Spring Tempe Festival of the Arts-goers can sip, sample, and savor local Arizona wine at the Arizona Wine Growers Association’s Arizona Wine Festival, this weekend, March 25-27. Twelve Arizona wineries will showcase their wines and offer tastings, along with sales by the glass, bottle, or case. The wine festival has an admission of $12 that includes six tastings and a commemorative wine glass.

The Arizona Wine Festival will be located on 7th Street, just west of Mill Avenue in Tempe, AZ. The festival is the perfect opportunity for partakers to sample and purchase Arizona wine.

The 2011 Spring Tempe Festival of the Arts features more than 400 fine artists and crafts persons displaying and selling their original work amid a street festival atmosphere in Tempe’s Mill Avenue District. The event is the largest festival of its kind in Arizona, hosting as many as 225,000 festival visitors. It consistently ranks among the top 20 festivals in the nation. The event also includes the Festival Jazz Stage, live entertainment, street performers, sports exhibits, Kids Innovation Station, and fun festival food. Sponsored by the Arizona Wine Growers Association.

Arizona wines are growing in stature and have been served at the White House. In 2010, Arizona wines were poured at three separate esteemed James Beard House dinners. More than 20 wines from eight Arizona wineries have scored at least an 88 rating from Wine Spectator.

Arizona Wine Festival at CataVinos promises great wines and good times

First Arizona Wine Festival in Tucson

CataVinos Wine Shoppe & Tasting Room  is introducing Arizona-produced wines at the first ever Arizona Wine Festival in Tucson on Sunday, April 3, 2011, from 2:00pm-5:00pm. Ten Arizona winemakers will be pouring their finest—if you haven’t tasted Arizona wines for awhile, come out and be pleasantly surprised! Cost is $15/person; receive $5 off with purchase of over $50, and $15 off with the purchase of a case. For more information about the event call CataVinos at 323-3063.

Mark your calendars…plan to enjoy some mighty fine wines. Cheers.

Sunday night, August 15, proved devastating for our Elgin/Sonoita region grape-growers. For many, a horrible hail storm took out the majority of the 2010 crop.
First post on Facebook by Ann Roncone, Lightning Ridge Cellars: “Coming up on 11:30 Sunday night and the rain/storm coming up from the south is hitting us aplenty in Vail, AZ. Why are my weeds so much healthier than my plants?”
Kief Manning of Kief Joshua Vineyards chimed in, “Farming grrrrr! Life would be great if it weren’t for the weather.”
The reports began pouring in. Joan Mueller, Canelo Hills Vineyard posted, “3-inches in the gauge. Massive destruction of the vineyard.”
Kent Callaghan of Callaghan Vineyards defined the damage. “95% of leaf area is gone and most fruit sliced and diced … At least the ravens love it.”
Manning reacts, “… madder than a dog poopin’ peach seeds. Most of our fruit and leaves are now laying in piles on the ground, after the golf ball size hail and gale force winds … GRRRRR!”
Mother Nature can be so fickle. Rancone tells me, “As it happens, we didn’t take on the damage that Kent and others did Sunday night. Talk about monsoon ‘devastation’ taking on a finite/defined area-of-damage. We’re about a mile-and-a-half west of Kent and didn’t get anywhere near the damage that he and others got.”
Prayers and support have poured in from wine lovers all over. Perhaps Arizona Grape Escapes said it best, “Thoughts and prayers go out to all the vineyard managers in the Sonoita/Elgin area. Please help us support these folks by buying local wines from Dos Cabezas WineWorks, Kief-Joshua Vineyards, Kent Callaghan, Canelo Hills, Lightning Ridge Cellars, Rancho Rossa, Wilhelm Family, Charron, The Village of Elgin, and Sonoita Vineyards.”
Only last week, the same wineries were counting the days to harvesting their crops. Now it’s a massive clean-up in the vineyards. Would be a great time to be a raven?

Have a wine-related question, event, suggestion, or comment? Email me at pourmesomegrapes@gmail.com.

Crop Circle Winery Tasting Room, Willcox, AZ

Crop Circle Vineyard & Winery tasting room opens

Jim Wiskerchen invites everyone to visit the reopened Crop Circle Vineyard & Winery tasting room in Willcox. The room features wines from over a dozen of the top Arizona wineries from around the state.

Willcox is still a very rustic, small town but makes for a delightful road trip and having a break from the Tucson heat is also a treat. After tasting (or before) you can head on over to Apple Annie’s; I hear that the peaches are in season and ripe for the picking.

The tasting room will be open Saturdays & Sundays from 10:00 AM till 5:00 PM.  Located at 3052 N. Fort Grant Rd , Willcox, Arizona. For more information: (520)384-3022, My Wine Helper.Com.

Waiting for Verasion

Verasion is an important process that is watched closely by grape-growers everywhere who are busy trying to plan for harvest. According to Kent Callaghan of Callaghan Vineyards, verasion is really just a berry softening and slight color change in whites. In reds, it’s noted when the berries go from green to red to black. Each case is associated with increasing sugar accumulation in the berry.

In California, after relatively cool weather in July, the grapes are ripening a little behind schedule. Cooler weather has lingered through the summer in the Napa Valley. July and August were 5.9 degrees below average, which is a dramatic deviation from the norm. Now, the grapes are about two weeks to 10 days behind schedule. A later harvest means more chance of rain, which poses risks of mold if viticulturists aren’t careful. But never fear, many nice wines were produced in cool-weather years like 2005.

The weather patterns have certainly been different for grape-growers in the Sonoita/Elgin region this year. A wet and wonderful spring, marred by an April 30 overnight freeze, and a strong Monsoon season thusfar have blessed this year’s crops. As Kief Manning of the Kief Joshua Winery facebooked this week, “Getting closer to harvest every day. Soon the fun starts (and the sleep stops).”

Lightning Ridge launches 2008 Estate Resonance

Lightning Ridge Cellars in Elgin bottled their 2008 Estate Resonance on July 13. This full-bodied blend of 50% Mourvedre, 40% Syrah, and 10% Counoise is complex and memorable.  Ann and Ron Roncone, winemakers, allowed us the pleasure of tasting the Resonance after the Grape Stomp race last month; I definitely planning to go back and get a few bottles now that it’s been launched and labeled.

Canelo Hills Winery to get a makeover

We all know what goodness lies inside of the Canelo Hill’s Winery tasting room, but the winery’s  New York City design team thinks the exterior front corral could use a makeover. Designers Rhian Swierat and Ian Mueller will be jetting out mid-August to start the work. Watch for progress reports in future Pour Me Some Grapes blogs.

Planning a wine event? Have a wine you’d like me to review? Is there some wine-related question that you’re dying to have answered? Drop me an email at pourmesomegrapes@gmail.com and I’ll see what I can do! Cheers.