The Desert Wine Guy - How To Read A Wine Label

   For wine lovers who may be just beginning to discover wine and maybe even for those of you who are casual wine drinkers but find the label on a bottle of American wine confusing or intimidating here is a short article on just what you are seeing on a wine label. Lets go ahead and look at the label I have included. Lets start off with the first item on the label we are going to look at which is....

  

1 - The 2001 in this case is the year that the grapes for the wine were picked.

2 - This would be the name of the Winery at or the brand name. It is not always where the grapes

     were grown.

3 - For line number 3 this is where the grapes came. If the “American Viticultu

ral Area” such as Napa

     is on the label that means that at least 85% of the grapes for that wine HAD to come from that

     region. If there is a county stated there than at least 75% of the grapes for that wine had to come

     from that county. If there is simply a state located in this spot then 100% of the grapes had to

     come from California.

4 - At times you will see the actual name of a specific Vineyard on the label. That simply indicates

     that 95% of the grapes for the wine came from that actual Vineyard.

5 - If you see “produced and bottled by” on the label than you know that the person who produced

     the wine is also the same person who bottled the wine. If you see “Estate Bottled” that means that

     the wine is made from grapes that come from the producers Vineyard.

6 - Here is where you will see the wine making information such as whether the wine was “barrel

     fermented”, “sur lie” or “oak aged” tell you more about the style or flavor of that particular wine.

7 - The actual location of the bottler is listed here.

8 - Here is where the volume of Alcohol is located.

9 - This line has the information on the volume of the contents. A standard wine bottle has a volume

     of 750 ml which is equal to five glasses of wine.

I hope this article assists you in your search for that perfect bottle of wine.

                                                                                                                   The Desert Wine Guy

The Desert WIne Guy - The Story Of The Desert Wine Guy - Part 1

   Welcome to part #1 of the story of The Desert Wine Guy which includes the birth of Angel and Mirror Image Vineyards. Those of you who follow The Desert Wine Guy on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DesertWineGuy?ref=hl, my YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgCUb3w1n2S_UGU2yYRkFYQ/videos and my wine blog http://www.desertwineguy.blogspot.com/ now that I live in the desert of Las Vegas and I grow wine grapes. What you probably don't know is that I am married to a wonderful women and have 3 beautiful children. I choose to do my wine Facebook, wine blog and YouTube channel on my off time since I work long days in the Law Enforcement field. I have lived in Las Vegas 26 years and am originally from Brooklyn, N.Y. This whole wine thing started when I originally went to Napa Valley California around 20 years ago and fell in live with the whole grapevine thing. The peace of the Vineyards and the whole wine tasting environment I found simply amazing. How can I grow grapes in the desert I wondered. Oh well I thought, at least I can dream. While originally believing like most people do that you cannot grow wine grapes or anything except cactus in the soil, heat and dryness ( lack of humidity ) of the Las Vegas desert I have since discovered that this belief is simply untrue. I started off at first by undertaking the mighty challenge of growing a small garden. I developed a small garden over the past two years which grew very well and I was at first happy at that......at first. Then I started to do some (what I figured at the time) wishful thinking. I figured hey I’m really pushing my luck here, I've won out over the desert I should leave well enough alone. Well as you can probably guess by now my vision didn't end there. While at the local plant store one year I was wandering around and discovered that they actually sold wine grapes. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot etc. That along with my visits to the Napa Valley as well as Temecula California and finally the vineyards in Pahrump Nevada which is around an hour from Las Vegas started me thinking. I wonder if these vines will grow here in Las Vegas and I wonder if I could grow these grape vines. I had concerns about the so called poor soil here in Las Vegas and of course the heat and dryness (lack of humidity). These three thing I felt would really do a number on grape vines. Then I started thinking that if I can grow Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant and those sort of things here in the direct sunlight and in the so called "poor soil" then maybe I really could pull this grape thing off. Wow, I thought. My very own vineyard, growing wine grapes right here in my own backyard. With all my research and everything when it came down to growing wine grapes I still knew nothing though. I mean the plant stores sell the vines for a reason, people must buy them and people must buy them because they actually grow them. I still couldn't believe it. Those of you who have visited Las Vegas in the Summer probably have doubts yourselves. I continued my reading and research online on wine and how the quality varied from year to year and why this would happen. I researched the ideal weather conditions for the grapes I wanted to grow. While doing the research I kept seeing that the weather that Cabernet Sauvignon likes is the heat. This combined with the fact that rain is actually not good for grapes because it can actually seep into the grape and ruin the taste of it as well as split the grape. Finally I decided I had read and learned enough ( I thought ) to at least venture to the plant store and look at the vines. I figured I could pick the guys brain and get some more information on how they grow. Well the idea of just learning on that trip didn't last too long. I left the store with around 6 Cabernet Sauvignon vines and headed home. On the drive home I was so excited. I thought I am actually going to give this wine thing in the desert a try. As I already have said I have always loved grape vineyards ever since that first trip to Napa Valley years ago so here is where it led me. Taking a few reinforcement trips to the Pahrump and Temecula California vineyards kept the love of the vineyard in my heart. Oh well I thought, I have to learn some time. And so off I went to the future home of Angel & Mirror Image Vineyards ( my backyard ) and developing legacy of The Desert Wine Guy. I proceeded to plant the Cabernet Sauvignon vines I bought without much real hope inside that I would succeed. I mean those people who did manage to grow these vines surely had special soil or knowledge way beyond what I had. Well since I had bought these vines while not in their dormant stage and probably about two years old the easy part I again figured would be planting. I mostly thought that in a few days they would start to shrivel up and eventually die. When that didn't happen I thought that they were only alive and seemed to be doing well because the real heat of the desert wasn't here yet. Wait until the temperatures start reaching into the mid ninety’s then we will see these vines die quickly. Well the heat of the Las Vegas desert came and stayed for a few weeks and still the vines were alive and growing like crazy. Then came the big surprise, the vines started flowering only I had no idea what what was going on. I guess with all my researching I didn't discover the growing stages of the actual grapes. I checked my vines every day and one day it appeared that the small flowers that were growing looked as if they were now dying. Once again I thought “I knew it was too good to be true”, I thought my grapes had died. A couple of days later I noticed that the flowers that I thought had died had now turned into little buds. All this while the heat was rising. Well anyway the buds I learned were grapes and they were getting bigger. I now went nuts calling my wife and children outside to see what was the beginning of my wine grapes. I had succeeded, I was growing wine grapes in the Las Vegas desert. I also thought ( wrongly ) that the hard part was over..... 

