71 Wines in Three Days - Day Three!

Alright, so when we last left off, we’d just waddled back to our hotel room after finishing the dinner of day 2 of our weekend of wine madness.  If you haven’t been following along, here’s the links to:

Day 1

Day 2 

Ok so day 3…well there was much more wine and food, the end.  Kidding!  Best settle in, as we’re going to get a bit crazy for breakfast.  The agenda said “Bouillabaisse Breakfast” which I was a wee bit concerned about to be honest.  But hey, these guys had treated me well (VERY well) thus far including the tequila in the hot chocolate yesterday morning (which I thought would never work) so I trusted in their abilities and figured all would work out.  Kelly had the idea that perhaps they could do a “French Toasts of the World” as we waited staring at the giant raw fish that made up the bouillabaisse with trepidation.  But then the wine came…ahhh Riesling for breakfast!  

A great way to start the day!

So as they poured the seven glasses of Riesling (3 from France, 2 from Germany, 1 from Austria and 1 from the USA), Master Sommeliers Christophe Tassan and William Sherer went through the ingredients of bouillabaisse with Willie comically lifting up each ingredient, which at times did not cooperate with him!

As Christophe explained the ingredients, Willie tried to gracefully pick them up

The wines were great and I was surprised by the fact that I did not mind eating bouillabaisse for breakfast as it was delicious. 

We had a bit of a break after breakfast, which sadly, we used to check out of our hotel since our weekend culinary carousal was coming to an end with just “lunch” left (I only put it in quotes as the word lunch does not begin to describe it – think of a typical lunch as a sparkler and this meal was on par with someone talking a flamethrower to a fireworks factory).

Weekend wine count thus far: 63

What we learned was that lunch was in fact the service that they give to Executive Pastry Chef Megan Romano to ensure everyone develops diabetes before leaving.  The Swiss fondue with the raclette was amazing (who doesn’t love melted cheese?!?!?!) but when they switched out the cheese for the chocolate fondue, my blood pressure elevated to dangerous levels.  No seriously, people around me can attest to this, at one point I couldn’t even talk and my eyeballs started sweating.  Sadly it devolved to the point where I was dipping chocolates in the chocolate.  I’m not going to try and save face, I really lost complete control and Kelly was actually trying to calm me down.  I should mention that the irony is that at the same time we were there, the American Association of Diabetes Educators was having their annual meeting and exhibition in the same resort.  Anyway, at one point Megan Romano came by to check on us and in my chocolate/sugar zenith, I pounced on her telling her how much I loved her and scared her half to death.  I asked if I could get my picture taken with her and she responded by saying: “sure I guess…my creepy chocolate friend.”  She’d only met me about 10 seconds earlier.

You can easily see the crazed look in my eyes

Oh, I almost forgot, we had some outstanding Swiss wines over the course of this meal while wine educator Sebastien Gavillet explained each of the six wines we tried.  Because I was in a wine/sugar haze at this point, I took a picture of my two favourite wines from this meal, knowing I’d not remember their names later.

Christmas is coming, hint hint!

Wine count thus far: 69

After eating all of the chocolate, I had a lot of energy and we had lots of time to kill before our late evening flight.  We did a bit of shopping at a local mall and then headed back to the hotel sadly anticipating our impending flight home.  We decided to have one last snack and glass of wine each at Aureole before heading to the airport.  Once people knew I was a grill freak, we’d been told a few times over the weekend that before I left, I absolutely needed to try Chef Pouessel’s ribs.  We sat at the bar, ordered a nice glass of wine each, Kelly opting for a Pinot Noir, and I a hearty Zinfandel and ordered the ribs.  I don’t know how he cooks them, but the bark and spicy flavor of them was really powerful and people were right to talk them up so much.  

We sampled each other’s wines, finished the ribs and a dessert or two may have snuck in there before we headed off to the airport. 

FINAL wine count with those last two: 71 Wines in Three Days

This was without a doubt the most outstanding culinary experience of my life and one that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to top.

P.S. We have already booked a return trip to Las Vegas later this year to try and recapture some of the magic we experienced on this special weekend.