Disney Land of No Bubbles - Screw It Episode 7
Whether you're with your family or hanging out with friends who refuse to grow up, Disneyland is sure to provide a fun-filled day. However, despite their commitment to celebration and their fairly extensive selection of wines by the glass, when it comes to good sparkling wine they are woefully inade
Download the Podcast
Transcript
Mike Supple: You're watching "Screw It" on SuppleWine TV. I'm your host Mike Supple. Today's topic is about Disney: Land of No Bubbles.
I went down to Disneyland recently to celebrate my fiancée's birthday and Disney is all about celebrating. They give you pins for whatever it is you're doing. If you're not doing anything in particular [birthday, wedding, engagement] you're just there celebrating. So I figured celebrating: they're pimping it out everywhere. They do have wine in Disney so they're going to have to have some good bubbly wines. Because what do you drink when you're celebrating? Champagne!
We went down there and I brought my new Flip MinoHD camera to see how it handles. We can sneak it in a bunch of little places and all footage in the park is filmed on that little bad boy - we'll see how it stacks up against the regular camera.
Got down to Disney and started the evening in Downtown Disney - went to the Rainforest Café to have some dinner and start the celebration early. Their wine list? Not so interesting. They did have a great selection of single malt scotch, tequila and other things, but they only have a couple of reds and a couple of whites by the glass. No sparkling wines whatsoever. Then we moved on to Captain Hook's Wine Cellar (something named along those lines in Downtown Disney). They have a more extensive list - they are a wine cellar. They have more things by the glass, both red and white, and they actually did have a couple of sparkling wines by the glass. They're both Italian and both pretty sweet; not really what we were looking for. Gave it a shot anyway.
[Scene at the bar: "And this is how they serve it: in a plastic cup. You gotta love it! At least it's a fresh bottle, so it's very bubbly."]
[Back in studio] They weren't very good. So first night in Disney, no bubbles.
The next day we spent the whole time in the park. [Scenes of a couple rides: Tower of Terror and Maliboomer] Disney California has a wine license and they have several restaurants that do serve wine and various beers. [Scene of vineyards growing in the middle of Disney California]
Went to the Wine Country Trattoria to take a look at their full list and have some lunch. They did have some more sparkling options. Everything was by the glass, both red and white, and the sparkling. You could get the same wines by the bottle, but they had no separate bottle list. Which is good, because by the glass everything is accessible and everything is reasonably priced for you to try it out. And you probably don't need a bottle of something when you're in the middle of the park going on rides anyway.
The long and short of it is, even though they had some pretty good red and white wines by the glass, particularly the Dr. Loosen Riesling that I had with lunch which was fantastic...[Scene at the restaurant: "It's got some nice sort of light apricot and white peach flavors to it. The aromas are kind of muted because it's not a good glass shape for aromas. But I get some really nice almost tropical hints of pineapple going on, but most peach with a little bit of lemon and lime."] ...they didn't have any worthwhile sparkling. Nothing even real from Champagne - not that Champagne makes the only good sparkling wines, but they make the best. And if you're celebrating, you usually want something that tastes really good. They didn't even have any good quality American or Italian sparkling wines. They were just simply bubbles.
And this is the reason why too many people say they don't like sparkling wine. They only drink it when they're celebrating something. You go down to Disney, you're celebrating, you want some sparkling wine, you try a glass of what they have and it's not good. Which leads to the thought, "Oh, well I'm not going to waste my money on sparkling wine again." That's a problem. There are too many great sparkling wines out there.
Disney is fun. Get down there, go on some rides, buy some schwag and have a blast. But if you're celebrating, bring your own bubbly.











