Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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"[In Vegas], wine has become its own channel of entertainment, and at a scale that doesn't exist anywhere else." —JAY JAMES downside has been that, because of the astronomical growth of places with wine programs, at times there have been more jobs than sommeliers to fill them. Sometimes people get moved up prematurely. O'BRIEN: I support the recognition of sommelier as a hip profession and the industry getting younger and more diverse. But sometimes a young sommelier can study hard and meet the academic standards, and still need time on the floor. Jason Smith presents 2006 Domaine Perrot-Minot Morey-Saint-Denis, 100 percent Pinot Noir, about $160 on wine lists. SMITH: The wines of Morey-Saint-Denis possess the power and silkiness you want in Burgundy, but Perrot-Minot creates a modern style, so it can be a good introduction for those who like Oregon or California Pinot Noirs. A great joy of Burgundy is its complexity; it's like you have 10 different wines in one glass. The nose on this is earthy, with essences of ripe dark fruits and fresh clean dust. The mouth has great tannic structure and very generous spice. Larry O'Brien presents 2006 Kendall-Jackson Highland Estates Taylor Peak Merlot, Bennett Valley, California, about $115–$125 on wine lists. O'BRIEN: Why Merlot? Because I'm sick of everyone coming down on it. Our job is to give the people what they want but also let them know what they might be missing. This is a single vineyard wine from the cooler side of Knights Valley in Sonoma. It marries Old and New World styles, with dense California fruit counterbal- anced with bright, Old World acidity. It's food-worthy, versus, say, a trophy Cabernet that may have no affinity for food. V: How do you prepare a wine list for an audience that is as diverse as Las Vegas's? O'BRIEN: It's always been about balance. I build a shell menu: How many Chardonnays do you want? What's the price range? Ideally, there's some- thing for everyone on the menu, including myself. JAMES: On large properties like we have in Las Vegas, you still have desti- nations that cater to sub-demos, which makes the process easier. Here at Bellagio, you have Olives, Michael Mina, and Le Cirque, and they serve three very different crowds overall. PHILLIPS: You need to make lists within the same property more individ- ual. There are literally thousands of wine SKUs [labels] out there. We want a lot of individuality instead of one big "Bellagio Program." JAMES: And now you have to take into consideration all the new crazy wines! Dry wines from Hungary, dry reds from Portugal. HARMON: Greek red wines, the list goes on and on. JAMES: And you have to decide if there is room for them or not. 122 VEGASMAGAZINE.COM V: It's holiday time. Can you recommend some good wines and pairings to celebrate? HARMON: The cru Beaujolais are excellent holiday choices: 2009 and 2010 were exceptionally strong among smaller producers, and they're inexpensive. PHILLIPS: There are good-quality red sparkling wines on the market now. Heavier Australian sparkling Shiraz, lighter sparkling Lambruscos. You have Italian Proseccos, Spanish Cavas, and French Cremants from Alsace. HARMON: I think Moscato is a great wine for the holidays, and modern America has fed the Moscato category. JAMES: It's a serious wine. DE SANTOS: There's also a relatively new category of fruit-infused sake, Zipang. It goes great with deep-fried turkey (a popular Filipino dish). And I love it in a cocktail I call the Ja'Bellini, a blend of Zipang, white-peach syrup, and muddled raspberries. Thomas Burke presents a 2008 Clos Pissarra El Mont, Priorat, Spain, about $175 on wine lists. BURKE: This wine is made by Emmanuel Kemiji, a fellow master sommelier. One of the hot buttons in wine is alcohol levels. Priorat is a hot region, which can increase alcohol levels and potentially kill character and complexity. But with Priorat, regardless of the alcohol and grape blend, you get this incredible sense of place, as you do with Champagne and Burgundy. It's a very old and defined region, with a unique soil called "llicorella," a slate/volcanic blend that defines the edges of the wine. On the nose this wine is rich in spices and chocolate. On the mouth, rich and round, but bright, with medium tannins, medium acids, and plenty of fruit. V: Interesting. Master somms are making wine themselves now? BURKE: They're not just crazy enough to become a master sommelier, they're also crazy enough to be a winemaker. Greg Harrington, the chair of the CMS, has Gramercy Cellars in Washington state and been a Vegas master sommelier. He has an extreme depth of understanding of what is going on with the wines. V: What's coming up for wine in Las Vegas? PHILLIPS: One of the biggest challenges today is how savvy the customer is and how much access they have to wine information and pricing via the Web. They can find a bargain on a wine somewhere online and wonder why it's so expensive in a restaurant. The markup doesn't just reflect a profit, but the knowledge of the sommelier and the staff, the costs of proper storage, and so on. DE SANTOS: In the end, we're in the service industry, and that's incredibly profound and humbling. To know you have the opportunity to create a unique experience—especially in some place like Las Vegas—without being pretentious about it. V