I have to give a shout out to this wine because
a.) It's local
b.) It's probably the best wine I've ever purchased for only seven bucks.
The San Felipe Winery only makes six different types of wine, and by limiting the varieties, they make sure that their offerings are high quality. The one I had the pleasure of trying was their Sweet Table Red.
I'm not usually a big fan of sweet wines (although I enjoy the occasional moscato mimosa). I prefer my red wines to be a bit more dry than most sweet wines can offer. And those sweet reds tend to be overwhelmingly sweet.
This wine from San Felipe was subtly sweet, with notes of blackberry and vanilla.
In addition to being the perfect dessert wine, the bottle also features lovely art by artist Paul Sanchez. He's a local New Mexican who intentionally leaves the faces blank in his paintings, so the viewer can really slip into the moment in the painting.
Here's a close-up of the lable from their website.
Many people are shocked at the concept of growing wine here in the desert, but in actuality the banks of the Rio Grande are among some of the oldest wine growing regions in the United States. This wine grew from those same rich soils, where the enchantment of the land crawled up the vine and into the very glass of wine I'm enjoying now.