Wine of the Week: Menage a Trois Midnight Dark Red Blend

Wine: Menage a Trois Midnight Dark Red Blend

Grapes: Merlot (44 percent), cabernet sauvignon (42 percent), petite sirah (11 percent), petit verdot (3 percent)

Region: Napa Valley, Calif.

Vintage: 2013

Price: $7.99

Availability: Lee’s Discount Liquor and other chain stores

In the glass: Menage a Trois blended wine is a deeply opaque purplish-red color with an inky core going out into a fine dark purplish-red with a slightly fuchsia rim definition and high viscosity.

On the nose: The crushed black fruit simply jumps out of the glass and assaults the olfactory sensors with loads of black cherries, black plum skins, crushed boysenberries, brambleberry, blueberry sorbet, spices, mocha, blackberry jam, and all in a well-balanced sort of way with just hints of sweet tobacco and graphite, as well as charred embers.

On the palate: The wine continues to impress with delicious crushed black fruits, including blackberries, cherries, plums, loganberries, juicy black currants, creme de cassis, allspice and licorice. The midpalate is full-bodied with loads of structure, giving just a hint of earth-driven minerals from the petite sirah and touches of chocolate. The finish lingers with soft, supple tannins intermingled with blackberry pastilles and hints of violets.

Odds and ends: By looking at this wine’s name you’d think it was French, but not so. It’s pure American juice from the prestigious Napa Valley and a winery named Folie a Deux, which translated means “shared fantasies” and often in a very naughty way. Despite the sexual references, the wine is a blend of all French varieties, hence the moniker and it is a really delicious bottle of wine, to boot. This attractively packaged wine appears to be the daily drinking wine from this winery, yet it certainly can hold its own against some much pricier competition. Tasted against other American wines, some at more than $40, this wine stood out for its superbly juicy fruit-forward New World characteristics. If not for the California slant and the noticeable oak, it could have been a great wine from the south of France. It is a highly recommended bottle of wine and while not terribly complex, it delivers excellent value at less than $8. Try it with a meat stew, which is perfect for this time of the year. You can try it at the Lee’s Wine Experience Saturday at the Westgate, where it joins 1,200 other wines and spirits in what has become the largest consumer tasting on the calendar. Drink it now through 2018.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.