He’s the man with the keys. Not just to the Wine Cellar Tasting Room at the Rio, but also to a heavy pour of the hotel-casino’s history.
Hung Nguyen, manager-sommelier for the Cellar and director of the wine program for the Rio at large, is approaching 20 years at the property.
He began at the Cellar in 2008, in the years just after the heyday of the Rio, when he still carefully decanted bottles of Madeira owned by Thomas Jefferson for $2,000 a shot.
He saw the room through the Great Recession, with its drop-off in tourism. He was there on March 17, 2020, at the start of the pandemic.
