Welcome back to Arizona, the home of my heart. Once in a while you visit a place that just speaks to you, and Jerome, AZ speaks to me in volumes. It’s a walk around little town, rich in history that is about an hour and a half north of Phoenix. Not only is this a beautiful little town nestled in the mountain side, but it also has 6 wine tasting rooms!! Needless to say, I have visited this town [and taken many visitors with me] many times over the years!! If you add to Jerome, the wineries/tasting rooms of its neighboring towns... Cottonwood, Cornville, and Sedona... and you will have the Valley Verde Wine Trail. [I will be writing about each town in more depth at later dates!!]
A few of the wine tasting rooms have changed over the years, and [if you can believe it.. haha] I have been to them all!! Passion Cellars, Four Eight Wineworks, Coronado Vineyards, Caduceus Cellars, and Vino Zona are the ones that quickly come to mind as the tasting rooms I have frequented most recently. [I'll touch on each on briefly] A few of the wineries have joined up forces or were bought out, but are still owned under the same winery… keeping their original labels. I would think this makes it pretty confusing when it comes to picking up your wine club. HA!! Anyways, the drive to and the town of Jerome is totally worth visiting, [in my opinion] even without all the wineries within walking distance!!
Passion Cellars was the first tasting room I visited after walking around town on that first visit. I would say it is probably my favorite winery in Jerome!! The wines are unique and delicious for sure, but they have a great location and I love the views from their outside patio. Passion Cellars happens to be one of those hard to follow labels I mentioned above. Owned by Jason Domanico, Passion Cellars was a seed planted in 2012, through another winery Jason owns called Salvatore Vineyards. Jason soon acquired a New Zealand winery called Cabal Cellars, so Passion Cellars is part of [what I'm going to call] his winery trio!!
Back in 2018, my favorite cousin, Joyce Bradford, came to visit me in Arizona and we took a day-trip up to Jerome!! Joyce [who is 2 days younger than me... IYKYK!! Hahaha] and I have a lot of history growing up, and we love to continue making new memories. I was very proud and honored that when I took her to Passion Cellars, she participated in her first ever wine tasting experience!! [See photo below] She found one she really liked so we bought a bottle to bring home with us!! Sadly, I think they have stopped making it. I guess wines change up too, just like fashion or gas prices!! Haha!! When you visit any one of the winery trio tasting rooms, they have flights available from each of the three cellars. It is amazing to me how different the wines taste from each winery.
Four Eight Wineworks was one of the next places I stopped by, and it may have the most interesting history. "Four Eight" was chosen to honor Arizona, you know with it being the 48th state and all. The more interesting part is that if was founded in 1912, after a cloak-and-dagger interchange took place between some of the currently running state politicians, and extraterrestrial [E.T.’s] visitors who were seeking asylum in Jerome. I am not kidding you.. I mean you can’t even make this stuff up!! Do you believe!?
In short, Verde Valley agreed to grant the E.T.’s the asylum they wanted in exchange for the use of their memory replacement technology, better known as the "Neuralyzer." It goes without saying that the politicians wanted to use the Neuralyzer so they could "persuade" the world into believing that California was the best choice for growing grapes. “Truth, when forged in the fires of emotion, can swell and loom over fact…” Things that make you go hmmmm... Four Eight Wineworks was and continues to be ground zero for these clandestine exchanges with the E.T.’s!! [you can see two of them pictured below!! Bahahaha!!]
Obviously, I am just kidding about us being E.T.'s!! [or am I?! Hahaha!!] This is actually Amy Hollander from KC, a very good fellow travel nurse friend of mine!! We met while both on an assignment at UW [University of Washington, in Seattle] going on about six years ago, and we become immediate friends!! We still remain quite close, and we try to see each other whenever it’s possible!! [you will definitely see her again in the future!!]
Amy and I also visited and loved Coronado Vineyards. We not only enjoyed the wine, which was served with chocolates, there was a fun vibe in the tasting room. The icing had to be Chile, the Jack Russel terrier that is featured on their labels, and the resident vineyard dog!! Sadly, since our visit the Jerome tasting room has closed, but they are still in Wilcox, and I actually met Chile at a local wine festival!!
Moving on [cause so many wineries... so little time!! Hehe] to Caduceus Cellars. Founded in 2003, by Maynard James Keenan, the lead singer of the rock band Tool. He is a family descendent of Northern Italian winemakers, and owns and operates the cellars that are buried in a 3000 square foot bunker along the slopes of Jerome!! He also owns Merkin Vineyards, and he has multiple sites across Arizona, including six in Verde Valley alone. I always find out a little tidbit of interesting information every time I visit one of these locations!! A story about how a particular wine got it's unique name, or some kind of weird/wonderful thing Maynard did on his last visit.
I didn’t realize that Vino Zona was going to become my favorite Sedona winery when we were visiting their location in Jerome!! [I will go into more detail about Vino Zona in a future post.] I know you can’t really tell, but trust me when I say that the little hand that is photobombing my "WINE" photo belongs to non-other than the hilarious Andrea White. My travel friend whom you “met” a couple weeks ago when we were at The Winery at the Holy Cross Abbey!!
All in all Jerome is a great place for a fun day trip wether or not you are into drinking wine!! On to next week... Art and Wine Festival... sounds kinda fancy but has a nice ring to it, don't ya think!? Come on back as Wine with Wixy tries to get cultured!! HA!!
Cheers to you my wine loving friends, and TTFN!!
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