                                                                                                                 The Desert Wine Guy

   

The Desert WIne Guy - Is It Champagne Or Sparkling Wine?

   In the desire to keep this blog honest I feel it necessary to tell you, my readers that I got the Champagne making process (only) from another website. While I did tweak the wording at times a lot of it remained intact from the original writer. I was going to reveal his name but believe it or not the article did NOT have an authors name to post. The rest of the article is mine. I hope you enjoy the article as a whole and learn a little bit about Champagne or Sparkling Wine as I have done.

    The holidays are over but throughout the year we still find cause to celebrate special events. Today we will talk about Sparkling Wine and Champagne. Lets start off with a fact that I don't think most people know. The only Champagne on the store shelves come from the French region of …...you guessed it, Champagne, France. Technically, it is the only sparkling wine that can be referred to as "Champagne."Until recently, some American wine-makers took advantage of a loop-hole in international law and were calling their sparkling wine ‘Champagne’. As you can probably already guess the French government as well as the French people were upset. That issue has since been fixed and now no decent and respectful wine maker outside the Appellation of Champagne would dare call their product, however refined, champagne. I don't know about you but I didn't learn that until about a year ago and it was from reading an article in Wine Spectator Magazine. By the way in all the wine reading and research I have done over the last few years the name Dom Perignon does not even come up anymore. I haven't seen them even in the top 20 ratings of Champagne. Keep that in mind the next time you are out somewhere and you see this wine and it's price on the menu. What is Champagne besides that bubbly, fizzy loudly cork popping drink that we celebrate with? Champagne is actually mostly made from the wine grapes Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay although there are 8 different types of grapes that can be used. The entire process involves the following steps.

