Cowboys and Cabernet

At two o'clock every Saturday, Johnny Ringo dies outside of our tasting room. Welcome to Arizona wine. Where cattle once roamed grows rows of grapevines. In hay barns there are French oak barrels and stainless steel tanks. And, in a rugged mountain mining town folks swirl wine in Riedel glassware under the watchful gaze of what appears to be a statue of the the Hindu God Ganesha. In a state known for high noon, cactus, and the most masgestic hole in the ground you have ever seen, wine is begining to assert its presence. Not that it is new here. Spanish missionaries where making wine here before Father Junipero Serra spread his mustard seeds up California's coast. We had a nice little industry going here until Prohibition nearly rubbed it out (thanks Uncle Sam!). But, like Lord Darrell Duppa naming a burgeoning city Phoenix because it rose form the ashes of an ancient settlement, Arizona wine is on the rise.

The modern industry took root some 25 years ago, just a few wild men bucking convetion. Wine, in Arizona? Get a sraitjacket and the Thorazine! As a new generation of wine makers and growers step up to the task, we find people slower to jab us with the needle. Considering studies showing a correlation between red wine and lower instances of mental illness I should think so. Right now there is acreage in all three growing regions being prepared for new plantings, most due to be planted in the next month. Architects from established wine regions are making the trips down dusty roads to help plan the construction of new wineries. Winemaking students from Oregon to Australia are sending resumes for internships. Critics are starting to put sections in their magazines and books for Arizona that are no longer named "Other". Arizona wine is growing. It is an exciting time.

But what about poor Johnny Ringo? Who actually died on the other side of Willcox's valley not too far from some modern vineyards. Does this growth mean that stories of men worse and better than he get overlooked as an Arizona Cabernet finds a warm and cozy place in the heart of some critic? I think not. We aren't the wine equivlant of carpetbaggers re-writing the history of our region. For God's sake, Gernonimo and Cochise rode on the same lands that would become my vineyard, and an Earp brother was killed across the street from our tasting room (for real). We get to have our own identity, not try to be someone or somewhere else. It will be interesting to see what that identity develops into. I, for one, am throughly looking forward to seeing it.

Cheers!

A Day at the Tasting Room

A tasting room is a place to sample wine, not a place to do shots of it. This is my pet peeve about running a tasting room. Many people don't taste our Chardonnay because before they can even smell aroma one, it is in their stomach. I avoid correcting them, because that means they are doing something wrong. The experience is not for my benefit, but for the person tasting. So I boast about the fragrance of the next wine and talk about how if you hold it in their mouth it really shows character. After that they tend to sniff and swish with the best of them.

You see, when people walk into my tasting room they either announce that they have never done a wine tasting before or they tell me they are shocked there is such a thing as Arizona wine. That is what we get: adventurous newbies and the curiously incredulous. So the goal of a tasting then becomes to initiate and to convert.

It is a lot like a club. "Have you tried Arizona wine?" If the answer is yes, you are usually barraged with question of where, when, what, how and oddly enough why. If the answer is no, most people who have tried a few Arizona wines will give directions, recommendations, websites, and offers to car pool. Once initiated you find that you could conceivably spend almost every weekend for the rest of you natural life with fellow Arizona wine fanatics. There is always an Arizona wine event going on. But once you become a zombie, vampire, or some other form of undead you are cut off.

While still human a tasting room can be a scary place for the uninitiated. If someone comes in with a group of friends who are self proclaimed connoisseurs, how is she to feel when the only descriptor she can come up with is "good"? That is one of the reasons I like Arizona wine. There is a comfortable lack of pretension. We don't have the baggage of estates that can be traced back to the Roman Empire, or brands crafted by marketing mavens, or even storied dynasties(check back in 60 years). We just have good wine. I say good because great wine, by popular and critical definition, needs about an inch of dust and a name that most of us would not bother trying to pronounce.

Most of the people who taste here end up talking about life more than wine. I learn about where the kids go to school, their family history, how their grandfather used to make wine in the basement(an extremely common conversation), and the personal details of ones life that no other salesman ever hears. That is because I am not selling them, I am just talking to them while they enjoy my wine. A friend once told me a tired saying that the best souvenir from a winery is a bottle of wine. Perhaps the more wine they buy, the more they want to remember their visit.

Cheers.