The body of a wine aficionado is found in a sealed wine barrel. Meanwhile, Mac Taylor from CSI: NY arrives in Vegas to surprise his girlfriend, Christine, a bistro owner attending a restauranteurs' convention.
Tropes for the episode:
- Expensive Glass of Crap: The wine the victim intends to purchase is being sold for $86,000 a bottle, but turns out to be counterfeit.
- No Badge? No Problem!: Subverted. In interrogation, Mac asks Christine's manager, Jimmy, if he knows who he is. Jimmy replies that he does, and that he also knows Mac's NYPD badge isn't any good in Vegas. D.B. steps in and immediately begins questioning him.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Hodges finds Mac looking for D.B. and chides him.Hodges: We just can't have visitors wandering the hallways without an escort. This is a crime lab.D.B.: [from behind him] I think the head of the New York Crime Lab knows what a crime lab looks like.
- Shout-Out: To The Beverly Hillbillies. At the wine barrel scene, Mitch tells Greg and Sara that two guys were taking pot shots at it. Seeing a dark liquid oozing out, Greg says they were probably thinking they'd "struck oil; black gold, Texas tea."
- Strange Cop in a Strange Land: D.B. lets Mac help question Jimmy as well as tag along when evidence is found in a parking garage. He doesn't let him process anything, though.
- Trapped by Gambling Debts: Jimmy's motivation for stealing diamonds from a jeweler is to pay off $50,000 in gambling debts that he and his brother owe to some Egyptian mobsters back in NYC.
