Aureole : Not Just a Body Part

Oct. 2004

Patrons of five-star restaurant Aureole Las Vegas have the rare opportunity to order from a wine list of over 4,000 choices, but first had the daunting task of wading through a 125-page wine list.

It was wine connoisseur and technology-aficionado Andrew Bradbury who made that task a bit less overwhelming, offering patrons the use of a cutting edge tablet PC to select their wine.

Bradbury began his restaurateur career in his teens and developed an interest in wine before he was old enough to legally partake. Residing in Seattle, Bradbury cultivated that interest alongside his passion for technology.

The Tower

Bradbury got his start as wine director for Aureole Las Vegas when it opened six years ago at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.

As one of renowned chef Charlie Palmer’s ventures, Aureole had to offer more than just delectable cuisine and stunning ambiance in order to capture a corner of the growing Las Vegas dining scene.

That competitive edge came in the form of four-story wine tower, a functional altar for the now world-renowned temple of wine.

The $2 million dollar wine tower serves as the centerpiece for the restaurant, storing 10,000 bottles of wine in the steel and glass creation. Flying wine “angels” in black cat suits and modified rock climbing belts ascend on cables to pluck the selections of customers.

The tower’s stock consists primarily of common red wines, stored at 55 degrees and 70 percent humidity within a numbering system categorized by tower side, level and bin. In addition to the tower, four wine cellars hold the remaining 40,000 bottles typically totaling an estimated value of $12 million.

In addition to Charlie Palmer, celebrity host Robin Leech has also scaled the tower, which has been featured on the Travel Channel and Food Network.

“It was very scary the first few times I went up,” said Heather Niau, 26, who began working at the restaurant two years ago and has dropped a mere four bottles during her thousands of vertical quests for wine.

The Sin City native is a full-time angel and ascends the tower as many as 50 times a night. The trip up the 42-foot tower takes about 12 seconds and angels can clip multiple bottles to their belts with Batman-like accessories, Bradbury said.

The eWineBook

One challenge Bradbury faced in his quest to create an exceptional dining experience was managing a wine list that covered the thousands of selections. A paper wine list for a restaurant like Aureole would at least 125 pages long and would intimidate most patrons, Bradbury said.

“You’d have to update it weekly and it would take 8 hours to print,” said Bradbury. “By the time it’s done, it’s obsolete.”

Bradbury had entertained ways of combining technology with tradition in order to make things run smoothly. His solution? An interactive wine list using a Hewlett-Packard tablet PC which Bradbury unveiled in 2002.

“I wanted to do it years ago, but I had to wait for technology to catch up,” said Bradbury, whose eWineBook is now the focus of a multi-million dollar ad campaign by Hewlett-Packard.

When a customer is seated at Aureole, the waiter brings a eWineBook to the table and gives a one minute tour to make sure they are on the “same page”, Bradbury said.

The interactive experience begins with a welcome page with basic information about the tablet. Next, a patron can begin their selections by viewing wine by type, and then by country. Wines can be sorted by price, ranging from the high teens to $40 thousand.

In addition to basic information, patrons can peruse profiles on featured wines and wineries. For those with less wine knowledge or adventurous tastes, one can sample the food and wine pairing page, which gives descriptions of menu items and recommends wines by the glass or bottle.

“In restaurants, most people don’t want to make up their own minds,” Bradbury said.

Wines can be bookmarked and added to the tablet’s shopping cart. After an order is placed through the tablet, it’s wirelessly sent to the printer and a wine angel is sent to retrieve the bottle. When a wine is out of stock, it is updated electronically and removed from the wine list.

“The whole restaurant runs wireless and on real time inventory,” Bradbury said. “Technology creates fewer errors.”

While waiting for their entrees, customers can use the tablet to read the restaurant’s bio, see real-time footage of angels ascending the tower and learn about other restaurants in the Charlie Palmer group.

After enjoying their meal, they can also leave email notes to Bradbury or the chef with comments or questions. And writing wine preferences on cocktail napkins is a thing of the past, as the eWineBooks software includes an option to email info about the wine and winery to yourself, Bradbury said.

“This entices people to stay around and order more wine,” Bradbury said.

In Aureole’s first year utilizing the tablets, wine sales increased by $750 thousand.

“It worked better than I ever imagined,” Bradbury said.

55 degrees.

While the eWineBook is Bradbury’s technological masterpiece, 55 Degrees Wine + Design is his new baby.

In his pursuit of improving an industry that hadn’t changed in years, Bradbury broke retail rules when designing the Mandalay Bay-owned wine shop.

“Every wine shop looks the same,” said Bradbury, who hand-selected unique materials, including a zebra wood ceiling, to set 55 Degrees apart from the norm. “I wanted the look to be very modern.”

The shop’s glass doors and display windows are printed with a neat border of 00’s and 1’s, the binary code for 55 degrees, the perfect temperature for storing wine. Behind that glass is showcased not wine, but rare glassware from all over the world.

“Normal wine stores have about one percent of their sales come from glassware,” Bradbury said. “55 Degrees has 35 percent, with a better profit margin than wine.”

Deejays spin on the weekends, luring in concert goers and gamblers to sample one of Bradbury’s boutique offerings at the shop’s wine bar. Featured bottles range from $8 to $25, designed to fit people’s budgets.

“I didn’t want to do wines you trip over in a retail store,” said Bradbury, who hunts out boutique wines customers would typically only see on wine lists.

In addition to managing 55 Degrees and serving as wine director for Aureole, Bradbury is also the beverage and wine consultant for Mandalay Bay Resort Group, which owns more than a dozen casino resorts.

“You have to believe in what you’re doing,” Bradbury said. “Having perseverance is everything in business.”

For more information on Aureole or eWineBooks, visit www.aureolelv.com or www.ewinetower.com .