Welcome to the best “team building” activity ever!! First thing was to find an experienced, responsible designated driver with access to a vehicle large enough to accommodate eight people. [also, being easy on the eyes would not be a bad thing either!! Hahaha] Clearly, my Shawn is the man for the job but hmmm.. a party bus? Maybe a Limo? Ohhh.. what about a balloon chase van? Big thanks to our buddy, Taylor Aldous who graciously lent us his big, beautiful van!!!
Second thing was to get all of us girls matching WTF shifts!! [wine tasting friends, pictured below… the boys were not interested. LOL] Excuse the poor photo quality, I could only find a video that I tried to get photos from. I don’t recall making much of an itinerary, I think we just picked a day, met at the predetermined time, all got in the big beautiful van, and figured things out once we made it to town. I didn’t know that Cottonwood, AZ was once a bootlegging and mining town, or that it is now considered Arizona’s "Napa Valley." [I mean... I barely even knew about Napa Valley at this point, or what it represented]
The Verde Vally Wine Trail is gigantic, with many wineries that spread over serval towns. For this trip, we focused on wineries located in downtown Cottonwood, on both sides of main street. [89A] Since I have no recollection of where all we went [because I know we visited more than just the three tasting rooms that I’m going to talk about] or in which order we visited them I will be starting our trip with Pillsbury Winery, which was started by Sam Pillsbury. He is a New Zealand filmmaker who came to Arizona to make his dreams of owning a winery come true.
He planted the first vines for Pillsbury wines in Wilcox, AZ in the year 2000 and just six years later, Sam opened an auxiliary tasting room in Cottonwood, AZ. [pictured below] It was a pretty and comfortable little tasting room, and the sommelier was very accommodating. The thing I remember most about this stop, was that my entire tasting consisted of the same wine. [at the heckling of my more experienced wine drinking co-workers] They only had one sweeter wine, so I asked to have that same wine for all three of my pours!! Haha!! I thoroughly enjoyed every glass!!
Next stop [as far as I can tell from my poorly documented photos] was Burning Tree Cellars. [see awesome photo below… HA] The winery was founded in 2007 by Mitch Levy, who acted as general manager, and Corey Turnbull, the winemaker and visionary behind Burning Tree. Even though the tasting room was almost twice the size of the other wineries it still gave off relaxed and homey vibes. I do not remember a lot about their wines, but what I do remember is… sitting at a large round table while playing a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity!! I cannot remember who won, because who really wins with this game anyways!?
The end of 2023, also brought with it the end of Burning Tree Cellars. Do not fear, the winery just needed to rearrange the furniture. They are still located in the same wonderful building, but if you exit Mr. Levy, add Corey’s wife, [Hayley Meyer] and execute a winery rebranding… what do you get!? Rubrix Wines!! Rubrix is a fusion of the words Rubric [as a rule or tradition] and Brix. [used to measure sugar content] I am very interested in heading back to Cottonwood to visit Rubrix, it would kinda feel like going to a whole new winery, don't you think!?
Alcantara [pictured below] was our last stop as the day was getting long and our time was running out. [if I remember correctly, our chauffeur was also getting somewhat antsy and maybe just a little bit sick of all of us!!] I remember thinking this was the most beautiful winery that we had visited today. Alcantara opened in 2004 and is an actual family owned and run vineyard. They offer many activities in addition to sitting on their beautiful back lawn to sip wine and eat yummy accompaniments. I have participated in several of these events, and I will happily tell you all about them in a later blog!! [when I go more into depth about Alcantara!!]
It was late afternoon by now and we were all getting a little "wined" out. I didn’t even remember that we stopped at Alcantara on our Cottonwood wine tour [even though I've been here more than a few times since, it just never rang a bell until now] I attribute the reason to my palate... it is still being pulled over to the sweeter side, and I didn’t remember anything on the wine list that truly appealed to me. [todays palate would strongly disagree!! LOL] I guess maybe I dismissed them from my mind??
It is funny to me how the palate develops, expands, and changes over time. I read somewhere that "anyone can learn to taste wine" and that "taking the time to develop your palate is probably one of the most enjoyable ongoing endeavors!!" They recommend ordering flights to compare and taste different varieties side by side, or to get some friends together to taste several wines at all at once. [and I have always loved doing my "homework" Haha]
Up to this point I've done numerous paint and wine sessions, all by myself... [don't wanna be, all by myself... anymore!! Hehe] that were conducted in the studio setting. Next week please join Wine with Wixy as the paint and wine comes to us!? I will be visiting the lovely home of my girl, Aimee Aldous, and painting with a room full of friends, instead of strangers!!
Cheers to you my wine loving friends, and TTFN!!
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