I 1000% agree with you. We did a Sonoita trip pre-covid and Callaghan produced the best wines that we tasted in southern AZ, and it wasn’t even close (Petit Verdot Buhl Memorial Vineyard was in particular was a great wine)
For northern AZ wineries, I give the award to Page Springs as I mentioned above.
We’ve been 1/2 time Sedona residents for a couple years now. I want to root for the upstarts, but they have lots of room for improvement.
There are basically 3 centers for tasting. The group near Cornville on Page Springs Road, the tasting rooms in Old Town Cottonwood, and tasting rooms up in Jerome. I agree with the previous posts about Page Springs Cellars. They are the best among that group. In Cottonwood, I’d recommend just walking down the main street and popping into whichever tasting room strikes your fancy. The ones in Jerome have highest tourist factor. YMMV.
The biggest issue I have with the wineries in that area is that they are mostly way overpriced for their quality. Not sure if they will mature to a more broadly competitive wine region, or just harvest the tourist trade. Time will tell.
We stayed in an airbnb over Spring Break in Cornville and hit up Page Springs one evening. Weather was nice and beautiful setting. We splurged for the reserve tasting and had some food. Can’t say I thought much of the wines, some were decent, some not drinkable, definitely pricey, but it is worth a visit if you are in the area. Learned quite a bit about AZ wine making areas, vineyards, etc.
We have visited the Page Springs site several times, good food and very scenic views. The wines available for tasting have declined over the last few years and the best bottlings are no longer poured. Probably sold out. Still worth a visit.
As an Arizona resident. I’ve tried 4 of 5 different AZ wines and they were all awful. First experience was at a resort in Sedona where there was a bottle in our room. My wife opened it before we went to dinner and it was god awful. They charged like $75 for it, think it was Cadueous figured it was like a $15 bottle marked up. Looked it up and it was like $55. We even tried some after dinner and it was just as bad. Went down the drain.
Yeah, I live in AZ as well and agree that the prices make it difficult to support the local wineries, but there are a handful that are at least decent. As Jen mentioned above, Callahan is definitley worth a try if you haven’t already. By far the best producer that I’ve found here (and I’ve tasted quite a few of them).
Just watched it last night, thanks for the heads up.
I really enjoyed it. Glomski started at David Bruce, huh. He’s the real deal and you can’t beat Keenan for intensity. He’s a really interesting, in a complex way, kind of guy. Probably fun to share a bottle with but the intensity would get old.
Suckling was a dick. LOL How many times did he mention he lives in Italy? 3 or 4 times in the 5 minutes he was featured so you know there were about 20 more references that ended up on the cutting room floor. It was great when he was tasting the Syrah/Malvasia and says to Maynard “yeah, this doesn’t work.” and Maynard says “yeah, I don’t care what you think. I like it.” Awesome.
BTW - one of the best AZ wines I’ve tasted was a 2015 Page Springs Cellars Malvasia Bianca Dos Padres Vineyards
Posted from CellarTracker
There is no such thing as a good Arizona winery
So you’ve tried them all? Very impressive! Would love to see all your tasting notes.
I’ve tried “some of the best” they are pretty bad and absurdly over priced.
I was in Phoenix recently, looking to grab some wines for a dinner one night. I stumbled across a little gem of a wineshop in downtown Phoenix a few blocks from the convention center called Hidden Track Bottle Shop. Small, thoughtful selection of inexpensive, small production / artisanal wines, mostly European, but also with a large selection of the better AZ wines. It’s a tiny place hidden inside a building with an attached cafe that fronts the street, like something you’d hope to find around Union Square in NYC or Capitol Hill in Seattle.
The owner was ducking between helping out in the cafe and tending the wine shop. Super nice guy, very knowledgable. He buys what he likes, in small quantities, so inventory changes frequently. For the AZ wines, he knows the owners and/or winemakers of the AZ wines he stocks and can discuss in detail. There are sales via a website, but only a fraction of what they have on the floor. I didn’t pick up any AZ wines, which I now regret because why not? - but took his recs on a half dozen Italian whites and reds I’d never seen before ($19-$53, all were good).
Well worth a stop if you’re ever in downtown Phoenix, esp if looking for AZ vino.
KGUN 9 Tucson News: Southern Arizona winery fighting to revive its vineyard.
The couple tried to do just that—ordering special Pierce’s Disease-resistant vines from a nursery in Bakersfield, California. That process began more than a year ago.
The vines finally arrived this month, but not before being delayed in transit. The couple says during that delay, the vines sat and baked in the Arizona heat, dying before they arrived at the winery.
The Hamiltons say they appear to be getting a refund, but a new order of the special vines won’t be available for delivery to them until 2024.
Anyone taste these wines?
I like FnB.
My uncle’s favorite restaurant until he was permanently suspended. Idiot.
as someone who lives in AZ, absolutely none. Terrible wines
I’ve been trying AZ wines since we moved here in 2007 and for the most part have been pretty disappointed. This past week we went up to Cottonwood to just chill and give the AZ north wine scene another go.
Bottom line is we found some eye-opening hits and a bunch of misses.
