In Preparation for Vegas FOAM: Wine in Sin City

In preparation for Vegas FOAM, I decided to look into wine laws and consumption in the lovely, totally innocent city of Las Vegas. I tend to associate drinking in Vegas with large alcoholic slushies sold on the side of the road in kitschy plastic glasses, but there is obviously much more to it than that.

First of all, here is a short primer on the liquor laws in Las Vegas, which are often confused by visitors:

• Carrying an open container of alcohol and consuming it publicly is legal in the city of Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County, which includes the Strip.
• No glass containers are allowed outside on the Vegas strip.
• Open containers and/or drinking is not allowed in vehicles.
• If liquor was purchased in a closed container, it may not be consumed on the premises, or within 1,000 feet, of the store. But if a drink is purchased in an open container, like, say, a plastic cup, then it is legal to consume the beverage in public.
• Alcohol can be purchased at any time of day, packaged or by the drink.

Specific to wine, I could not find much information about wine consumption specifically in Sin City or on the Vegas strip. But, I think it's safe to say that a fair amount of wine is consumed in the large, flashy casinos of the famous avenue.

But, the wine phone application Vivino put together some interesting statistics related to wine consumption among their customers in Las Vegas:

• The median amount of money that people in Vegas spend on a bottle of wine is $22, a little more than $3 over the national average.
• Consumers in Las Vegas drink less American wine than consumers across the country - 37% of wine consumers in Vegas drink domestic wine vs. the US average of nearly 50%.
• There is nearly twice as much Chilean wine consumed in Las Vegas than the US average, and a folks in Vegas drink more French wine than the national average.
• Nevada likes its bubbles - nearly 3% of all sparkling wine nationwide is consumed in the state.

No matter what you end up consuming during Vegas FOAM - be it a fine Chilean wine or a boozy slushy handed to you in a plastic Eiffel Tower - please do so safely and legally.