Valley View Casino – VIP Wine and Food Event

Saturday, April 22 from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. 

 

Yesterday, my husband Paul and I were honored to be included in the Valley View Casino VIP Wine and Food Event. This experience was ‘By Invitation Only.’ However, I won our participation through a contest presented by KFM-BFM .

Check–in at 5:00 p.m. went smoothly and quickly. We were given purple wristbands that allowed us entry into this very special wine and food gathering. During this exclusive VIP Event, we sampled numerous varieties of wine from BK Cellars Urban Winery while indulging in delicious ‘made-from-scratch’ food pairings.

 

Wine / Food Pairings

• Cabernet Sauvignon (South Coast) paired with chocolate fountain-dipped strawberries, petit fours and truffles.
• Grenache / Syrah / Mourvedre (El Pomar District) paired with cheese, crudite, dried fruit, nuts, olives, grapes, crostini/crackers and bread with spreads (Hummus, White Bean, Olive Tapenade).
• Le Melange Blanc (California) paired with chilled lobster, grapefruit, fennel, pickled red onion and arugula with citrus vinaigrette.
• Merlot (Temecula Valley) paired with lamb sliders
• Syrah (San Pasqual Valley) paired with braised beef short ribs and potato puree

BK Cellars is one of San Diego County’s newest urban wineries. They make wine in the historic Escondido Vineyard District. This urban winery is a functional winery making wine on-site from California grapes and serving their tantalizing white and red wines in a tasting lounge with a cosmopolitan flare.

Both the food and wine was available and free for the whole four hours. While the portions were small; you could have as much as you wanted. My wine of choice was the San Pasqual Valley Syrah. The Valley View Chefs did an excellent job with all the food; however the chocolate fountain-dipped strawberries definitely proved to be my downfall.

Live music was presented throughout the evening by a trio named 'Tres.'  I was amazed at how many of my favorites they covered. I loved their closing performance of 'I Don't Know Why' by Norah Jones.

Brett Winterble expertly served as the event master of ceremonies. He proficiently kept the appreciative attendees excited and engaged. A free bottle of BK Cellars Wine was given away every 15 minutes until the Grand Prize drawing at 8:30 p.m. The Grand Prize consisted of an all-inclusive Napa Valley Get-Away for two including airfare, couples massage, wine tasting, and a $1,000 spending cash.

Although we did not win anything at the wine tasting event itself, both Paul and I had abnormally good luck at the slots. We actually returned home with an extra One Hundred and Fifteen Dollars ($115) in our pockets.

The only con of this VIP affair was a lack of adequate seating. There were plenty of older patrons forced to stand for long periods. Nevertheless, both Paul and I thoroughly enjoyed making history by attending this first-ever Valley View Casino – VIP Wine and Food Event. If you ever receive an invite, I recommend that you go.

At Valley View for their first VIP wine 🍷 tasting event. Yes I am finally a VIP again!

A post shared by Missy Smith (@zwriter1) on Apr 22, 2017 at 8:40pm PDT