If Austin Powers had designed a wine bar, this is what it would look like. Slick, modern, with a beautiful zebrawood ceiling and oddly plastic-looking interior, 55 Degrees doubles as a wine store and bar. It sounds very cold, but in fact the clean, crisp lines are a balm to the eyes in over-the-top Vegas.
They offer glass and tasting-size selections from a wide variety of wines. When I challenged the waiter to create a flight that had no Cabernet Sauvignon in it (the Cabs were one of their set flights) he brought me a wonderful grouping of wines from three continents and explained them all. My only issue was with the glasses - they were the stemless O Riedel glasses which I cannot make myself like. Call me a purist, but I prefer stems on my wineglasses.
As we sat sipping our flights I contemplated the fact that I had been in Las Vegas for less than 2 hours and I had already found a wine bar. I may have a problem...