We had a VIP party Thursday night to thank all the vendors and executives for helping BevMo! get to 100 stores. Here I am with Rocio and Amy (holding champagne) at an "after party" in the hotel. We made a pretty good dent in the big, honkin' bottle of champagne. Needless to say, I felt like DEATH on Friday. Not good. But I marched on. With a really big headache.
Finally on Saturday we had our Mega-Tasting event with over 100 winemakers, spirits, beer and food vendors. It was a huge undertaking. And I am happy to report it was hugely successful. We think we had about 1,500 people attend. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow.
Back to Friday night, a large group of about 40 people, were guests of Mozy, the owner of Exclusive Imports, for dinner at a Persian restaurant in Beverly Hills called Shah Abbas. The group in attendance were prestigious French winemakers that speak French, some of Mozy's colleagues, and a lot of BevMo! buyers, employees and my friend Wilfred. So as impressive as the French were, about all I could do was smile cuz I don't speak French and they don't really speak English.

You have to check out the list.
- 1976 Domaine Grivellet Le Musigny Cuvee Princess Noura - double magnum
- 1986 Prunotto Barolo Bussia- double magnum
- 1986 Diamond Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Gravelly Meadow Napa Valley - dble magnum
- 1981 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac - double magnum
- 1999 Chateau Haut Brion Pessac Leognan - double magnum
This restaurant was big on entertainment. There was Tatiana from Russia. She sang a few songs accompanied by a recorded music track with sound effects and back-up singers.
Then came the dancing. The DJ gave a big introduction that we would be entertained by world-class dancers in two sets. Wow. This sounded exciting. Then one girl came out. That's it. She danced once dance. Stepped aside grabbed a different prop and danced again. She did this 5 times with different props. Then she left. huh?
Then the young girls came out. The older Frenchmen really liked these three. One was a brunette. But they had their eyes on the blonds. It was very funny. And very weird. There was a strange vibe. I was sitting next to two young Frenchmen, they were a little embarrassed. Giles Laurencin, from Chateau Meuliere was sitting to my right. He was very friendly and did speak some English. He told me his wife just had a baby boy four days before. WHAT? Why are you here? That's crazy.
So, that's my first two days in LA. I'll tell you about the tasting event tomorrow.
Wow! What a wonderful party. There's nothing like a good bottle of wine, and looks as if you were able to open many!
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