Where the cows graze and the grapevines grow. My Southern Arizona wine adventure.

The first sign of problems was a late frost in April, something they are used to handling, but that was just the tip of the iceberg as they say.  The next round of storms was where mother nature really hit below the belt, hurricane type winds that blew off roof tops, followed by hail that left divots in the ground.  As one winemaker told me, "All our leaves blew off and the wind sent them to Tucson."  This happened in August, so it left the vines bare and open to be abused and tortured by the Arizona sun.  And of course hail is not a friend to the grapes leaving them looking (as well as the vintner's face) like a war had just taken place in the vines.  Needless to say many vines where lost, and in some cases a whole crop of grapes murdered and left to die.  The devastation would leave a heavy burden on the next vintage of estate grown grapes and for several, put their estate grown grapes back a couple of years.  So where does this leave Sonoita/Elgin wine?  That was the question I asked.

For the most part replanting has taken place and the experienced ones know what to do and how to bounce back.  One very fortunate vintner was saved from all the destruction, Sonoita Vineyards.  They are on a hill, and the others are down in a valley so the winds and the hail swept through the valley area with a vengeance, but saved Sonoita Vineyards vines.  "It must be because we do a blessing of the vines every year," explained Fran Lightly Sonoita's vintner with a slight smile knowing how lucky indeed he was.  Everyone else, has plans to either forgo a certain grape style completely, or use what was left, and/or buy whatever grapes they can from the Wilcox grape growing area.  So needless to say,  look for the prices of the wines to go up, and for maybe your favorite bottle to no longer be available.  The price part is the most unfortunate because to my delight I had noticed that all the wineries prices where coming down finally and many of the wineries had bottles that where under the $20 price point which is a huge plus for me.  Now enough of the bad news on to some good stuff.


I was able to visit and taste seven different wineries, and I only missed three.  Of those seven wineries I can honestly say all of them are doing amazing things with their grapes, and all of them are using Arizona grapes.  Most have estate bottling as well as using Wilcox grapes and blending with their estate grapes.  A  few are still supplementing with California grapes because they need a certain grape in their blend that does not currently do well here.  Not only can you taste the unique flavor of the soil in their wine, the blood, sweat, tears, and love are also all present in the glass.  Red wine is the style of choice and rules the wine list but is sprinkled with a few whites, and dessert wines.  Also an upgrade from my last visit a couple of years ago was the stemware.  Only one winery still had the yucky thick rimmed small glasses, the rest had lovely thin rimmed Schott Zwiesel glasses that I first had at Callaghan Vineyards.

Callaghan Barrels

Speaking of Callaghan, his name and influence can be witnessed in just about every facet of  Southern Arizona wine country.  The man has such respect for the vines and the wine making process that he garners amazing respect from everyone we talked to.  He is true maverick winemaker and has a personality of either love me or hate me, yet no one seemed to be on the hate side.  He is so generous with his time and his knowledge, I mean the guy is a legend in the AZ wine scene after all. He helped put AZ on the map as a place to get high quality wine in cowboy country.  You might think he would be inaccessible and hard to reach, but just the opposite is true, he is the usually the one pouring your wine in the tasting room.  He was not the first to explore the area and make wine but one could argue that he was the first to truly market and advocate for his craft.  If you talk about Kent to anyone, they always have a smile and tell a funny story about how he helped them do this or that or just about his endless love for his grapes.

I look forward in the next couple of weeks posting my stories about visiting the wineries and all my tasting notes.  I also am thrilled to say I came back with eight bottles of wine. I will enjoy finding new recipes and exploring new tastes with these great wines in my 1 bottle/2 meals series.  So I hope you enjoy reading about my visit and tasting notes as much I loved the visit itself.  And if you are itching for a road trip or a new wine region to explore I highly advise you head down to Southern Arizona, because no matter what your palate is craving  you will find something you like, and be pleasantly surprised just how far this little wine country has come.  I can only see more and more amazing wine coming out of Sonoita/Elgin, as the vintners and growers are truly dedicated people who  love what they do, and are willing to suffer through the hard times because they know in the end it will only make there wines and their devotion stronger!