Category: Wine

Corkage fees – a no no – but not so fast…

A recent post on the new Korean-Japanese restaurant Maru in Summerlin in Vegas Wineaux mentioned that Maru has a $15 corkage fee. You can read that article here.

As reasonable as that fee is, it is illegal.

Or so sayeth the liquor enforcement officers of the City of Las Vegas. According to their strained, tortured, and attenuated reading of State and local liquor licensing laws and regulations, any establishment who charges a corkage fee, or who allows patrons to bring their own bottles into a restaurant, is violating Nevada law (and local ordinances) which mandate that all alcoholic beverages consumed on premises be sold by a licensed purveyor who obtains those beverages from a licensed distributor/wholesaler. The convoluted, nonsensical nature of these statutes and the interpretation of same, put us in mind of the immortal word of Otto von Bismarck: “Anyone who loves the law and sausage should watch neither being made.”

Continue reading “Corkage fees – a no no – but not so fast…”

MARCHE BACCHUS is Decadent, Diabolical and Delicious.

The staff at ELV has never been good at math. That’s why charts and graphs like this one usually frighten and confuse us:

Wine – Vintage – Strip Restaurant Price – MB Restaurant Price

Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2007 $75.00 $38.99
Caymus Conundrum 2006 $70.00 $36.99
Dalla Valle Cabernet Sauvignon 1997 $550.00 $204.99
Duckhorn Merlot 2005 $120.00 $65.99
Philippe de Rothschild Rojo Chile 2004 $60.00 $23.99
Finca Luzon Merlot, Jumilla 2003 $30.00 $18.99
Gaja Barbaresco Costa Russi 2000 $795.00 $390.99
George “Nuptial Vineyard” Pinot Noir 2005 $225.00 $89.99
Harlan Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 $950.00 $634.99
Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 $110.00 $58.99
Joseph Phelps Insignia 2004 $405.00 $229.99
Row Eleven Pinot Noir 2006 $56.00 $26.99
Shafer “Red Shoulder” Chardonnay 2004 $110.00 $59.99
Stanley Lambert August Shiraz 2004 $59.00 $26.99
Veuve Cliquot Yellow Label NV $110.00 $60.99
Williams & Selyem Pinot Noir 2005 $175.00 $82.99

But even our numeracy-deficient brains can detect a bargain when we see one. And it doesn’t take a mathematical genius like this to decipher that serious wine drinkers (or casual wine drinkers, or first time wine drinkers) can’t do better than the prices at Marche Bacchus. I would even submit that the “Strip” prices quoted above are unduly modest, and that you can easily spend more on those bottles of wine at certain restaurants up and down LVBlvd. So.

Continue reading “MARCHE BACCHUS is Decadent, Diabolical and Delicious.”

Wine Rant

Christopher Hitchens is the eminently readable, perennially pissed-off and pickled political columnist for Vanity Fair and Slate.  He is also a wine buff.  This British ex-pat has gored more oxes than the Kagashima Prefecture (e.g. calling Henry Kissinger  a criminal who ought to be indicted for war crimes), and is no stranger to controversy.  We therefore thought he was too preoccupied with weightier matters (e.g. Israeli-Palestinian relations, Iran-Iraqi issues, George W.’s mental malaprops, etc.) to concern himself with something as mundane as the service of wine.

But, as you will see from the link below, waiters who continously pour wine without permission or request are as offensive to him as Mahmed Ahmadinejad at a jihadist pep rally.

Click here to read Hitchen’s wine rant.