On the South end of the Las Vegas Strip, and sitting just off the McCarran Airport proper, and operating out of the seventh busiest airport in the world, Sundance Helicopters provides vacationers an unique dining experience.

The valley west of Vegas is Pahrump, Paiute for "Moutain Water." Brook, our helicopter pilot briefed us briefly on where the emergency gear was stowed, just in case . . . Then the maroon Eurocopter lifted off like a damsel dragonfly off a cattail, floating effortlessly over the airport, city, desert. Red Spanish-tiled faux stucco haciendas scraped into the desert pointed like Nasca arrows to the vermillion cliffs of the multi-hewed oxide Calico Basin of the Red Rock Canyon National Recreational Area, preserved for mountain lions and stressed out city dwellers. The rocks puffed up like solidified calicum brain corals and white cauliflower - once at the bottom of a 600 million year old inland sea that washed over the area.

The "Rat Packer," Dean Martin, sang lyrical silk through the head phones as we sped over the terrain. Peaking over the Red Rock peaks the wind blew over the verge making the ride a little, ahem. . ."rocky." Brook banked to look for a lost gold mine rumored to exist, hidden in the gnarled mountain cedars. "Don't tell the boss we went adventuring,"said Brook. With over 3,000 safe air tours, Brook always seeks the lost mine on the Pahrump tour, taking riders a few miles out of the planned flight path so he can get a datum on the treasure.

The sun set over the California horizon at a 90 degree trig from Zenith, chainging the sparkleing night into a Max Escher mystical sky. .

Why helicopter to Pahrump, thirty miles over mountains and range? To sup and sip wine, of course.

The Winery in the Desert

The winery in the Mojave Desert is on the outskirts of the California Wine country, and is the only winery in the state of Nevada. Jack Sanders, looking for a place to produce the perfect wine came upon the desert town of Pahrump. An early settler had grown grapes and made wines of sorts here half a century before, but could high quality, commercial wine grapes be cultivated in Pahrump? After an in-depth feasibility study by experts, it was determined that wine could be made here using modern methods.

In 1990 the Winery in the Desert burst with fragrances that attracts 100,000 visitors a year. Many by Sundance Helicopters. Brook piloted the whirlybird through the setting Cinemascopea and soo it touched down lightly on its own heli-pad at the winery.

Newly wed Brit, Chris gathered her wedding trails, perfunctory perfume wafting through the 'copter, and we were off to taste the vintage. She reminded me of a young Princess Di, blond haired. Gorgeous. Terry, her new husband, was a fussalier in the British Air Force - a sergeant with three stripes and soon to be stationed in Afghanistan. This may be the last tipple of the burgundy for him, for a while. Wedding services can also be performed at the chapel on the winery ground.

We strolled into the white-washed winery, surrounded by three and a half areas of well tended grapes. We stood at the bar, American-style, like wayfaring prospectors plucked out of the cool desert night to quaff the sweet stuff.

Superb quality at reasonable cost best describes Pahrump Valley Vineyards wine, which has won 43 gold, silver and bronze medals in domestic and international competitions. The winery now produces eight different styles of wine presented to all dinner guests in the tasting. Patrons purchasing three or more bottles, either on the premises or by phone or mail order, may have labels personalized with names and messages of their choice at no extra cost. Corporate logos can be scanned onto labels without charge with the purchase of a case or more. I was disappointed to learn that even though the winery grows its own grapes, the juice for their wines is actually from California.

The wine steward set out eight glasses for each patron. For some inexplicable reason, she set out 16 glasses for me, I guess I must looked like I had double vision. She explained each pressing and vintage, from dry to red:

Chardonney — $US12.00 per bottle - Produced at a very dry level with a little oak while maintaining a delicate balance.

Charleston Peak White — US$8.50 per bottle - Named after the tallest peak in the Spring Mountain Range, an exclusive proprietary off-dry white, crisp with a hint of apples and pears in its aroma and taste.

Desert Blush — US$7.00 per bottle - Soft cherries and citrus in a clean, crisp format. Exquisitely suited for romantic interludes.