1. 
   Pressing: Grapes will be pressed as soon as possible, especially with Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, as skin contact with these dark skinned varietals will soon begin to taint the juice if left on the skins.
2. First Fermentation: The next step is the first of a total of two fermentation’s takes place. A key factor in this first fermentation is that it be relatively quick and warm. The emphasis here is to produce a relatively neutral wine that is high in acidity.
3. Blending: The blending process in Champagne is what sets this region apart from just about any other wine producing region in the world. Most wine regions produce a new vintage of a particular wine every year, the Champenoise are master blenders. Although in a good year many domains will produce a vintage champagne, the Champenoise pride themselves on their masterful skills of blending multiple vintages to create a signature “house style”. Perhaps the epitome of this artful skill is evidenced in the wines of Krug, where up to 7 different vintages are blended to create their multi-vintage cuvee.
4. Second Fermintation: The wine is then bottled with a crown cap like beer and left to begin a secondary fermentation in the bottle. Here, active yeast will begin consuming the available sugar, resulting in the anaerobic production of alcohol within this sealed bottle. A by-product of this fermentation is carbon dioxide, which if not allowed to escape into the atmosphere, results C02 which is dissolved into the wine a.k.a., bubbles. This second fermentation generally takes between 4-8 weeks.
5. Lees aging: The wine now starts a period of ageing in the bottle where the wine will interact with the dead yeast cells (lees) and which will mostly influence the flavor and texture of the champagne when completed. This process is known as “autolysis”. Flavor characteristics relative to this bio-chemical process include nuances of baked bread, roasted nuts, and salty cheese. Chardonnay in particular is a varietal that benefits greatly from this lengthy autolytic ageing process. By law, non-vintage Champagne must age a minimum of 15 months on their lees, although most age between 18-24 months. Tarlant’s NV Cuvee Louis spends an incredible seven years on the lees. Vintage champagnes must age a minimum of 3 years on the lees, with many wines far exceeding this requirement.
6. Remuage / riddiling: Once the champagne has completed its extended lees ageing and is ready to be bottled it will go through a process known as “remuage”. This procedure is aimed at loosening the dead yeast cells and sediment  that has formed at the bottom of the bottle, and slowly moving it towards the neck of the bottle which it will be removed or disgorged.
7. Disorgement: This process involves removing the dead yeast/sediment in the neck of the bottle. Most often this is achieved by submerging the neck of the champagne bottle into a cold brine, thus quickly freezing the dead yeast matter that has collected in the neck. Once the crown cap is removed, pressure from the dissolved Co2 expediently pushes out this yeast plug, and voila, the champagne has been disgorged. 
8. Dosage: A measured amount of champagne and cane sugar will be added to the finished wine. This is known as the “liqueur d’expedition”. The amount of this mixture, known as “dosage” will determine the final sweetness level and style of champagne. In certain instances, no liqueur d’expedition will be added, resulting in a wine with zero dosage. Brut style champagnes are next on the dryness level with residual sugar falling between 5-15 grams per liter. Brut champagnes are amongst the most popular style of Champagne in the United States.
9. Re-corking: After a cork is inserted, a protective wire cap is placed over the bottle to help secure the cork and bottle. The wine is then shaken vigorously, in order to help integrate the wine with the liqueur d’expedition. The finished wine will now rest anywhere from several weeks to several months (and in some cases longer) before it is sent out into the big bad  world of wine shops, restaurants and connoisseurs.
   So now we have learned a little bit about the drink so many of us love to to celebrate good times with. I myself don,t like Champagne. I do however like a Spumante (Martini & Rossi Asti Spumante) in a Sparkling Wine which is the sweetest type of Sparkling Wine with a Brut being the driest.
   
   
   
   
                                                                                                            
   
   
   
                                                 
                                                                                                             The Desert Wine Guy
   

The Desert WIne Guy - 2012 Francis Coppola Diamond Collection Merlot.

  

  

 

  With Springtime (and the heat) right around the corner I thought that I would do a last minute review on a Merlot. Start looking for some Springtime wines to be reviewed soon. Having said that today's review will be on the 2012 Coppola Merlot that was bought by my wife for $12.99 at a local gas station. I am not expecting much and there is nothing available on line concerning it but it was a nice thought from Mrs. Desert Wine Guy. A little bit about the Coppola wineries. Coppola vineyards is owned by Francis ( of The Godfather fame) and Eleanor Coppola. The Vineyard is located in Geyserville, California and is the former home to Chateau Souverain Winery. According to the Coppola vineyards website the grapes for the “Diamond Collection” are grown from various vineyards across California. By the way the actor Nicholas Cage, (great actor) whose real name is actually Nicholas Kim Coppola is a nephew of Francis Ford Coppola. 

    Now off we go to the review. The review started off a little rocky. The wine was very jammy with a slightly overpowering Bing Cherry mixed with Cranberry Juice for it's flavor,  There were very slight tannins that did come out later in the tasting. Almost tastes like flavored cherry drink with a Cranberry finish. very slight body to it. This wine would make an OK summer wine with hot dogs and chips at the barbecue. At $13 I believe it a little overpriced since there are more serious Merlots available at that price. The wine poured a medium Purplish in color and rested in the glass with a Cranberry color. When swirled and tasted, the wine had an almost overpowering Cherry Cranberry Juice and I thought at times I detected a slight hint of Chocolate. You might think that since I tasted these flavors in the wine that it has some complexity, well sorry to disappoint but it doesn't. The wine is mostly straight forward Cherry & Cranberry. There are some other flavors but nothing other that would steer the flavor away from those two. 

