondered whether there would be a delay for getting our table, as we were trying to get our table early, as we were still running to a degree on Detroit time. I was very happy that they seated us at our reservation time, and the tables were all upstairs away from the retail part of the business, and the bar along the side of the first floor.

Bodegas Luzon Seleccion 12 Crianza 2005

Our daughter and her husband started off with drinks, as they are not wine drinkers like we are and they also ordered some Kumamoto, Kusshi and Malpeque Oysters for appetizers as well as an order of the Wild Mushroom Soup. My Bride and I were happy to just enjoy some of the fresh baked bread and some conversation. They then ordered steaks with a side order of Asparagus and Eggs, which I though was good choices, since we were in a restaurant that was featuring some great cuts of beef on the main floor at the butcher shop. My Bride ordered the Colorado Lamb Porterhouse with potatoes, dried apricots and Violet Mustard, while I ordered “Mary’s Free Range Duck” that was seared to a Medium degree with Black Forbidden Rice, Marcona almonds, and Ginger Gastrique and we split an order of Brussels sprouts with pistachios and fresh lemon. All of the entrée orders were excellent and prepared properly.

NV Echo & Rig BC

Regular readers, about three by count and one is my Bride, are probably going to groan and say to themselves, well he is having duck, so he is going to have a bottle of Pinot Noir. I even surprised myself and chose a bottle of Bodegas Luzon Seleccion 12 Crianza 2005 from Jumilla, Spain. The wine was intriguing to me, the main grape varietal for this region is Monastrell, which to the rest of the world is known as Mouvedre, and accounts for about eighty percent of the production in Jumilla. Monastrell is usually blended with the prestige Spanish varietal Tempranillo and sometimes it is blended with Merlot; this wine was a blend of Monastrell, Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo and Merlot. What a charming and delightful wine this was, it was harmonious with the lamb, as well as with the duck, and from what I could discern would have been tremendous with the aged beef steaks as well. Everything about this restaurant was perfect, and the manager came by a couple of times to make sure that we were enjoying the evening, and she even suggested that if we had the chance to stop by and try their brunch that they served on the weekends and we thought about it, while we were enjoying the night.

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Back to Salvatore’s

Posted on March 20, 2016 by thewineraconteur

I don’t know about you, but when I am away for a vacation, I like to try new restaurants, because there are always new ones to be found. It seems that it is even truer now that I write these articles, so that I don’t sound repetitive about the venues or the wines. My Bride wanted to go dancing, so we went back to Salvatore’s, they even had the same entertainment, though she was a trifle upset when she found out that they no longer had a dance floor, but we even went back the next evening after dinner there, for drinks and we created our own dance floor, because the dinner crowd had thinned out, so we weren’t in anyone’s way.

Girard Artistry 2011

I also found out that the owners of Salvatore’s owns another restaurant that I had been to years back, that is still in existence in Las Vegas called Fellini’s, so I guess it was a double repeat in a sense. Salvatore’s specializes in Italian cuisine, but my Bride wanted salmon, so she ordered the Grilled Cedar Planked Salmon and she was pleased. I went with an Italian dish of Veal Scaloppine with Shrimp, because I can never get enough veal, and as I have stated often, it is one dish that we have not tried making at home.

NV Salvatore's Placard

We were both thinking of a real full bodied wine for that evening and I went with one of those Napa Valley Red Wines, which is usually a euphemism for a Meritage wine, for wineries that either don’t want to join the Meritage Society, or were making Bordeaux blended style wines prior to the formation of the society. We had a bottle of Girard Artistry Napa Valley Red Wine 2011 and what a great choice it was. The wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Merlot and aged for twenty months in a mix of new and old French Oak barrels. For a reasonably priced restaurant wine, it was everything one could want from a wine, the terroir was magnificent, the color and the nose were dead on, and there was nothing to miss with this wine. The other thing that I noticed that even for such a young wine, there was sediment that somehow always appears at the bottom of the glass as one gets near the end, and this wine may have even been more awesome if it had been decanted. A perfect evening, a perfect dinner, a perfect wine and of course a perfect date with my Bride, and the next night we even danced.

