No Place for Whiners

new respect but weather a vintage bad year NO PLACE FOR WHINERS

NOVEMBER 25, 2006...

The vines look tired. The gnarled limbs stretch out like prizefighters reaching for the supporting shoulders of others after a tough fight. They had one, these vines, the vintage year 2006.

A few yards away, Kent Callaghan sits on a bench. He planted those vines on his 20 acres in Elgin, 55 miles southeast of Tucson. He harvested a few weeks ago and has some time to wait before he knows the real results. He can, however, speculate.

"Interesting," he says of the possible end product. For many people, "interesting" has a tinge of faint praise at best, a striving to avoid the social bugaboo of being negative. However, when Kent Callaghan says "interesting," people should, and do, listen. He and his vines have made some fine wine.

The wines of The Callaghan Vineyards, a family operation started in 1988, have earned 27 favorable nods in 10 years from famed wine critic Robert M. Parker Jr. His influence extends far beyond the wineproducing borders of the United States, due to the impact of his bimonthly consumer guide, The Wine Advocate. Which means: They know about Callaghan in France. The names of other Arizona wine growers may not have reached such lofty heights, but they're working on it.

From the start of their fledgling industry, the dozen or so Arizona growers had that proverbial hard row to hoe. First of all, who believed it would be possible to produce a wine that's drinkable, much less notable,in Arizona? Too much heat, too much desert, too little Napa, Bordeaux or Tuscany. A crisp pinot gris from the land of the saguaro? A silky merlot? Never.

Wrong, said Dr. Gordon Dutt who came to Arizona in 1964 after learning about wine at the University of California Davis. He was "flabbergasted" that no one grew wine grapes in Arizona. A Ph.D. in soil physical chemistry, Dutt believed it could be done and decided, "I am going to put my money where my mouth is."

His Sonoita Vineyards now cover 30 acres. A bottle of his 1984 Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon carries a price tag of $100. Thousands of people show up every year for tours, tastings and annual events like the Blessing of the Vines held in April. At the first blessing in 1979, a double rainbow appeared over the ceremony.

From Dutt's standpoint on a hill above his vines, nature offered far more than a colorful portent of the future. Southeastern Arizona had the climate, the almost endless sunshine for photosynthesis and cool nights to ensure good sugar content. The elevation also allowed for relatively cool days, even with all that sun.

"Just like Burgundy," Dutt says.

Callaghan likens his land to parts of Spain, Australia and central California. From his vineyard, the goldcolored grasslands roll to the horizon. Windmills and cattle-holding pens bespeak the land's ranching history. “This is not a desert,” he says.

FROM THE START OF THEIR FLEDGLING INDUSTRY, THE DOZEN OR SO ARIZONA GROWERS HAD THAT PROVERBIAL HARD ROW TO HOE.

You don't need to take a trip down State Route 83 to Sonoita and Elgin to see that, although, it is certainly worth the trip. Stretches of this road feel like a lush oil painting-rolling land, soft and high, golden, too, and dotted with greenery.

Head east down the back roads toward the Chiricahua Mountains where other vineyards have taken hold. At elevations higher than 4,000 feet, the land has been receptive to the vines. Rod Keeling and Jan Schaefer chose this area for their KeelingSchaefer Vineyards, founded in 2000.

Their first harvest in 2005 produced 9.5 tons of grapes from 18.5 acres, resulting in 400 cases of wine. Neither of them had been involved in growing wine grapes before. In fact, they spent their careers in offices, in nonprofit and government work. Purchasing a vineyard came with their plans for a life after retirement.

Many may dream of the romance of owning a vineyard, those chatty late afternoons on the patio sipping your own wine with the scent of the Rhone Valley of France drifting on the breeze. The reality takes place out back. As Schaefer likes to say, “Good wine is made in the vineyard.” Creating that vineyard from sandy red soil up takes time, hands-on labor and know-how.

Dr. Michael Kilby spent his career as a specialist in horticulture at the University of Arizona, and early on saw the potential of wine grapes in Arizona. Today, he advises growers and those who would like to join their ranks. “You've got to educate your-self, and you've got to have money,” he says.

