Make your own wine in Las Vegas! What a great concept this is and soooo much fun. This isn't like other wine-making places I've been to that just have you do some blending and bottling - here you actually make the wine from the crush to the bottling. Charlie is the owner here and from what I understand, he actually goes to CA and chooses the grapes to made available. I believe this year there was a choice of 16 different grapes (I could be wrong) but we had to choose our varietals the first part of Sept. Each group makes a minimum of one barrel, 20 cases/240 bottles, for $2400. Last year we made a Zinfandel blend with Barbera and Cabernet Sauvignon. It was so good we won 3rd place in the Zin category. The Zin grapes came from Suisun Valley, the others from Amador. This year we're making a Barbera blend with Petite Sirah and Cabernet Sauvignon.
We had our crush yesterday - 21 crates of wine that we dump into the machine that separates the stems from the rest. The stems go on the floor and rest in a huge tub. Add the yeast and the other stuff that makes wine *I should know this but I forgot* and they explain the process in detail. If you're local, they ask you to come back and plunge the wine before it is pressed - then come for the press when they move your wine from the tub to a barrel. The wine sits in the barrel until May when we bottle, cork and label the wine ourselves and take it home!
They have all kinds of events through the year as well for their clients - we went to a port party, they take part in the Henderson St Pat's day parade, and in August is the awards dinner for all of us wine-makers. Everyone brings bottles of their wine and trades - of course everyone wants the award winning wines to trade for.
All in all it's a great experience, even more fun and the best part is having 20 cases of wine to drink!