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Relaxing in Vegas

Posted on March 18, 2016 by thewineraconteur

We are not gamblers, so Las Vegas is a strange destination for me to go to every year, except for the fact that we have children and grandchildren there. Over the years, of course we have visited all of the casinos and many that are no longer there, and others have been purchased and renamed. We have also gone to plenty of the tourist traps that are located there as well, sometimes with the grandchildren and sometimes just on our own. As the old Frank Sinatra joke goes “we went to the Grand Canyon, but it was closed.” We have seen and toured the Hoover Dam, the Springs Reserve, the Las Vegas History Museum, the Discovery Children’s Museum, Ethel M. Chocolate Factory & Botanical, the Freemont Street Experience and the Mob Museum.

Ch des Hautes Ribes Vacqueyras 2013

We went on a little excursion to The Neon Museum which is a massive collection of all the gaudy lighted signs that made the early days of Las Vegas so bright. Some have been restored and others are waiting to be restored and others are just curious reminders of days gone by, like signs that announce the Color Televisions are in the rooms. This museum is a guided tour and there was a lot to learn about Vegas and I found it interesting. I guess I have been going there for too many years, because at the end of the tour, they pointed out that the sign identifying the museum was an homage to the casinos and I identified all of the casinos that were on the signpost from the letters and images, including the structure of the post. Afterwards since we were just on the outskirts of the old Downtown, we went to check out the renamed casino The D, as in Detroit, and we went and had a quick bite at American Coney Island, which has an outpost now in the casino. Coneys are a quirky Detroit fast food item that is found all over the metropolitan area, and while it has been a while since I have had a Coney, I still prefer Lafayette Coney Island to American Coney Island. For those of you that are not aware Lafayette and American are located side by side in Downtown Detroit and were originally owned by two brothers and I can remember years ago, the friendly rivalry that existed among the waiters as they each tried to wave the customers into their respective shop.

Edna Valley Chardonnay 2013

Since we stay for a week normally in Vegas, to get as much visiting time as possible with the family, my Bride likes to go and get some groceries for our room, to nosh on, as if we don’t eat enough while we are there. While she was getting some fruit, cheese and crackers she also bought a bottle of wine from the market. She bought a bottle of Edna Valley Vineyard Chardonnay 2013 from the Central Coast of California. The Central Coast is about two hundred and eighty miles long and is probably the third most famous area in the state after Napa and Sonoma, and it contains many great AVA designations within its area. Edna Valley Vineyard has been in production for about thirty years and was once known as Paragon, and for several years that name was still on the Edna Valley label as well. It was just a great wine to relax in the room with, while having cheese and crackers, deciding what to do next. Of course I also went out and got a bottle of wine for the room. Chateau des Hautes Ribes Vacqueyras 2013 looked interesting to me, so I had to get it. Vacqueyras is a newer designation from the Rhone Valley, and was once part of the designation Cotes du Rhone Villages, and just like all of the wines this wine is a blend of Grenache, Mourvedre and Syrah, the same blend that is also found in Gigondas and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, though Vacqueyras requires fifty percent of the wine to be Grenache. It was a very smooth wine, much better then a lot of the Cotes du Rhone wines that I enjoy and it made writing some of these articles even easier.

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Dom DeMarco’s Pizzeria & Bar

Posted on March 16, 2016 by thewineraconteur

Over the decades I have watched the changes in Las Vegas. It went from the very cool days of The Rat Pack when it was a “family city.” Then for a blink of an eye, it was a family-oriented city. It went from ultra cool to Pirates and Knights of the Round Table to a Circus. Now it is a city where I try to avoid to The Strip, because I don’t recognize what happened to it, the glamour is gone. We go there, because two of our children live there, as well as five of our grandchildren. So now we get to see the “other” Las Vegas, where all of the real people that work in the city live.

