Punk makes the wine scene

Rock stars are like fine wines. The more they age, the longer they've been in the bottle.

For a few years, rockers have even been making their own wine or pitching someone else's:

Ozzy Osbourne, Maynard James Keenan of A Perfect Circle, Sting, Mick Fleetwood, Geoff Tate of Queensryche, Whitesnake singer David Coverdale and Sammy "The Red Rocker" Hagar.

Add to that list the first punk star wine guy: The Reverend Horton Heat, who performs tonight at the House of Blues.

His image is emblazoned on Rockin' Red 2007 Shiraz and Rene Pogel 2008 Chardonnay, both sold via Australia.

"Down there, they can get $60 a bottle, it's so good. They put these labels on it that have my picture -- and now they can only get $30!" The Rev. (Jim Heath) jokes.

He's not a connoisseur, but he thinks it tastes good. His wife is a connoisseur, and she loves it. So when George Road Winery asked him to get into labeling, he signed up.

"I didn't get the idea from The Red Rocker or from Oz," he tells me and laughs.

The Rev. has been trying to sell his wine in the United States but has run into government red tape.

He's always bogged down by government bureaucracy, he says. His home office in Texas is not a room full of righteous guitars but an office packed with papers.

"It's all tax complying --
accounting, bookkeeping," he says.

He's a small-business man fed up with forms.

"If I told you how much I pay to an accounting firm to find out how much I owe, your jaw would hit the floor."

Actually, my jaw would hit the floor if I had that kind of money.

UFC/SUPER BOWL PRESIGHTINGS

UFC fighters host Saturday parties after the matches at Mandalay Bay: Randy Couture and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson at
11:30 p.m. at Tao. ... Forrest Griffin at 11 p.m. at Lavo. ... Rich Franklin midnight at Studio 54. ... Stephan Bonnar at Crazy Horse III strip club. ... Emmy Rossum hosts Vegas mag's party tonight at club Bank. ... Holly Madison arrives at
10 p.m. Sunday at Lavo. ... Audrina Patridge parties Saturday at club Pure. ... Kid Capri DJs Saturday at Crown. ... Joey McIntyre starts a weekly show at Palms on Saturday. (My interview with him is in today's Neon.) ... And my favorite Vegas showroom performance in years returns to the MGM: "Drew Carey's Improv-a-Ganza" runs two shows tonight and Saturday, once Sunday night. It's hi-larious.

Doug Elfman's column appears Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.