Bordeaux Matchmaking

Nostalgia overload! Now that cousin Adam is a big hot shot with his PR company, I get to fill in as arm candy to super fun events when Sammy is out of town, haha. Adam invited me to a few events in LA this week, and even though it was a Monday, I absolutely could not refuse the Bordeaux Wine Matchmaking at the Riviera 31 Lounge & Patio inside the Sofitel in Beverly Hills last night!

This event was legit... it was straight-up from Bordeaux, financed by the European Union and everything. You had to fill out a questionnaire in advance so that they could select wines that would suitable to your taste and palette. All the emails and everything had landscape pictures from Bordeaux and it was so nostalgic and bittersweet!

The event started at 7pm SHARP (they took every opportunity to remind you of that) and after work I still had to go home and get ready and dress "urban casual" for the event (spoiler alert: you'll still be under-dressed in Beverly Hills) and wasn't on the road til 6:05. I know I was going against traffic, but this is LA we're talking about. I was wondering how long it would take me to get past that 101 / 60 interchange up to Hollywood. This is the way I drive every week for Groundlings, and it doesn't matter when I go... morning, noon or night, weekend or weekday... it's always backed up. Except... for... last night! I was shocked. I started to think maybe I had gotten on the wrong freeway. I never had to break. I am STILL freaked out about it a little. That was really weird, but hey, I'll take it!

It would have been nice if they had told us that parking was validated, but since they didn't, I was circling around looking for my best parking options nearby, and I ended up parking in front of the trashy lingerie store

....no guys, literally.

Crazy to think this is right across from the swanky Sofitel and Bloomingdale's. It really is a street-by-street basis even in LA. At any rate, the timing was great, Adam had my place in line, and we waited to check in, get our personalized drink tickets and then take our pictures on the Bordeaux green screen... I chose Le Grand Theatre background for us. I saw The Nutcracker here with Pam and Rafael and Vivian!

Everyone was being all classy and taking nice posed pictures, but Adam and I just went for it. The dress code said Urban Casual, not Academy Awards... we were there to have fun! They even printed those out for us so we have hard copies too.

They had a wheel of prizes to spin (none of which was a trip to Bordeaux. Rude!) and Adam and I both got a sweet Bordeaux wine key. And, like 90% of the workers all spoke French, so I got to practice a lot (although the music was really loud and I was having problems understanding) and I can only say they spoke French, because my opening line was always (in French) "Are you from Bordeaux?" and not. a. single. one. was. They were from Paris and Marseille and Lille and Belgium. Which is just as well, the Bordelais are known for being rude. I commented to one of the guys in French when he told me he was from Paris that no one here was from Bordeaux and he responded "yeah, we keep all the Bordelais in Bordeaux." HA!

One wine attendant poured me a glass and I said "merci" and he said "You speak French, yes? I heard you speaking over there. Your accent is interesting" and I said "interesting?!" and he said "No, very good. You speak very well" so either... he used the wrong word and had to correct himself, or else my accent really is just very interesting and he had to check himself cause of my violent reaction ahahahaha. I ain't even mad.

So lastly, the invitations had mentioned that they were giving away shirts that said #YOLEAUX on them (as in YOLO, with Bordeaux, etc) and I was dying because I wanted one of those. So cute and creative! All you had to do was like, Instagram and Tweet and hashtag their stuff and tag them and all. So I did! I put up pictures of me IN BORDEAUX and AT THE EVENT, starting from that afternoon! And they didn't give away any shirts! Everytime someone would move to make an announcement I would tell Adam "THIS IS IT! THIS IS WHERE I WIN MY SHIRT!" I'm serious, all I was really looking for out of that night was free wine and a shirt!! And we even asked around and no one seemed to know what we were talking about! I was a little annoyed about that. And these pictures all went to waste because of that!

Still, it was a nice night! Funtivity in LA for a Monday. No complaints.