Geez, Irene!  Why do you have to disappear all the time?  Can’t you hang out for a while even once?!?

When I started this several weeks ago – I’m embarrassed – there was a lot going on. I just added a word here and there and didn’t get to finish the most important posting of the year – the first one.

I’m going to go over a few events in 2010 that affected me, Vegas Wineaux, and the local wine scene in general.

First, the Vegas Wineaux Wine Club has absolutely exploded. New members, assistant organizers (I can’t do it by myself), a variety of events, both in home and public, have seen incredible participation and enthusiasm.  The club purchased a barrel from the Grape Expectations Nevada School of Winemaking, and we’re very excited about bottling our own wine this year!  We are also tentatively planning a meetup in May at the Paso Robles Wine Festival, and I can hardly wait!

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While recuperating from even relatively minor surgery is, by design, ridiculously boring, it’s necessary so that one can do stuff afterward. And because there’s a lot of stuff that I want to do, I’m following doctor’s orders to the “T.” Mostly.

These long hot summer days have spurred my creativity in the kitchen. I’ve been living on fruits and veggies and other summer foods almost exclusively. Because there’s such a (cheap) abundance, I’ve gotten a little creative with some of the foods, and searched for and made up some recipes to enjoy that are Vegas-heat friendly.

On Wednesday, for example, to celebrate the one week anniversary of my knee surgery, I braised a small brisket with caramelized onions, garlic, celery, allspice, carrots, and red wine. For my summer veggie dish, I made an amazing kale salad of fresh kale (of course), chopped white onion, parsley, diced fresh tomatoes, fresh lemon juice, EVOO, fresh pressed garlic, and toasted pine nuts. Thanks to Whole Foods for the recipe inspiration.  As an aside, when I pan toasted the pine nuts, I toasted them just a little too much which added a slight bacon-y flavor! Summer fresh and filling, the salad was the perfect accompaniment to the brisket and pasta dinner. Accompanying this meal was a generous glass of 2003 Parker Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. Perfect for a summer evening.

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I love old Las Vegas, which is more meaningful now since most of it is gone, imploded in the heady days of the late 80s, 90s, and early in this decade.  We’ve seen the likes of the Aladdin, the Stardust, the Sands, and the Hacienda disappear into Vegas’ past.  We’ve seen the beautiful Desert Inn yield to the twin bronze glass monoliths of the Wynn and Encore.  In the rush to constantly reinvent itself, it seems as if Vegas lost a little of its soul.

And then there’s the Tropicana.  When I first went into the Tropicana some 25 (!!!!!) years ago, it was a dark and smoky place with the usual casino carpeting, table games, and omnipresent slots.  But what really got my attention were the guys in suits – the pit bosses – unobtrusively supervising behind the tables. Each one looked as if he could have been an extra in The Godfather.  It was great.  Vegas’ storied history at its finest.  Today, the pit boss is just as likely to be a small woman in heels as he is a burly guy in a suit, and the table games area is now bright and airy.  It’s not until you walk back into the old section of the hotel that you really feel that you’ve gone back in time to the glory days.  Let me explain.

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If you cruise by The Gallery at Vegas Wineaux, you’re probably thinking that I’ve gone nuts with all of the cars.  Mostly red cars at that.  Okay, so maybe I am.  But there’s a method behind my madness.  I am working on a project tentatively titled “Vintage Cars of Las Vegas” as I spend part of the summer shooting as many images of these fabulous old beauties as I can.  The cars displayed on this site are only a fraction of the images I’ve taken over the last several weeks, and I’m so proud of (most) all of them.  I’ve also found some old images from years past of the great cars owned by old friends.  So this is a labor of love and displays another facet of what makes up the person who is the Vegas Wineaux.

My other summer project is just Las Vegas.  I’m still going through the details in my mind, but let’s just say that this reluctant local will be out and about on the Strip an awful lot!  Of course Vegas is more than just “The Strip“ – which has been done to death – and the local vibe of Vegas  and surrounding communities have been largely overlooked.  My Las Vegas project is actually going to be much more long term than just the summer, and I’m still working on organizing the details.  While this could easily turn into an encyclopedia of wine, architecture, food, people, landmarks, blah blah blah, I’d rather keep it simple-ish.

