Screaming Eagle by the glass, a vertical tasting of Hundred Acre paired with a five-course dinner and a $50,000 bottle of Dassai Beyond the Beyond are just a few exclusive wine and sake experiences you can only have in Las Vegas.
But how do the Strip’s esteemed drinks experts pull off these feats? It’s a combination of close relationships, luck and guests who can’t wait to swirl and sip their dream vintages.
Vino Lovers Can’t Lose at Wynn Las Vegas
“Wine is one of those things, if you have that obsessive passion, all you want to do is talk about wine,” says Brian Weitzman, executive director of wine at Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star Wynn Las Vegas. He has created a distinct program that includes legendary and cult wineries, offering opportunities that can’t be found elsewhere, including by-the-glass pours, opulent dinners and partnership pages featured in the wine lists at all the resort’s restaurants.
In March, Wynn Las Vegas hosted an exclusive Screaming Eagle wine dinner, the only event of its kind in the United States in 2025. The resort also transformed Sinatra restaurant into a Tuscan vineyard for dinner paired with rare vintages from Italian winemaker Masseto and a weekend with Opus One where guests never tasted the same pour twice, sampling up to 21 vintages.
Weitzman says people love these events because, “the estate director, a family member or the winemaker talks about the wines and what’s happening in the vineyard, in the cellar.” Guests fan out on this one-on-one interaction, which puts them in direct contact for a visit or the opportunity to jump the years-long waitlist for new releases.
While these exclusive in-person wine events are the upper echelon of the Wynn wine program, Weitzman says the foundation is based on quality, whether it’s a bottle of Gaja released directly from the winemaker’s library or a glass of the popular Sancerre served at B Bar. The resort’s wine lists are curated by committee at Weitzman’s weekly tasting with his team of 10 lead sommeliers.
In the wine world, money talks, but the team focuses on building a program that people want to talk about. “Anyone with the right funding can buy anything,” Weitzman says. “Almost every wine is out there. How do you make a wine program unique? The only way to do that is if the winery will release something to you that they don’t release anywhere else.”
Relationships with prestigious cellars lead to special bottle acquisitions. Weitzman then uses those to create partnership pages for each restaurant, where guests can order rare wines. For example, Four-Star SW Steakhouse features a page with Screaming Eagle available by the glass.
“At some point, we’ll deplete the vintage, and before we do, we will have a conversation about another vintage,” he says. “Screaming Eagle is offered in three- and six-ounce pours,” noting that guests sometimes order a three-ounce one night, then a six-ounce the next and then move on to an entire bottle when they know they like it.
However, Delilah, helmed by lead sommelier Cristie Norman, changed the game. “This has always been Napa cab land,” Weitzman says. “Delilah sells crazy champagne and burgundy, so there we said, instead of focusing on one producer, let’s focus on great vintages around the world. We’ll do one for about four months and then change. It was something we had never done before.”
Sake Also Reigns Supreme
The premium and rare wine collection at Wynn Las Vegas also includes sake. Recently, Four-Star fine-dining Japanese restaurant Mizumi became the home to several prestigious labels of the Dassai sake Junmai Daiginjo, which is produced by Asahi Shuzo in Yamaguchi Prefecture. This type is made with only one variety of sake rice, which is polished 144 hours before being washed by hand to control the water content.
Mizumi features Dassai’s Beyond the Beyond 2021 to 2023 vintages. Executive chef Jeff Ramsey created a special nine-course sake-pairing omakase dinner as part of the resort’s Connoisseur Series of bespoke events, classes and experiences to celebrate the acquisitions and the other labels from the Dassai portfolio that the restaurant also carries.
During the event, eight expressions of Dassai were poured, three of which had never been served on the Strip: Dassai 23 Elegantly Tipsy, Dassai 23 Hayata presented with braised A5 wagyu, and Dassai Future with Farmer paired with white truffle halibut fin served in a shoyu egg sauce.
Dassai hand-selected Wynn Las Vegas as the place for Beyond the Beyond. “This is the most high-end product that we have, and because [in Las Vegas] people come from all over the world,” says Dassai CEO Kazuhiro Sakurai. “We think Las Vegas, especially Wynn, is the right place to have that kind of product because they have such great hospitality and people; all the staff is very knowledgeable, so they can tell our story to the customers in the right way.”
