Happy New Year!!! I trust you all had a wonderful holiday season filled with magic and well… wine!! [Hahaha] Now, let's get back to work!! I need y'all to go back in time with me a few weeks… I'm hoping you remember when I wrote about the Jerome wineries. [about the little AZ town that stole my heart??] Our visit to Passion Cellars is what brought me here, to the Salvatore Winery this week. I learned of their tasting room, located in Old Town Scottsdale from the wonderful ladies at Passion Cellars when we [Shawn, my cousin Joyce, and I] were in Jerome!!
It is owned by Jason Domanico, and Salvatore is one/third of Jason’s wineries that I aptly named the winery trio a couple weeks ago!! [LOL] If you recall, I also mentioned that this trio of wineries each kept their own wine label and that they were somewhat hard to follow. I had a slight challenge trying to learn the actual history of these wineries. You see, no matter which winery website I tried to look up for more information, it always took me to the exact same place, the exact same website!! [which honestly doesn’t have a lot of information about anything… ugh!!]
What I did glean was this... Domanico Family Wines got their start in 2012, with the Salvatore Winery and label. The Salvatore wine label features a Sicilian crest [A woman's face with three legs and grape clusters] and a Calabria crest, [consisting of two crosses] combining these regions in Italy where the Domanico family had deep roots. Jason named the winery after his grandfather, Salvatore Ligammari. [Awwww!!!] Salvatore merged with Cabal Wine Cellars in this same year, and the Cabal wine labels each feature a different historical event. [We will discuss this more in my Cabal Cellars blog at a later date.] Jason established the final addition to the trio, Passion Cellars in 2013.
Shawn and I went to Old Town Scottsdale for the first time to visit the Salvatore tasting room. [Pictured above.. you can see the sign top left, over the horse fountain!!] This is one of the places where you can pick which wine flight you want to do from any of the wine labels. [Salvatore, Passion, or Cabal] Since I had already done a Passion Cellars wine flight, and I was in fact at the Salvatore tasting room, I decided to do the Salvatore tasting. [Which they referred to as their "premium wines" tasting, thus making it a little more expensive] The flight itself was not too much more expensive, but you could really see an increase in the prices per bottle.
I am going to be brutally honest here. As excited as I was to visit this tasting room, [I mean Scottsdale is a whole lot closer to home than Jerome] and knowing how much I loved the Passion Cellar wines… I have to say that I was not overly impressed. I must point out though, that I am still sporting my "baby" wine tastebuds at this stage, and maybe they were a little too big, bold, and/or dry for me. Also, the tasting room has a cigar lounge right next door, and the smoke plums coming in through the open windows made trying to relax and enjoy the experience a little difficult.
On a more positive note... I did learned about the "Scottsdale Wine Loop" while I was here!! Apparently there a quite few other tasting rooms in Old Town Scottsdale, so we went on to visit a couple of them, I mean while we were walking around anyways. Haha Everything was pretty much within walking distance to the horse fountain, and where we were parked. It was a very beautiful, enjoyable day!! Can you just see the wine networking taking place here!? I love the support and camaraderie of this wine community and the way they promote each other!!
I clearly wanted to give Salvatore the benefit of the doubt... I have photographic evidence of multiple trips with various friends to revisit the Salvatore tasting room. [Even though I did the Passion Cellars tasting flight while we were there!! LOL] I am sure by now you may recognize my beautiful wine tasting assistant [Haha] Aimee!! We have gone on so many wine adventures together, and I love to look back and reminisce!!
Next week, Wine with Wixy will be back in Colorado Springs!! I'm pretty excited to share with you a small peak into the makings of a small batch of wine!! "Fermentations" is probably my most favorite summer long projects that I have ever tackled!! [I'd have to say one of the tastiest ones too!! Haha]
Cheers to you my wine loving friends, and TTFN!!
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