    Here is my final two cents on the wine. It is kind of funny that at the opening of this review I promised a Springtime wine review because that is what I ended up doing here. I guess that's ok because it is the season. read on and you will have the first Spring wine review. For $13 dollars I find this wine slightly overpriced due to the fact that I have reviewed very good wines for a couple of dollars more. I assume the winery believes that the name Coppola should add a few dollars more to the price of the bottle. Don't get me wrong I would still buy the wine again however if you are after a serious Merlot this is not it. This is a summertime let's barbeque in the sun type of red wine. Don't take it to seriously. Maybe it wasn't made to be taken too seriously, who knows. I would also suggest that if you want to get the different flavors I found (as little as they were) that you open the wine 45 minutes prior to drinking it.

    Have a great spring everyone. As a preview of the next review, Mrs. Desert Wine Guy is at the store right now picking me up a white "Jug Wine" for review as a mixer with juice. I thought that would be fun. Till then, take care.

                                                                                                        The Desert Wine Guy 

 

The Desert WIne Guy - Scallops With White Wine Sauce

                                                             

    Scallops With White Wine Sauce

   

Ingredients:

PREP 20 mins                                            
COOK 20 mins
READY 40 mins

1/4 cup white wine                                     24 Sea Scallops

1/4 cup white wine vinegar                  1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1 tablespoon shallots                               Salt And Pepper To Taste

1/2 cup heavy cream                                 3/4 Cup Butter

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, combine white wine, wine vinegar, and shallots. Cook until liquid is almost evaporated, approximately 1 tablespoon left. Stir in heavy cream and let boil down until reduced by half. Stir in butter 1 tablespoon at a time, allowing each to melt before adding the next. Keep warm while preparing the scallops.
2. Preheat oven on broiler setting.
3. Brush scallops with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place under preheated broiler for 2 minutes on each side, until scallops are opaque, with a bit of brown around the edges. Place a spoonful of sauce on each plate, and top with 4 scallops.

                                                                                                                   The Desert Wine Guy 

 

 

                                    
  
  

