Best Indigenous Spirits
STAFF PICK: Southern Arizona winesSIGHT, SWIRL, SMELL, Sip and Savor. It's really all about language, this business of wine tasting. No doubt about it, wine inspires creative language. At a recent wine festival in Elgin, smack in the heart of Arizona's wine country, the cabernet sauvignon put the spin on the tongue. Each of the six of us used a different word to describe the taste of the grape.
Now, this is no concern for serious oenophiles, who have a highly specialized and elegant poetry, but it poses challenges for the average consumer who wants to say, "This is like magic" in universally understood wine language. We settled on musical descriptions for the wines we tasted. Some cabernets had strong bass notes with little or no high end. A certain sauvignon blanc was like a folk song: well-crafted and slightly sweet, more earthy than ambitious.
And how we were inspired! Many of the wines being created 50 miles southeast of Tucson range in quality from "drinkable" to "exceptional," with a high percentage in the "excellent" category. Several are now in demand by collectors.
Much has happened for wine in southern Arizona in the past decade. The Sonoita-Elgin region received official recognition from the feds as a viticultural (grape-growing) district in 1984. The Arizona Winegrowers Association was formed a few years later to advise the state on the wine business. And the Arizona Wine Commission, created in the early '90s, was charged with assisting Arizona winemakers with marketing and distribution. One of their long range goals is to increase sales of Arizona wines from the current market share of less than one-half of 1 percent to at least 5 percent of all wines sold in the state.
Excitement runs high when talking with the growers and vintners of the area. According to Tucson wine enthusiast and self-confessed "wine evangelist" Jon Rogers, all four of the crucial factors for winemaking are present in Sonoita's 350-400 acres of vineyards: soil, climate, grape variety and human commitment.
Indeed, the folks at the area's eight wineries are passionate and articulate about their love for the craft. Robert W. "Bob" Webb, owner of the R.W. Webb Winery, opened the first winery in Arizona in 1980 and has actively promoted Arizona wines ever since. The "godfather" of the Sonoita vines, Gordon Dutt, owner of Sonoita Vineyards and Winery, planted the first experimental vineyard in Sonoita in 1973 based on his studies as a soil scientist at the University of Arizona and has been releasing wines since 1983.
Susan and Tom Brady, owners of Terra Rossa Vineyards and unofficial "spokespersons" for the industry, have produced premium wines and clearly understand the industry's economics. The owner and vintner of the Callaghan Vineyards, Kent Callaghan, has brought world-wide recognition to Arizona wines with his inclusion in a list of the 26 "wine heroes" of 1994 published in The Wine Advocate. There are others, but you'll have to find them yourselves.
Probably the best (and most fun) way to expose yourself to a variety of southern Arizona wines is to attend one of the regular wine festivals. In Elgin you can attend either the "Blessing of the Vine Festival" in April or the "Harvesting of the Vine Festival" in August, where you can taste and buy wines directly from area winemakers--and sometimes even stomp the grapes. Along with the vino, there's always music and food included with the cost of admission--and you get to take home your tasting glass.
The Sonoita Vineyards and Winery offers a "Cabernet Release Festival" in November; their Cabernet Sauvignon has received excellent reviews since 1984. You may also attend the annual Southern Arizona Exposition in July, or sign up for winery tours with a knowledgeable guide such as Jon Rogers (Wines Without the Mystery), or just get bold and call the vineyards or wineries directly.
So there we were at the end of the wine festival, having tasted perhaps eight different wines (both reds and whites) and we still couldn't decide what to call that cabernet sauvignon: a Rolling Stones concert or a Dvorak symphony. We bought five bottles and agreed to leave the lingo up to the experts
--Carol Anderson