Petra Zingari Toscana IGT 2012

One night we went to Dom DeMarco’s Pizzeria & Bar, because kids are fussy these days and they will eat pizza. I have to admit that they will also eat sushi, but their Grandfather won’t, it is just so out of the realm of my comfort level. I think there were ten of us having dinner that night and they were all making decisions on the menu. The restaurant is a New York style pizzeria, and our waiter made it all the more better. I mean not only was he a great waiter, but that accent was a breath of fresh air and totally added to the ambience of the restaurant. There was an assortment of different dishes ordered, and they were very accommodating in making the dinner work, not only for the kids, but for the Grandfather as well. Here we were in a strip center location out in Summerlin with none of the pretense of The Strip and the pizzas were great. There is just something so heart warming as when you grab a slice of pie and the cheese is stringy and gooey, just like when I was a kid and they even offered anchovies.

Montevina Pinot Grigio 2014

When I was growing up, I think beer was the proper pairing with pizza, or there was the straw covered flask or fiasco bottles of Chianti, that may have turned off people to wine, as the wicker-works probably cost as much as the wine that was in the bottle, but it is fun to still see the bottles as props, I even have one at the house with the mandatory candle mounted in the neck of the bottle with traces of wax dripped on the straw. My Bride was enjoying Montevina Glass Falls Pinot Grigio 2014, a California wine. This was a nice crisp white wine, where the fruit is harvested from several locations, hence the California AVA or designation. Pinot Grigio is a rather delicate grape and wine, and it is created very quickly and is usually done in Stainless Steel vats, instead of barrels, and is made for quick consumption. This is a type of wine that is not made for long storage, but is very refreshing especially with some of the spicier items that one can have with an Antipasto and with some of the toppings on pizza. I on the other hand tried the Petra Zingari Toscana IGT 2012 from Italy, as I am always game for a wine from Italy, especially from Tuscany. The Toscana IGT designation is for wines that are made using non-traditional grapes for the region and this particular wine was made from Petit Verdot that one usually finds as part of the blend in the Medoc. It had enough taste and body for the dishes that I was eating, so it was pleasurable, not as full bodied as some other wines that I have had with that designation, but also not priced as dear as some of those other wines as well. It was an evening with the family, but I was still able to get some wine in the mix, as my grandchildren I think equate their Grandfather both with his hat and sport coat, as well as with his wine.

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A Pleasant Afternoon

Posted on March 14, 2016 by thewineraconteur

One of the pleasurable pursuits that we enjoy while in Las Vegas is the chance to walk across the street from our hotel and go to Tivoli Village in Summerlin. For several years we watched this area being built, and then when it finally opened we discovered a wonderful wine bar there and it is a pleasure to keep visiting there when we have a chance.

Martin Codax Albarino 2013

View Wine Bar is located on the second floor of one of the buildings in this rather unique mall, as it has the feeling of being in a downtown of a small community, and without the glitz of Vegas. Over the years we have enjoyed trying some of their small plates and some fun wines. This visit was no different and we saw that there were others enjoying a late lunch. My Bride tried their Grilled Cheese which was a triple cream Brie, honey, walnuts on Brioche bread. I went with Prosciutto wrapped Tiger Prawns on a bed of seaweed. We shared our dishes, and I graciously gave up a prawn and plate of seaweed for half of a great grilled cheese sandwich.

Firesteed Pinot Gris 2014

We also tried a couple of wines while we were there. My Bride enjoyed Firesteed Cellars Pinot Gris 2014. Pinot Gris is also known as Pinot Grigio and this wine was from Oregon with fruit from two different areas, a blend of Rogue Valley and Willamette Valley and it was very refreshing and crisp with a different feel from Italian Pinot Grigio wines. I had Martin Codax Albarino 2013 from Rias Baixas in Spain. This delightful white wine from the wine co-operative Martin Codax in Galicia, and to have the designation of Rias Baixas the wine must be at least seventy percent Albarino, but this wine was one hundred percent and made in Stainless Steel vats and was totally enjoyable, in fact, it was agreed that it was the best of the two wines that we had. In fact the manager at View told us that he could sit and drink this wine all afternoon, as it was one of his favorites there. I am sure that we will visit here again in the future, as there is always something new to discover at Tivoli Village.

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