A couple of weeks ago several VWWC members and I went to hang out with Charlie Peters of Grape Expectations Nevada School of Winemaking in Henderson.  We went nuts and bought a barrel.  But more on the “what was I thinking?!?” moment later.

We all arrived at just about the same time … and Charlie was waiting for us, bottles of wine at the ready.

Grape Expectations is located in an industrial park in Henderson – an unlikely place for a winery – but somehow, it all seems to work. There was no doubt that this was a winery; there were barrels from the floor nearly to the ceiling.

Charlie was, as expected, informative, gregarious, and generous. Because the winery is located in what is essentially an oversized garage, the “tour” part was limited, but the information part was not.  Charlie shared his incredibly interesting story and showed us what a little American ingenuity can do.

I guess you can compare the laws about having a winery to the laws about having a brothel. You can’t do what you really want with too many people around.  Kind of.

Having a “winery” in the truest sense of the word in Nevada is illegal if the county has more than 100,000 people.  Just like a brothel.  See the connection?  Well – except for possibly the good-feeling part – that’s pretty much where the similarity ends.

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Here’s the Magical Cellar of wines that I, one person, own.  How crazy is this?  These – except for a couple of exceptions – are everyday drinkers that are priced a little on the high end..for everyday drinkers, that is.  Most are $25 or less, with a few being a lot more expensive for those special occasions and special moments.  My entire list is housed at CellarTracker.com, a great place and resource for keeping track of wine collections, tastings, and what’s currently popular among wine aficionados.  Feel free to compare what you like with what’s in my collection.  And by all means, be sure to stop by CellarTracker to see what’s happening in the “real” wine world – the world of everyday people enjoying wines.

And for the record, I don’t get paid for this.  Don, Mark, and a few others I know have discovered this wonderful resource and have taken full advantage of what it has to offer.  On a personal note, it’s also saved me lots of time updating Excel spreadsheets!

CellarTracker isn’t just about databasing the wines of a few collectors.  Following is a list excerpted directly from CellarTracker of its features available to subscribers:

Cellar Inventory Management

• Report and search by producer, vintage, varietal, etc.
• Purchase price and valuation data (locale settable)
• Consumption history
• Restaurant-quality printed wine lists
• Per-bottle location & bin tracking
• Personal tasting notes
• Bulk import tools for existing spreadsheets and databases

Tasting Notes

• Record your own notes
• Group a series of notes into tasting events
• Read more than 1 million community tasting notes
• See what others say about wine in your cellar
• Automatic integration with 200,000 professional reviews including Stephen Tanzer‘s IWC,  Jancis Robinson‘s Purple Page Roy Hersh‘s, For The Love of Port, and much more (for co-subscribers)
• Store other professional reviews and scores (in compliance with copyright)
• Community bulletin board

Enjoy my collection and be sure to write me if you have questions about CellarTracker, about the wines that I’m drinking, and why the heck I didn’t do a review!  By the way, I don’t always leave tasting notes.  If the wine is flawed, just not good, I’m feeling lazy, if I’ve already had a wine several times and left notes accordingly and the wine hasn’t changed, or I feel that my palate is “off,” I won’t leave a note.  Which, I think, is actually pretty common among the CT membership.

So enjoy the list, enjoy the site, and be sure to check out CellarTracker as soon as you can!

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• Great wine tasting notes on Cellar Tracker (ourwinestory.com)

Testing all of the categories.  I think we’ve finally beat the disastrous server meltdown we had last week, and quite a journey.

Vegas Wineaux is being launched as a brand new site, and the old posts will return as we filter through old databases one at a time.  And it will definitely be one at a time because of the complexity of grabbing the old stuff.  The great thing is that at least it’s there, even if it has to go through several steps to be usable again.

Stay tuned!