Wine time: D.H. Lescombes Winery & Bistro - Cottonwood brings local wine and food to the West Side, Rio Rancho

Albuquerque’s West Side now has a new place to wine and dine.

D.H. Lescombes Winery & Bistro — Cottonwood recently opened its doors in a space on Albuquerque’s West Side, 3771 N.M. 528, near Cottonwood Mall and the Rio Rancho city limits. It is located in the former Enchanted Falls Event Center.

“We kept the water feature, which is a huge waterfall on the west patio,” said Randi Morrow, marketing director for D.H. Lescombes. “We kept that water feature for that patio specifically, but we took out all of the other water themed things from it being Enchanted Falls. We added a new bar to it, so now it has two bars, our signature bar and our heritage bar, and really opened up the space to make it more cozy and and feel more inviting on the inside.”

Wine time: D.H. Lescombes Winery & Bistro - Cottonwood brings local wine and food to the West Side, Rio Rancho

The location also offers a large retail space where D.H. Lescombes wines by the bottle are available to go.

“It was a great project, real quick for us, for the most part, from when we got the building to when we opened,” Morrow said. “(The public) is receiving it well at this point, people on that side of town, especially. It was hard for them to drive down to Old Town sometimes, or too far. So to have another option for them up in the Rio Rancho area, I think is really going to open up a lot of opportunities for us.”

Morrow said the winery had been wanting to expand and the opportunity presented itself on the West Side.

“We got wind of this opportunity for this building and we thought it just fit our brand,” Morrow said. “We’ve been looking in the West Side/Rio Rancho area, and so this just ended up being a great opportunity, right place, right time, kind of situation, to get one going.”

Morrow said the winery is always looking to expand and has plans to possibly open a third location in Albuquerque and an additional location in Las Cruces in the future.

“We just want to make sure that what we’re choosing fits our brand and fits what the guest is expecting from us,” she added.

The D.H. Lescombes brand currently has six locations in New Mexico.

“We have a wine bar in Santa Fe, which is a little bit of a different concept, not a full bistro, although we do offer food out of that location,” Morrow said. “And several of the bistro items that we offer on our menu, we offer there as well, but they kind of have their own menu. It’s an elevated menu, and it’s a wine bar, specifically in Santa Fe off the plaza. And then the bistro concepts that we have, we have the two in Albuquerque now, one in Alamogordo, one in Las Cruces, and we have a tasting room here in Deming that is attached to our production facility.”

The West Side location will offer the same menu options as its Old Town location including steak, pasta and comfort food options like meatloaf and fish & chips.

It also will serve local craft beer and cocktails made with local distilled spirits.

D.H. Lescombes’ Heritage line wines, signature line and limited releases will be available at the new location. The products can only be bought at D.H. Lescombes’ properties.

“We have three of our limited releases right now, Cab Franc, Petite Verdot, and Petite Syrah that we are offering in the bistro,” Morrow said.

When it comes to its bistros, D.H. Lescombes attempts to feature more locally made products.

“Historically, we haven’t always done that,” Morrow said. “It’s been more of, what can we source and and even looking at local products. We offer Mesilla Valley pecans, and we have a feta that comes out of Tucumcari. We try and make sure that we’re also supporting locally with some of our products. And so they’ve built recipes around those local items that we can find. But, as we have been developing menus over the last several years, our executive chef (Jaime Contreras) has been looking at the wines and tries to come up with things that would pair well. So if we have a really great vintage of (cabernet), he’ll look at it (and think), ‘Can we bring a rib eye on? Can we look at a steak option?’ If we really have something that we feel is a shining star. We’re really proud of all of our wines. But, every once in a while, there’s a vintage that stands out, and we really want to showcase it.”