Flashbacks of Vino Las Vegas!
Burgundy or Bordeaux? That is the Question!
Happy Holiday’s from Paris to all of you! Welcome to my journal entry and flashbacks from my visits to Las Vegas Nevada. Thanks for following me. I know it has been a while.
If you told me when I was a young man that Wine and Las Vegas would be a big part of my life and career, I, would have, along with my family and all of my friends would have some big laughs at such a ridiculous suggestion. The reality however, decades later is that indeed Las Vegas is right there in the mix with my home, the San Francisco Bay Area, Bordeaux France and Hong Kong as my most important places in my wine career.
Last month I was thrilled to be invited back to Las Vegas again to be the MC for this year’s rendition of “The Elite Blind Tasting Challenge” featuring “Bordeaux vs Burgundy”. This is a once a year private event that my good friend hosts for his VIP customers from around the world at the MGM Mansion and everyone show’s up!
I’m not really the biggest Vegas guy, but who doesn't like a little Vegas? To this day I still get a brief second of excitement when I walk into a Vegas casino. I seem to always lose a few bucks but have a great time doing it. I’m not much into casino games but I do enjoy the Sports-book especially watching all the interesting people while making an occasional wager on the Ponies and Sporting events.
While flashing back on my Vegas Life Experiences, I recalled something that made me laugh! My dad always said that “Vegas and Reno were two places where if you had $100 bucks in your pocket you felt like you were dead broke”.
To be honest details of my first two visits to Vegas remain a bit blurry. The phrase “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” almost applies, but not quite. Those visits were sure fun! The first trip was with my college buddies in November of 1976 for our 21st birthdays. We had very little cash, but we did not care as beer was cheap and we were in Vegas Baby! I clearly remember it being very cold having smuggled bottles of Veuve Cliquot Champagne and Dom Perignon in my luggage. They did not last long!
My next visit in 1986 at 30 years old is even less in focus in my memory bank. My buddy’s father had a private jet and he flew six of us to Vegas for an overnight bachelor party, leaving at five pm and coming home the next day at nine. There was no hotel or wine involved but just finding the groom for the ride home was a blessing.
In 1990, I’m 34 and had worked for K&L 12 years. By this time, I was putting up some good numbers and developing clients. Ownership sent me on the first of my 62 visits to Bordeaux with K&L owner Clyde Beffa, to evaluate and buy the 1989 vintage. When I returned from tasting over a thousand wines and visiting up to as many as 18 Chateau per day with the great Bill Blatch (the record is 21) I knew I was at the Pinnacle of the wine trade and I loved it! I loved the intense work and the challenges that came with it. The reward for this grueling work everyday was delicious lunches, dinners, Champagne and fine older vintages.
That summer my USSSA-B softball team won the California State Championship qualifying for the Nationals in Las Vegas. By this time my interest in wine consumed me. Everywhere I went I had wine books and wine in my travel Bat Bag. Those same exact contents worked like a charm when I would sit outside the door of the Keystone Theater in Palo Alto at 3pm in the afternoon. I would be among the first, if not the first one in line to enter at 6 pm and grab the 2 spot table right in front of Jerry Garcia and his band. Bribery, tips and wine, while being a nice guy kept me at the same table for the 10pm show. That is what love and wine.. will make you do !
Meanwhile, flashing to the back in Vegas softball Nationals, the unrelenting heat was way over 100 degrees and melted away us Daly City-Pacifica boys who were used to a cold, foggy and damp 65 degrees. We lost in the semi-finals in the 8 am game something like 15-6. We gave it a great effort against a team full of powerful and skilled players. Between real baseball and decades of softball I’ve played thousands of games in the infield at Shortstop and Third Base but some of the balls that whizzed by me that morning at third base were hit so hard that I could literally hear, feel the breeze and smell the scorched leather from the ball as it whizzed by my head! That was an ass-kicking and tough loss that I will never forget and ended a great season. I remember being really bummed and never so wiped out at 9:30 in the morning and for the first time in my sporting life, the thought went thru my mind that I might be getting too old for this. I had forgotten all about any wine.