Symphony — US$8.50 per bottle - There are not many acres of this grape growing in the world. Symphony is a rare, semisweet, fruity wine, even dry wine drinkers will enjoy it, and in fact all our wine tasters agreed it was the best on the list. Or as the newly wed Brit exclaimed, it is simply "Gorgeous."

Cabernet Sauvignon — US$16.00 per bottle - Dry, but light, with hints of raspberry and currant. Small overtones of oak.

Merlot — US$12.00 per bottle - Merlot has become one of the world's most popular red wines. The Winery's Merlot is very soft on the palate, with oak flavor, perfect with all foods.

Bergundy — US$8.50 per bottle - There is no other Burgundy in the world like theirs, so they claim, but it was soft and easy, with light tannins and a round pluminess in a sweeter style.

Creme Cherry — US$14.99 per bottle - The Crème Sherry is Pahrump Valley Winery's trade mark wine, a smooth and delicate walnut taste, great for an after dinner or dessert wine.

As they say in sailing parlance as I slammed the last glass down: "I'll sail again," or so said Forrest Tucker to John Wayne in the movie In Harm's Way. Gawd, is that the wine talking? After choosing the type of wine to be served at the evening feast, it was a slightly tipsy stroll into the restaurant. During warmer months dinner is served al fresco on the wrap around verandah.

THE WINERY FEAST

The winery's gourmet restaurant offers fine foods, beautifully served by the staff. and prepared by Executive Chef, Jim Shovan. There is no particular dress code. Dine lavishly, dress comfortably.

The British couple made the evening light and airy with the happiness of their new life together. The other helitacked dinner couple - Americans, was dull and lifeless, long married red-necks with plenty of kids and woes, and true to American standards, weren't well travel. She maked it a point to state she didn't like wine. Give her a Montain Dew and him a Budweiser and send them off to the stock car races. Gawd, is that the wine talking?

Harp and Guitar

And then the guitar and the harp began to play. There is a relationship between great food and fine wine and soft music, and now I must admit it may have been the 16 flutes of wine sinking me deeper into the antique over-stuffed chair that made me feel like a kid again. Crosswynd Recording artists Kate and Richard Mucci performed with harp and guitar and have performed over 4,000 times at the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas, and now they own their own Pahrump music store, with Nevada's only Sound Therapy Chair.

Like a Grecian Ode, the classics of Greensleeves floated through the air with bonhomie chemistry, harp strings strummed tinkling like clear crystals notes punctuating the air like the little Christmas lights strung throughout the house. The guitarist looked like Friar Tuck, with a cherubic rosy robust face, and a glimmer of imbibing guilt in the wine cellar and brought up to sing for his supper. He had a glow to him than transcended down the tendons of his arm and erupting in the last nerves of his fingers, never missing a note, or none that I heard out of favor. Gawd, was it the wine talking?

No matter how much I liked the wine, everything depends on dinner. A dinner feast should be forever linked to the characters in the event. Dana, my waiter and host was just such a character. Dana, who had eight children of his own, was the type of guy you could grin and laugh and drink wine with. And I swear, he looked cherubic with a grin ready to break into a wine blush, as well.

Diners on the heli tour are presented a menu in Las Vegas, with their entrée choices faxed to the winery in advance. .Dana served a fumerole mug of Potato Soup that came with a lush peppercorn spiced salad, the cornerstone of what was to come. Steam billowed from the soup, made thick and chunky, like your grandmother used to make, and the tendrils vaporized and floated across the room like notes on a page of sheet music - like a Symphony, wine that is. It seemed to pour forever. Ben Franklin said it the best: "Wine proves that God loves us." I swear, if you look at a U.S. hundred dollar bill, Ben is posed as a toasted cherubic wino.

A small scoop of sorbet just cold enough to change and cool the zing of the potato soup palate was next presented like an icy Wind River Mountain stream in mid-summer. It would be interesting to see how the Brits fared after ten years of marriage. They promised themselves to return to the Pahrump Winery on their anniversary. Gawd, she was laughing like she had just heard her first raunchy joke. It had to be the wine.