This expanding knowledge has evolved from 20-plus years ago, when the American consumer primarily drank hot sake. “People are exploring the options,” Sakurai says. “They know more about sake.” He adds that he loves seeing sake sipped at a bar and with cuisines other than Japanese. “I like it paired with modern French cuisine, Thai food and Chinese.”
If you’re new to sake, he recommends starting with Dassai 23 because it’s easy to drink, clean, fruity and floral. For the experienced sake lover, order Future With Farmer. “We make that product to support farmers, because we are using the out-of-grade rice that can’t be sold to breweries, polished down to 8% so it has a very clean but wild flavor, too,” Sakurai says.
Fontainebleau Is Full of Flavor
When a new resort opens in Las Vegas, everything has to be built from the ground up, including the wine program. Kevin Reilly faced such a challenge when he took on the role of wine director at Fontainebleau three months before the resort’s opening in 2023.
“It was the most challenging, stimulating and rewarding undertaking of my career,” Reilly says. “It’s such a rare opportunity to build a program of this scope and size, stocking every venue.”
New to Nevada and with no experience opening a casino, Reilly dug in the best way he knew how to build a world-class list, drawing on his relationships in Napa as a master sommelier and his time at legendary Four-Star San Francisco restaurant Quince.
“I started formulating by the glass and then built a bottle list,” Reilly says. “We had the opportunity to create a master wine list, which we offer throughout the property, and every guest can access [it], regardless of where they are dining.”
He says Napa Valley cabernet is the best seller, followed by champagne, burgundy, Sonoma County and Oregon pinot noir. He can’t keep Sancerre or Chablis in stock.
“People want lighter, fresher wine,” Reilly says, “and I think the style of Sancerre has changed in the past decade, where the wines are a bit fruitier. You’ve seen the trend from Provencal rosé to people drinking Sancerre like a cocktail now.”
Through its Sip and Savor series, Don’s Prime at Fontainebleau, the resort’s flagship culinary venue, has hosted wine dinners with Promontory, Futo, Realm and Hundred Acre. During the Promontory dinner, six extremely rare, sold-out vintages were poured.
“I wanted to design a luxury wine program with the best of the best, but one that people are comfortable with,” Reilly says, noting that Vegas customers generally lean toward the names they know versus the more obscure labels. “I wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel.”
And because it’s Vegas, there’s always a bit of a one-of-a-kind showmanship. Papi Steak co-owner David Einhorn is a huge fan of Petrus wines from Bordeaux. “One of the greatest wines that we bought at the [Fontainebleau] opening was two three-liter bottles of ’05 Petrus,” Reilly says of the purchases that came directly from the chateau. One has sold, but the other is still available. “Everything that we [buy] from Bordeaux never lasts. Provenance is the most important thing when we’re buying these products because I have to know that the product is 100% real and has also been stored properly.”
Fine Sips off the Strip
Kat Thomas leads the top wine team at chef James Trees’ Ada’s in Tivoli Village, which sits about 20 minutes from the strip in Summerlin. Thomas graduated from some of the Strip’s most prestigious wine programs and created the unique selection at Ada’s.
Thomas chooses wines for their “intrigue, value and delight,” grouping them by descriptors such as “zesty, bright and aromatic” or “bold, spicy and rich” rather than by region or grape. Her list is illustrated with pictures.
“To be an educator and a trainer is challenging without pictures because we all grew up learning with pictures,” Thomas says. “I wanted a wine list and a beverage program that would be amazing for the guests and my team. This is a great way to keep them on top of things because I am always changing the list. Then, they can go into a specific heading if a guest asks for something.”
She credits Trees with giving her carte blanche to create a list featuring wines not found elsewhere in the immediate area. “Everyone had the cookie-cutter wine list,” Thomas says. “But then James said, ‘Do whatever you want.’ So, we picked what we thought tasted good and had a good price. As it turns out, most of the wines on the list are in the sustainable realm. People go to the Strip and spend big money on those styles that they are comfortable with, and then when they do come to us, it’s fun because it’s not as pricey to try something out of your comfort zone.”
At Ada’s, you can find Serbian wines alongside pours from the Russian River Valley. The somms create flights, which Thomas says, “are usually from the wackier side of the wine world. It’s a fun trip around the planet.”