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Along with the update of the new site, there’s all kinds of things going on here in Wineaux-land.  Here’s great new information on the Combatting Swirl Envy classes, based on an earlier post.  Enjoy!

We get a lot of questions asking about our special (that means “different”) wine classes, and what the heck’s going on!

Well, this ain’t yo’ Momma’s Wine 101.

In fact, except for educating the palate, there’s very little about actual wine that’s talked about. It’s all about progressing from wine neophyte to wine snob.

Let me tell you a little about my history.

For nearly twenty years, I have been doing some sort of adult training, education, and instruction. The lion’s share of this experience has been in the Information Technology (computer) field. Hey, I know DOS! In addition, the last year has seen me developing and teaching leadership and psychology courses (ah! the pleasures of education!) which have proven to be popular and successful.

When I first came to Las Vegas over 16 years ago, I was the new kid on the block in the IT Department. That meant that I got the, um, “less than desirable” teaching assignments. And I enthusiastically made them my own.

In the Information Technology area, one of my favorite courses was called “PC Basics.” I loved this class because I was able to take folks who were completely clueless about computers and turn them into PC whiz kids. So what was it about this class that made it so special? After all, there were lots of classes on Word Processing, Spreadsheets, How to Create Graphics, How to Use an Email System, blah blah blah. My place in this schema was simple: how can you create a spreadsheet if you don’t even know how to turn on a computer? If you don’t know what the buttons on a mouse mean or how to hold it, then the concept of “point and click” is meaningless. So I took my students by the hand (figuratively speaking), and led them into the fascinating world of bits and bytes. And made fanatics of nearly all of them.

I took that same philosophy into the world of wine. How can the concepts of regions, varietals, and terroir make sense if you don’t know how to hold a wine glass correctly? What good is a restaurant wine list going to do for you if the language makes no sense? And, most importantly, how can you look cool among a bunch of wine snobs?

That’s where Vegas Wineaux and Combatting Swirl Envy come in! I planned this around the concept of ushering students through the very basics of wine … it is even *pre* Wine 101! It’s all about understanding less than the basics so that the most elementary of wine classes makes sense. I decided to assist students in sharpening their observation skills, honing their wine drinking skills, and learning how to understand and conduct themselves during a wine tasting – whether it’s at a store, an event (think UNLVino), or a winery. In other words, they are so comfortable with the very basics that they are more than ready to really learn about wines and to kick their skills up notches unknown by mankind. (thanks, Emeril). They are also more at ease in their own familiarity of setting up their home wine collections and sharing their wines with (sometimes better wine-educated) friends.

Has this helped students who attended my “live” classes? I’ve made many of them into wine fanatics just as I made my PC folks into computer geeks! They can’t wait to get into the next level of wine classes! What’s even more fun is that they scoff at those people on TV and in the movies who don’t even “get” basic wine tasting etiquette. (“He gets paid millions of dollars and can’t even hold a damn glass right!”) Love it!

So what’s in the future for Vegas Wineaux? Why hasn’t there been classes recently? What’s going on?!? Look for Combatting Swirl Envy classes online!  The costs – both in money and time – of gas and travel make it difficult for many potential wine geeks to attend live classes, and just as difficult for me to plan them. In addition, since Vegas is a 24/7 town, what’s great for my schedule isn’t great for everybody’s. So I decided to go global! Combatting Swirl Envy in the form of videos will be available to online subscribers, with the target date yet to be decided.  I will have much more information on that very soon.

That doesn’t mean that live classes are out of the question, of course. In fact, wine-free wine classes are in development for those who want to learn about wine etiquette but don’t want to drink wines. Yes, that makes sense.  Grabbing people for DUI’s is a great income stream for the boys in blue (okay, technically it’s khaki here in Vegas.  Irrelevent.)

If you’ve just moseyed by and are liking what you see here, be sure to subscribe.  RSS will notify you of each time an update is made here on the site, but subscribing by email will get you an occasional newsletter that will keep you up to date on plans, activities, and more which may not make it to the site.

Enjoy it all! I’m so happy to see that the subscriber list is growing and that many of you are dropping wonderful notes and emails of encouragement and enthusiasm. Stay with us and watch us as we grow!