The good
VinoZona is a boutiquey shop in DT Cottonwood with outposts in Jerome and Sedona. They have a handful (10?) wines to try as a tasting from smaller winemakers or places without Cottonwood presence. As we learned through the tasting, the owner has a very Euro palate. Standouts (good enough that we bought some of each) for us were:
Pillsbury Wine Cellar
Sam Pillsbury is based in Willcox but has a tasting house (a really charming place) in Cottonwood, about 1 mile out of downtown. We sampled through 5 or 6 wines and 3 stood out for us
The average
Chateau Tumbleweed
Nice tasting room a few miles from DT on the side of a major roadway but strategic fencing and shrubs left us just viewing the beautiful valley. We tasted through 8 wines (white, rose, and red) and while they were all well made, there was a sameness and blandness to them. They were all ok but nothing worth buying.
The not so good
Burning Tree Cellars
There was a time that I found a few of their labels to be pretty decent. This tasting of 4 wines were all clunkers.
Tantrum
We tastes through 8 wines (white and red) with nothing memorable.
Merkin / Caduceus
MJK opened a new grand tasting room/ winery/vineyard / restaurant / gelato shop on a hill in DT Cottonwood. I’ve been to their Jerome tasting room a couple of times and the Scottsdale one as well and have tried through most of the Merkin lineup and many Caduceus wines over the years, only having found a couple of labels worth drinking. Many times I found the wines flawed.
The best thing I can say about this new place is that the views are stunning. We had a gloppy cacio e pepe and lifeless bruscetta along with a couple of truly horrid wines that we couldnt finish. One was an unholy alliance of tempranillo and barrique while the other was a special club release of unnamed grapes that was all jangly and disjointed. It’s a shame that his wines are what they are as he is the most visible spokesperson for all of AZ wine.
Bonus Hotel Recco
Tavern Hotel is just behind DT Cottonwood. Nicely furnished, spacious, quiet, and super comfortable. Highly recommended
Nice write up
Thanks for the writeup!
Looking at your pics made me realize what a small world it is sometimes. Our local cycling group does a weekly ride in the Cottonwood/Clarkdale area, and our meetup spot is literally in the parking lot in which you took the picture of the Tavern Hotel. Know that area well…
We’ve been following the construction of the “spaceship on the hill” facility since it began quite a while ago. Some folks in the wine world around here are excited about it’s opening. On the other hand, I think it’s really out of character with the general laid-back vibe of Old Cottonwood. But, hey, no one asked me… 
I keep wanting to root for the winemaking “home teams” around here, but it hasn’t been easy. As you observed many of the wines are either correctly made, but uninteresting – or flawed. But there seem to be new wineries popping up all over the place, so I hope things settle out. But my biggest critique is that even the decent wines seem to be grossly overpriced. It isn’t clear to me how much the wine industry up here will mature, grow, and generate better value – or whether they will simply tether themselves to the tourism industry, and milk the tourist dollar for what they can. I hope the former, but fear the latter.
My perception is that the overall quality and value of the wines from Southern AZ is higher than of the wines from up here in the Verde Valley. Folks like Callaghan and Pillsbury have been putting out some decent quality for a while now. I didn’t even realize Pillsbury had a tasting room in Cottonwood (though I must have driven right by it a bunch of times). Have to give it a try.
Nice to see that the VinoZona shops have turned into something interesting. A number of years ago, I visited the shop in Uptown Sedona and didn’t have a strong experience. Seemed very geared toward pushing wines to tourists. May have to revisit to see what’s going on there now.
Have you had the chance to taste at any of the wineries out on Page Springs Road recently?
Michael
Small world indeed! Ya, the “spaceship” has gotten rave reviews from the PHX valley press but man, that was the biggest disappointment of our visit. Not a surprise really, given past tastings but a shame nonetheless.
Pillsbury is on Willard St. Head south down Main and take a right after Bing’s then go about 1 mile. Cool place. Nice people, and from we heard, the food is really good too.
Havent gone out to Page Sprgs Rd nor did we hit so many other small wineries that don’t have that downtown presence. We wanted to try DA and Pierce but didnt have time. Far too many options for a 2 day visit. Any recommendations?
You are right on pricing. That is the biggest issue that has kept me from trying more AZ wine. Do I want a $40-50 AZ petite sirah or do I want a really solid CA syrah for $25-30 or even a good Crozes for similar? Heck, I just got a bunch of Reynavaan WA syrah for $30 and those are stellar. Callaghan is reasonably priced, Pillsbury is too. But aside from them the QPR isn’t too high, in general.
Also down south, I’ve also enjoyed Rune, Sand Reckoner, and Los Milics (Pavle Milic from FnB restaurant) wines. Dos Cabezas has a couple of good labels too. Haven’t visited any of those tasting rooms yet though.
1000% this. The Southern AZ wines are significantly better than the Cottonwood wines, almost as a general rule of thumb. And you nailed it with Callaghan. IMHO, they are producing the best wines in AZ…by a pretty huge margin.
Lots of wines from Milic from FnB. Never tried his stuff.
Very little from Dos Cabezas which I’ve found does quality wines.