After dragging our asses back to the one-star Palace Station Hotel we grabbed some fast food lunch and then a cold shower. Suddenly at noon, an ice cold glass of White or Rose sounded pretty to me. In those days, everywhere we traveled to play I always sent a few bottles ahead to the hotel via UPS or FED EX. This time a nice selection of fresh whites, rose, and at least one special bottle of red wine, just in case, and of course a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Champagne for a victory celebration.
My red on this trip was a California wine which was a bit rare for me as I usually brought a wine from Bordeaux. Silver Oak 1986 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon was the wine, and in that period of time it was literally the hottest most in-demand red wine on the planet.
The word got around and it was not long before almost the entire team was in my room for a tasting. All the boys were cleaned up, sitting up straight on the edges of the beds like a bunch of choir boys holding their plastic motel room cups. Seriously, I was really shocked and impressed as most of these guys were far from wine lovers. They were beat up and grumpy but they did not want to miss my tasting. This is now what would now be known as a “Pop Up” wine tasting! It remains a picture moment frozen in my head that I will never forget. I said to myself wow; if these rough softball guys are finally interested in wine the masses must be next.
Throughout the 1990’s and continuing into the 2000’s the popularity of wine was exploding everywhere in America but especially in Las Vegas! The city was undergoing a quiet re-branding from a little less “Sin City” to a more family friendly, vacation destination and becoming America’s fine wine and food oasis in the desert.
Famous chefs backed by Wall Street investment soon became the Stars. It was not long before famous and powerful negociant firms and famous Chateaux from Bordeaux were jockeying for positions to feature their Luxury Brands in Las Vegas.
Eleven years later in 2001 I’m 46 and back in Vegas a very different person and now a wine professional. I vividly remember every detail. I would have been to Bordeaux about 15 times at this point and I was hired to conduct a Bordeaux seminar and tasting for none other than the Las Vegas Chapter of the Commanderie de Bordeaux.
I was very excited and it remains an honor. It was in fact my second time to be hired to conduct a Bordeaux Tasting Seminar out of state. The first being the previous December at the Tri-City Wine Fest in Pasco Washington. There was a very moderate budget for that event of 50 people. I was so nervous, but very prepared for the tasting.
However what I was not ready for was the wild plane ride over the Cascades! When I finally arrived at my hotel room I realized why it is so hard to find someone to come here for so little money. I believe I made $750, all expenses paid, but the biggest and by far the most important aspect of our deal was that they had to get me back to San Francisco International on Sunday as soon as possible so I could be picked up and get to the 49ers game at Candlestick Park!
Amazingly, it all worked out and as they say in the Horse Business, it was a clean performance.
That event prepared me well for this next event in Las Vegas for the Commanderie de Bordeaux. I was booked at the San Remo Hotel and Casino. It was a great old Vegas place and I was so pumped to be there. I was upgraded to a suite on one the top floors, I think there were only 8-9 upper floors, but you needed a special key to access them which was a bit fancy at that time. My brother Marty worked in Vegas and we were both blown away by the size of the room and the decor. My brother said, you must be doing pretty good!
A large pink hot tub framed the right side of the room, a living room set up was on the left next side stretching alongside the long wall of windows, tropical colors and mirrors lined the walls. I initially thought it was pretty cool, but then it became a little weird and scary 1960’s vibe. I thought Frank, Dino, Sammy may walk in at any moment with tumblers of whiskey or Al Pacino might appear clad in a robe with guns!
The wines for the Vegas Commanderie were a bit more upscale but the message was exactly the same as in Tri-Cities. My presentation focused on what I have told customers for decades and I still believe to this day: that the best way to learn the great wines of Bordeaux is two drink the second wines of the greatest estates.
When mother nature smiles on Bordeaux and produces great vintages you should collect the Second Wines. Put them in the cellar and treat them with the same respect of the Grand Vin, but enjoy it a bit earlier. The reason is that in the great vintages the quality of the first and second wine can be deliciously close as well as tremendously greater value being, about 1/3 the price of the first wine.