As a seasoned steak aficianado, i can chosen the petit New Yorker, served Cajun style. Another great draw would have been the Catch of the Day, also Cajun style. The wine turned chef Jim into James, and I swear he was in the back roasting my steak while grooving to harp and guitar.

THE MAIN EVENT

I have eaten all types of steaks while rowing up in the Wyoming bush, I have wrestled steaks of all descriptions cooked in all possible combinatons. Bruised and braised over an open flame at branding time. I have tried Jaimaican lemon grass fed beef from the Blue Mountains. Or how about Jerked Kabobs on the waterfront of Basseterre, St. Kitts? Or the grain fed and hormone induced Mid-American steak high altitude grilled over a backpackers stove on the top of Gannet Peak? I was so hungry I didn't give a damn about Mad Cow Disease. I have tried steaks boiled, seared, baked and burnt, but never a steak as firey and piguant as that steak at the winery. Gawd, was it the wine talking?

When eating that steak my smile melted like a blush on that newly wed bride, hearing that first raunchy joke. The steak was liquid velvet seared into my memory and stenciled on my taste buds. Why was James keeping his secret recipe to himself? It was superb with only Worchestershire sauce as a condiment, a sauce concocted in antebellum days and found on Civil War dining tables from Abe Lincoln's Whitehouse to General S. (S for steak?) Grant's battle kitchen. Lea Perrin still produces Worchestershire, but now in New Jersey.

James explained he had invented a special hot pepper sauce that made the Cajun-style flank a true tearjerker. Did James use jalapeño or Serrano or something new plucked in the misty morn from the steppes of Pahrump? He really knew how to hold the flavor in. The red hot chile fruit blazed across my tongue like a south-of-the-border revolution. The thick as an Argentinian cut, and shaped like South America, was served with a curving archipelagos of squash and cucumbers laid neatly along the side like a boat moored to a troopical island.

This steak was vivacious, maybe because of the Capsicum frutescens. It was first lively and hot on the tongue, then mellowed. James and I discussed favorite buffalo recipes, deer sauces, and wild rattler hors d'ouevres from other past fine dining experiences. I can not wait for James' planned wild game feasts at the winery.

SYMPHONY FOR THE DEVIL

After the entrée it was more Symphony, dessert and Symphony, and then coffee and Symphony. There seems to be two types of coffee these days: the tepid watery-type that Starbucks pawns off as the real McCoy, and bitter tasting acid drained from Uncle Gene's tractor battery. My neighbor, Alberto, is from Colombia, and each morning we have a great, nutty, South American blend straight off his finca in Armenia, high up in the Andes. I think the beans are picked by the guerrillas. It has that rebel type of taste. Coffee should be blended to make it delicate, not sweet nor bitter, but perky, standing up on it's own and shouting down the palate like rich elixir popping the eyes awake. I was amazed that the winery served something as simple as - Hills Bros. A hazel nuttiness came through strong. Or maybe it was just the Symphony playing in my head.

The bird picked up lift. We flew silently back over the black and blank Spring Mountains, with Brook the designated pilot; and then the bright lights of Vegas slammed our senses. We flew around the largest free standing tower west of the Mississippi - The Stratosphere. We were the highest drunks in Vegas. We had traveled far for fine dining and our carriage was the ultimate limousine and Brook the classiest chauffeur. That's why they call it a HelicopTOUR!

Pahrump Valley Vineyards
3810 Winery Road
Pahrump, NV 89048
775/727-6900
Fax: 775/727-9533
800/368-0463
Email

You can get your own personalized labeled of wine when you purchase three bottles or more. Each dinner guest on the helitour receives one free bottle of wine with their name on the label.

Restaurant open noon to 3 p.m. and 5-9 p.m. for dinner. Wine tours are 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. daily. The winery is open throughout the year for special events, Jazz and Grape Stomp festivals, cookouts, live bands and concerts, dancing under the stars, picnics, weddings, birthdays, or set up your own special occasion.

— By Kriss Hammond, Editor, Jetsetters Magazine.