The Desert Wine Guy - Cameron Hughes Lot 387 Merlot

   Welcome back to The Desert Wine Guys wine blog. Today we will take a look at a wine from Cameron Hughes which is a Merlot named Lot 387. This wine is made from 100% Oakville fruit from the Napa Valley. There is a mix of fruit making up our Merlot with the breakdown being as follows. 87% being Merlot & 13% Cabernet Sauvignon. The Alcohol in our wine is listed at 14% with a total production of 6,500 cases being produced. Mr. Hughes says that the wine used for Lot 387 is from a "family well known for farming the best dirt in Oakville but which only has a small wine label of their own.  The Cabernet components are sourced from Stagecoach vineyard and two other $100+ cab producers – it even has a few barrels of Hughes Wellman Petit verdot and Malbec components”. So just who is Cameron Hughes? When I think of the name I for some reason think of 80's movies (John Hughes). In all actuality Cameron Hughes is the man who is taking the wine industry by storm and while he is upsetting some people in the wine industry because he is buying wine or grapes that would normally be bought by others to sell for a pretty penny he is selling the same wine for $10-$20 only under his label. By the way Mr. Hughes has five (5) labels which include the reviewed wine (the Lot series) as well as Hughes Wellman, Zin Your Face, Ch California as well as the CAN Series. Is Mr. Hughes a benefit for us middle class wine drinkers? Well that depends on just how good the wine is. Read on and you will find out. It turns out Cameron Hughes is actually an American "negociant". What Mr. Cameron does is buy up whole or partial lots of grapes from very prominent vineyards who for various reasons feel they will benefit by selling their grapes to him. Mr. Hughes is also the first wine negociant to release 500 wines in the first 10 years of production. Mr. Hughes does not himself make wine however. While researching about Cameron Hughes and his way of making wine I came across the following response which is supposedly from him. At the risk of making this article long I am going to post that response. From what the Lot 387 bottle itself said I feel that the response is in keeping from what little snippets I can find out about him and his vision so I am comfortable in including this response here. In order to consolidate space I have changed the format of the response but nothing else.
   "Hi All,Craig - glad you liked the Lot 230 Chalk Hill. John - this is actually a wine we make with a grower partner. One of the misconceptions we have been trying to reverse is that we simply buy winery bulk overstock, re blend and sell. That is how we started but its no longer the case - we make well over half our wine now through a series of partnerships with wineries, custom-crush facilities, and growers - some with wineries or facilities, some not. We lease thousands of barrels (added just shy of 1MM of new wood just last February) which we deploy around the state and we write all our fermentation protocols and have an on-staff viticulturist to monitor vineyards. I talk myself blue in the face but the US Wine Press just wants to play the angle of the vulture that swoops in and picks off high-end bulk from distressed wineries - which is rarely the case, even over the last few years (which, I have to admit, even surprised me - I assumed we would be buying whole cellars worth of wine from upside down entities but it really only happened twice - once with Havens (which wasn't really downturn related at all) and again with another winery that shall remain unmentioned). To answer your question on whether it is first run or inferior juice is, well, it depends. I guess the word inferior is pretty relative so really not useful here. I do buy component lots that didn't fit into the blend for whatever reason - they are not usually as good as the finished wine from the producer but no component wine ever is - that's why it's a component. Once we blend them out (we have access to hundreds of lots of bulk wine that we own at any given time) we feel we more often than not make better wine. We also buy final blend wine which we pay top dollar for and those situations are typically to provide cash flow back to wineries for bottling purposes, hiccups, etc or to rightsize inventories. We also buy mistakes - one of which was a $50 Cabernet out of Happy Canyon/Santa Ynez that had elevated VA or Brett (I can't remember which) and once filtered no longer made the cut for $50 Cabernet. They blended it out with other components into a Meritage and sold it to us. We finalized a blend and sold it for $12. We "bought" (in our partnerships we really don't by fruit but rather price it out in gallons with various contractual quality stipulations and then pay for it as it goes into the bottle) 1,000's of tons of fruit in 2011 from all over the state but 100's of tons out of Napa. I think you'll see the strength of the program - flexibility in sourcing - reflected in our 2011 Napa Cabs...all south facing, well-drained, elevated sites that could withstand a few inches of rain which fell as we expected it would. I am confident that, once run through an optical sorter, we pulled some of the best fruit in Napa Valley this year out of Meteor, Heimark and Stagecoach vineyards to mention a few. The rest of our sourcing focused on regions we could bring in before the rain...Lodi, Lake, and Monterey and other central coast areas with great fruit at great prices. Cheers! Cameron"
   I will now move on to the actual review of the Lot 387. I bought this wine at Costco the other day for $12 figuring that Mr. Hughes idea sounded like a good one and his wine was worth a try. I am very pleased that I listened to my gut.
   The wine poured a medium purplish in color pour. In the glass the color was of a Dark Cherry. The wine almost seemed to be sparkling in the glass when held it up to the light.
    The Bouquet was powerful and stood out with Blackberry & Current as well as a slight hint of Oak. One interesting thing to point out in this wine is the fact that the bouquet actually benefited from NOT being swirled. Yes you read that right. It seemed that every time I swirled the wine glass the bouquet left but when I let the wine sit for a few minutes in between sips the bouquet came back. Weird I know but true and a demand I will gladly comply with.
    Now for our tasting part of this review. On the pallet the wine was full of Blackberry, Black cherry and slight hints of Oak and a lighter cherry as well. Each of the flavors was nicely balanced and along with the extremely refined Tannins combined for a very complete and almost velvety taste. The wine was very smooth, silky and yet at the same time complex in the overall taste which is a compliment to talent of the winemaker. There is not one flavor that overpowered the other.
   In closing  I would say the best word to use for drinking this wine is "savor". The wine was also more pleasing to the pallet when taking in small sips and, as I already said above letting the glass sit for a minute or so. This shouldn't be hard because this is a classy wine that deserves to be drank with dignity and sipped while winding down from a hard day or week.I would also recommend that the wine decant for a couple of hours since it does seem to open up as time goes on. If you are patient 
with this wine you will benefit handsomely with a simply outstanding wine. Give it time to breath and sip on it and you will be going back for more. This wine would go perfect with a nice medium rare steak or perhaps Lamb. I place this wine at a 93 on The Desert Wine Guy rating scale.
   If you enjoyed this review and would like to check in with me, The Desert Wine Guy on a regular basis please go to my Facebook which you can find at https://www.facebook.com/DesertWineGuy?ref=hl or see my videos on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgCUb3w1n2S_UGU2yYRkFYQ

                                                                                                                  The Desert Wine Guy