Wine Spectator's Grand Tour 2008

I just attended the Wine Spectator 2009 Grand Tour in Las Vegas for the first time Saturday. Here is my experience and tips that I hope will come in handy if you decide to attend this event next year.Get in line early! We got there 45 minutes before opening time and the line was at least 200 people deep. By the time the doors opened, there was a line about 3 times as long behind us, and they were holding even more people outside in the hall because the queue area was so full. While you are waiting in line, you will be given a very nice spiral bound tasting book that has a list of every wine being tasted with plenty of room for you to make any notes. Your tickets are taken in advance, and you are given a stub to exchange for a Riedel tasting glass once you are inside the ballroom. You get a glass and then wander free to sample hundreds of wines!Once the doors opened, there was a beeline for all of the French bordeaux. Unfortunately, the layout was such that all of the bordeaux and the big reds that you really wanted to drink were all on the same row. This caused severe bottlenecks. The aisles were so full at times that you could not even push your way through all of the people. A lot of the smaller wineries' tables weren't crowded all night. If you don't care about sampling French bordeaux or Insignia, then you will have a much more pleasant tasting experience. The crowds were never unruly, but it was very unpleasant. There was also a lot of "me first" shoving, with rude people who had a false sense of entitlement just pushing right ahead of everyone else who was doing their best to form an organized line. Be warned that many of the wineries ran out of wines - Caymus ran out within an hour after opening, and many of the big "name" Bordeaux producers had poured all of their bottles soon after. I think this reflects poorly on the wineries and they really should be better prepared and come with more product. The faster you drink the more wine you get to taste. I felt like the more rushed you were, the more rewarded you were with wine. I wanted to savor and sip and really taste the wines, not chug them quickly so I could hurry up and get another taste of something else before it ran out! The large ballroom is set up with booths made up of very long tables. Wines seemed to be organized in the order in which you should try them, with whites on the far left of the ballroom and port on the far right, with everything else in between. Wines were arranged by region as well, with the Italian, Spanish, French, etc. in the same general area. Now for more bad news: the food was an absolute DISGRACE. The light buffet was filled with cheap, awful food. There was a wild green salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing, a decent cheese tray with run-of-the-mill cheeses, a bread basket with stale hotel-quality rolls, an antipasto tray, several cold dips, and a few hot appetizers that weren't very appealing or tasty - cheese pizza roll-ups (the crust was so rock hard that you couldn't bite them with your teeth), miniature chicken pot pies (that were too cold), miniature pork loin "burgers" (again, so hard you couldn't tear through them with your teeth), and a decent assortment of small chocolates. For $200 a ticket, this was a poor excuse for a buffet. I was so disappointed and the food should have been much better. There were two buffet tables set up, but lines were always very long. We waited at least 30 minutes in the buffet line when it first opened. I wasn't expecting a gourmet dinner, but at least some tapas that tasted good should have been served! The bottom line is this is a great event for oenophiles and is a fantastic way to try new and exciting wines (or to revisit old favorites). I only tasted a few wines that I really didn't like - almost everything was just fabulous. Be warned as well that there is NO WAY you can even begin to sample all of the wines - I probably tried 30 wines and I "paid the price" with a big wine hangover the next day! I've attended many wine tasting events and festivals, and the Wine Spectator Grand Tour ranked somewhere in the middle - not the best I've been to, but not the worst either. I would probably attend again, but I do think the price is too steep for what you get. The quality of wines was fantastic, but the overwhelming crowds and the awful food really soured the evening.

I've been wanting to go to one of these events for many years now. 2008 was my first. It was an unusual experience, 250 wines from around the world. You make the line outside in the hall then they let you in and give you your glass, map and book and then you are off. I had it in my mind that I was going to hit France first, figuring they would run out of wine later. I had to wait in lines for the Bordeaux tastings, most wine of which I have had before, although maybe not the same vintage. After hitting these for about an hour we took a break to load up on appetizers, meats, cheeses, pasta, bottles of water. After eating we headed over to start tasting the Italians, most of which I've never had. This was the best experience of the whole event for me, the Italian areas didn't have a crowd at this point of the night and it was easy to walk from winery to winery and talk to the reps, winemakers, owners about their wines. It was very informative & enlightening going from one table to the next and then in a different region of Italy or a different terroir, maybe a different blend of grapes. I was kind of ignorant when it came to Italian wines and I got to experience many grapes I've never tasted. This event is a good positive learning experience if you seek out the wines and regions that you are unfamiliar with and trying them and taking the time to talk to the people there and ask them about the wine. The downside is its hard to just go though and taste wine after wine quickly from freshly opened bottles.