The Desert Wine Guy - A Review of The Vegas Valley Winery

   I told ya so. Yeah that's right, I told ya so. Ooops, what happened to your humbleness there Desert Wine Guy? Ahhh sorry foks, let's try this again. For those of you who follow me on my WINE ONLY Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/DesertWineGuy/) you might remember that in 2015 Las Vegas, Assembly Bill 4 passed through the Nevada Legislature and as of May 25, 2015 counties in Nevada which have a population of 100,00 or greater were now permitted to have wineries. Well fast forward a few years and now Clark County does indeed have it's very first winery. The Vegas Valley Winery (https://vegasvalleywinery.com/) is now open for business. Yesterday (Dec 22) I took a trip to Henderson Nevada to see what the winery was all about and to check out the wines themselves. What I left the winery with was without wine and with mixed feelings so let's move ahead and see what I discovered.

Inside The tasting Room

   To start off here I want to tell you that I am really baffled by what I found at the winery and I think you will be as well. The first problem that I ran into is attempting to find the winery. The winery is located in an area that is dominated by warehouse style buildings.While there are businesses in some of these buildings the entire area is very industrial looking and not some place I would ever think would house a type of business such a Winery. When I attempted to call and get directions to the winery as well as to find out if my children were allowed to be present (they are not, must be 21 or over) my call went to a voice mail which actually went to a different business (Greap Expectations) and wasn't returned until about an hour later. I eventually plugged the address into my car and made my way across town. Pulling into the propertys address which is 7360 Eastgate Rd, Ste 123, Henderson, Nevada 89011, Ste 123 I (finally) found that the winery is locared all the way in the back (getting off the Freeway I thought my GPS messed up) of the above mentioned warehouse buildings and next to another business which is owned by the same people (Grape Expectations). This particular business will actually allow you or a group of people to create your own wine under the supervision of Mike Schoenbaechler (their Winemaker) and allow you to age that wine in barrels in their Warehouse. Both businesses share the same large storage warehouse. Some other issues that I found fairly annoying were that when you go to shop on the website you find that there are no products to purchase. When you click to subscribe to Vegas Valley Winery E-Mail list you are also giving Grape Expectations and not the Vegas Valley Winery permission to E-mail you. To make matters even weirder, the winery also has no wine to sell other than by the glass. The tour that you will be takes about five minutes as there really is nothing to see as they do not grow any grapes at the winery and the actual space dedicated to the winery itself is very tiny, to me it was a waste of five minutes and more an advertisement for their other business.

Wine Barrels Aging

   Okay so now I am in the winery. Keeping it on the 100% folks, I was a little disappointed actually to see just how plain the winery is inside, the place just appeared bare and void. The tasting counter looked bare and there was a small T.V in the right hand corner. If you are expecting to see a winery like Napa or even Arizona I think you will be disappointed as well. I know that you might be having second thoughts about visiting the winery now and I truly don't blame you for thinking this way but there are indeed a few positives to the winery. The first positive is that hopefully this is only the start of wineries themselves coming to Southern Nevada. The second positive is that the wine was really enjoyable. The third positive is that the staff was great. I ended up spending a lot of time talking with Ryan who is one of the pourers as well as a certified Sommelier and an ex Henderson Police officer. Ryan was wonderful and very knowledgeable of the wines he was pouring, it was a pleasure talking with him.

Bonded Area

   Now for the wines themselves. Aside from the employees of the winery I was impressed with the wines themselves. There is a tasting fee of $8 for 5 wines and I enjoyed each one. My favorites were the 2015 Subtle Blond Riesling ($7.50 a glass) made from grapes grown in the Suisun valley. The wine had notes of Peach and other tropical notes. The wine was slight more than what I would call semi-sweet but not overdone in the sugar aspect on the Palette. If you have ever wanted the perfect white for the pool, this is most definitely it. On the Red side was the awesome 2015 Zinfandel ($9.50 a glass) made from grapes grown in the Paso Robles area. What a wine here folks. Fruit forward with notes of Peppercorn, light Black Cherry. I thought the wine was wonderfully jammy but to just the right point before backing off and avoiding being overdone in that department. There is also a 2015 Gamay Rose with grapes from the Suisun Valley

"Professor of Yeastology" & Director of Marketing & Advertising

and selling for $8 a glass that was over the top candy sweet with a note of Jolly Rancher and didn't interest me in the slightest but I could see it going very well at the pool for all you sweet wine lovers. The winery also sells a White named "Whimsical with grapes from the Suisun Valley for $7.50 a glass and is blend of Riesling & Sauvignon Blanc which was really nice as well, I did detect a slight carbonation to it. Finishing up the reds is a 2014 Syrah with grapes from Paso Robles for $9.50 a glass. All the wines with the exception of the Gamay Rose were really enjoyable and if I could I would have bough a few bottles of each but as I previously stated, there are no bottles available for purchase and to make matters worse they don't know when they will have the bottles to sell.There is food available with Pizza ($6.50 - $8.50) and a meat & cheese platter at $15.50.
   Well there you have it guys. There really isn't much more left to say. Overall to me it appears that the Vegas Valley Winery opened prematurely and isn't truly prepared to do business, at least as of yet. It also appears to me that the owners are using the winery and the media attention due to it as a draw for their wine making school in hopes to draw more business for it with perhaps hopes of that business spilling over and therefore becoming able to expound on the upstart winery they currently have. My suggestion is that you stop by for a few glasses of good wine and some conversation with the staff but don't expect much other than that. I don't unfortunately see any reason for customers to be drawn back to the winery. In Las Vegas there are many wine destinations that are much more lively and much more welcoming to the wine lover.
                                                                                                                 The Desert Wine Guy

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