It is true that today these “Garden Vineyards” with the advances in viticulture, vineyard management and fruit selection; even the lesser, lighter, more difficult vintages turn out pretty dam good. I always advise my customers to learn from these vintages, enjoy them young and get to learn the flavor profiles that emanate from these great plots of land and that you will get far more enjoyment from the Grand Vin when they are ready to drink.
In today’s world, many inexperienced wine drinkers avoid off vintages that are not hyped and projected as a great wine or investments. This is dead wrong. If you love the wines of Bordeaux, vintages like 2021-cold-ish, 2017-frosty, 2013-rainy and 2011-a bit tough but now coming around are ideal vintages to learn from at a much lower price.
I think it is very important to remember that the same soil at these estates made the great vintages of 1945, 1947+49, 1958+59,1961,1982+85+86,+89+90,+95+96, 2000+05+09+2010+15+16, 19, 20 and 22. The dirt does not move!
So here is some of my best advice: buying solely by vintage and rating you’ll miss valuable experiences that could expand your wine knowledge. The different expressions of mother nature is what makes Bordeaux wine so special and never boring! In fact a few of the most amazing wines I have had the pleasure of enjoying have been from off vintages.
These two perfectly aged bottles of Ch. Lafite Rothschild are a good examples. One was a 1967, was hurt by uneven conditions with rain and a bad reputation and the other is a 2001 Lafite, an underrated vintage out of a 3.0 liter bottle. These wines were so impressive! They featured incredible focus, great elegance, freshness and balance for days! These wines were “Classic Clarets”, dry red wines, fresh and elegant without a hint of over ripeness or decay. Bottom line; great tasting wines that invites another sip.
The Reds from the Commanderie tasting included the following Grand Vin/First wine and second wines from the currently released vintage of 1998
First Growth, Ch. Margaux and second wine Pavilion Rouge. The Second Growths of -Ch. Leoville Barton and Reserve de Leoville from St. Julien, Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande and Reserve de la Comtesse from Pauillac and finally Ch. Cos d’ Estournel and Pagodes de Cos from St. Estephe.
That tasting in 2001 was a success and I still stay in touch and sell Bordeaux to a few in attendance from that day. In fact I was just last week treated by a lovely couple for dinner on my visit last week at the Capital Grill. We enjoyed Moet Chandon Champagne, 2014 Ch. Lynch Bages and 1994 Ch. Haut Brion. In my opinion both wines were lively and fresh! I also think that it is interesting that both vintages have a similar profile, being good wines but not great wines, as the fruit is just a touch under ripe so you have some spicy-herbal notes and lively high acidity. Quite frankly the perfectly stored 1994 Haut Brion from my cellar was a head shaker; still firm and strong and not anywhere near ready yet.
So here I am almost 25 years later back in Vegas at 69. Ouch. I’m feeling some of the aches and pains from of all those ballgames but a cagey veteran in the wine trade now and I still feel very fortunate to be enjoying and working with the greatest wines in the world. People ask me all the time, how did you get into wine? I say to them that, it worked out well. I did not make it in Baseball; but I did make it in wine and there is a much longer career in wine!
“The Elite Blind Wine Tasting Challenge” for which I was again in Las Vegas was composed of the 6 fantastic wines in the large formats listed below.
The Wines were professionally handled, decanted and perfectly presented by the Head Butler of the Mansion, Mr, George Mancusio. All the red wines were decanted into different decanters starting around 3pm and ready for me to inspect them all 4:30. They were absolutely perfect. The whites were opened at 6:30 and served with a perfect slight chill for the start of the tasting at 7pm.
The reception started at 5:30 with Champagne Ruinart Blanc de Blanc and Rose, Sancerre and appetizers. Dinner stations arrived at 6 and at 7pm it was showtime. and welcome to the tasting.Everyone was given a tasting card with the names of the wines and some tasting notes, with a place to mark the selection of each wine and give it a score out of 100 for fun. The wines were served on trays by the staff, on point every 10-12 minutes and at 8:30 we gathered the cards to find the winner. The Grand Prize winner received a 3 Liter bottle of 2011 of Eisele Vineyard Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and a $10,000 Charitable Donation of their choice.
