Escapees January-February 2023

skp stops

Vineyard And Mustang Mountains - Elgin, Arizona. PHOTO COURTESY OF IMAGESBYTK.COM

Elgin Road The main concentration of wineries in this area is along Elgin Road. This road cuts through the grassland, leading you to eight vineyards with rolling hills and mountains in the background. Unlike the traf fi c and push of seemly unending people of California’s Napa Valley, visiting this area has a feeling of calm. There are no crowds, no heavy traf fi c, only you sitting outside with a glass of wine, watching the wind form waves in the tall grass and listening to the distant sound of thunder of an afternoon monsoon storm. During our visit, we spent time at two of Arizona’s award-winning vineyards, Flying Leap Vineyards & Distillery and Callaghan Winery. Flying Leap Vineyards & Distillery Flying Leap is a committed team of Arizona family farmers, skilled winemakers and artisan distillers, and a team of passionate wine and spirits retail merchants. Flying Leap is also a full-service, direct distributor of its wines and spirits portfolio to on and off-premise whole sale customers. Growing a vast portfolio of French, Spanish and Italian winegrapes at their vineyards in southern and southeastern Arizona, they produce a delicious array of ultra-premium wines and distilled spirits from their harvests.

Callaghan Winery Callaghan Winery is family owned and operated. Founded in 1990, Callaghan Vineyards is on a mission to produce some of the world’s best wines. Kent Callaghan writes, “Most of our time is spent working in the vineyard. Any discussion with any serious wine producer in the world is always dominated by viticultural details and the weather patterns of any given vintage. Wine potential is determined in the vineyard. So our winemaking approach is decidedly simplistic –no gizmos, lots of barrels (new to fi fteen years old) aging on the lees and little racking. Since our fi rst vintage in 1991, our wines have received accolades from the most respected wine writers and publications in the world, including Robert Parker: Decanter , Karen MacNeil: Oz Clarke, and Tom Stevenson: The Wall Street Journal .” The number of awards for Callaghan Vineyards is quite long. Besides the long list of awards, their wines have been served at the White House four times. If you go: Kartchner Caverns State Park is only 25 miles from Elgin road along Hwy 90. If you are a Harvest Host member, Sonoita Vineyards allows up to three nights’ stays. You can also “go back in time” by visiting Tomb stone, only 35 miles east via Hwy 82. By Keith Peters #127810

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January/February 2023 ESCAPEES Magazine