The Wines:
2011 Domaine de Chavelier Blanc out of Magnums
2014 Domaine Rapet Pere et Fils Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru out of Magnums
2005 Ch. Angelus, St-Emilion out of 3.0 liter
2005 Domaine des Lambrays Clos des Lambray Grand Cru out of 5.0 liter
2001 Ch. Latour, Pauillac out of 6.0 liter
2005 J.F Mugnier Nuits-St Georges “Clos de la Marechale” out of 1.5 Magnums
Pretty simple right? Only 4 people out of about the 25 in attendance identified all 6 correctly, one being the host so he was disqualified. A few people were quite disappointed in themselves for having incorrectly identified the wines. I told them not to worry the results will not be on the internet and that blind tastings are the single most humbling aspect of the wine business.
So we had a taste-off! One lucky person correctly guessed the 2005 Ch. Angelus and we had a winner.
My take on how the wines showed is this. Each wine was Absolutely Fantastic! You know it does not always go this way, bad corks and undetectable problems can happen; but not that night. I think the whites confused a few with the Semillon in the Domaine de Chevalier now dominating the wine and showing rich-round flavors reminiscent of great white Burgundy. Exactly as my friends Olivier Bernard the owner and winemaker Remy Endage told me it would. The Corton was a much brighter and younger wine with great drive, acid, mineralality and cut! Still a baby with years of time left.
The Red Burgundies from the great vintage of 2005 also showed as a great vintage should at 20 years of age and will develop for decades; with both being deeply flavored, linear and fresh, it was impossible to pick a favorite. The Lambrays was a bit more developed so a touch more complex in its sweet candied fruit with notes of Strawberry and spicy bbq. The Mugnier fruit was a bit firmer and tighter on the nose and palate, but the wine has great intensity from it’s brisk red fruit, with hints of roses, earth and minerals. These great red burgundies are so young in this format the wines will evolve for decades. I feel blessed to be able to work with such great wines.
The Bordeaux wine comparison was delicious but not terribly difficult to tell apart in my opinion and not quite a fair fight as they came from very different weather vintages, 2001 being a lighter vintage with spotty weather and 2005 being a glorious vintage. But then again who drinks Ch. Latour and Ch. Angelus all the time? Certainly not I.
2001 Ch. Latour was a perfect Latour to drink now out of a 6.0 liter bottle, a darker, earthier wine than the 2001 Lafite mentioned earlier. The dark core of Cabernet Sauvignon fruit from the famous old vine“En Clos” suggests a much finer vintage.
The consensus wine of the evening was the 2005 Ch. Angelus and certainly no surprise to me. As in Burgundy 2005 is a truly great vintage in Bordeaux and the wine of Ch. Angelus is made by one of he greatest winemakers in Bordeaux Hubert de Bouard La Forest. His wines and talent will live for generations to come. When you give Hubert a vintage like 2005 to work with the results are legendary, his wines are always flashy, full of sweet exotic fruit and most importantly, one of the world's greatest tasting wines!
I’m sure that since 1990; its quite possible that more fine wine in the world has been drank and then forgotten in Las Vegas, than anywhere in the world, however these wines will not be among them!
Thanks for reading, I promise to be shorter and more often moving forward (Tony in Taiwan!). As you can surely read, no AI was used in this journal entry!
Until the next sip, Cheers and Go Niners!!!! Ralph Sands
Taste the Greats of Champagne will visit and taste at Champagne Veuve Cliquot and Chamapgne Ruinart on 12/9/25 and Dom Perignon on 12/10/25
Taste the Greats of Bordeaux with Ralph Sands in 2026 between my two tours will include visits at almost every Bordeaux estate in this journal entry. June 21-27 and September 6-12. I hope you can join me behind the ropes in Bordeaux. Cheers! Ralph