According to Kilby, the cost of preparing, planting and tending the vines over a three-year period can run $20,000 an acre. That does not include the cost of the land, nor have you yet harvested as much as one skinny grape.

Keeling did have an edge over other first-timers, since his family has farmed in Arizona for three generations. On the other hand, Callaghan came to the industry armed with a degree in philosophy-an edge of his own. Being philosophical can't hurt when it comes to dealing with wine, especially During the year that produced the wines of 2006. Forget seeing a rainbow at the beginning of this season. These folks were too busy looking for rain.Down in Elgin, any winter with 6 to 8 inches of rain would be fantastic, but they got less than 2. A dry winter can cause an erratic budbreak. The buds come in weeks apart, and the subsequent grapes also ripen weeks apart, a harvesting nightmare.

As Charron Vineyards owner Leo Cox puts it, “A lethal combination.” Hungry deer ate the leaves and left the grapes unprotected from hammering hailstones.

Callaghan had his own hail problems, three times over the summer, the latest on September 10.

“Horrible timing,” he says, “because everything is soft then.” Summer 2006 brought the threat of something tiny but ferocious, the glassy-eyed sharpshooter. “Insect Menaces State's Vineyards,” warned headlines in Tucson's Arizona Daily Star. The bug could carry Pierce's dis-ease, a bacteria, from one plant to another, from one vine to another. While the bugs did not seem to be having an imme-diate impact, the need to study and control them called for more money. To add insult to possible infestation, nature dealt southern Arizona a relatively mild summer. Desert-dwellers loved the balmy change, but not so the grape growers. The grapes required sunny heat as part of the conditions impacting the sugar content that would later become alcohol. They also needed to ripen.

While the wine growers' year would never reach the level of the saga of Job, it certainly moved into an arena Noah would have recognized. The much-awaited summer rains arrived late. What they lacked in timeliness, they more than made up for in muscle. In the Tucson area, floods hit as roads closed, homes flooded and television cameras rolled.

The nearby Chiricahua Mountains got drenched by 11.5 inches of rain, and bunchrot, a fungus, afflicted the Keeling-Schaeffer syrah grapes. The streams flowed for weeks. Down in Elgin, Callaghan had expected about 3 inches. He got 14, plus rot and CREATING THAT VINEYARD FROM SANDY RED SOIL UP TAKES TIME, HANDS-ON LABOR AND KNOW-HOW.

They showed up at the Charron Vineyards near Bowie for help in stemming and crushing the vineyard's first harvest. They produced less than 30 gallons of juice. “It could be the most expensive wine we ever drink,” owner Leo Cox called out. One can surmise the quality will not match the price, not yet. Things do change in wine country. In the past few years, some national magazines and newspapers have given approving nods to southeastern Arizona vineyards. The wines have earned ribbons and a place on some of the best linen-covered tables, including the White House's. A homegrown pinot gris 2000 from the Dos Cabezas Wineworks made that trip to Washington, D.C., in 2002. The vines that produced that wine stand on land between the Chiricahuas and the Dragoons. You can't get more Arizona than that. As for all those who still pooh-pooh the very idea of good Arizona wine, Gordon Dutt has a few words. “So opinionated that they can't really taste,” he says. The comment has the spicy nose of a good Arizona petit verdot, the earthy sense of a fine Arizona cabernet sauvignon and a bit of the long finish of an outstanding Arizona syrah. Like the man said, “Interesting.” All infections. He lost his zinfandel harvest. “I didn't even pick it,” he says. Waiting for the right moment to harvest meant putting off the vineyard's usual October harvest until November. He brought in about one ton per acre. He would have liked two. So it ended, the vintage year of 2006. Yee haw. But wait a minute. Farmers do. They wait and see. And, what they've seen in southeastern Arizona doesn't look all that bad. In a year of cool weather when it should be warm, dry when it should be wet, a deluge when you want sun, wine growers still planted about 400 acres with an estimated production of more than 20,000 cases of wine. While many of the resulting bottles may not earn award-winning swirling, sniffing, sipping and spitting distinction at tastings, some undoubtedly will. The Keeling-Schaefer Vineyards have three wines to offer willing palates: the Two Reds Grenache 2005, the Three Sisters Syrah 2005 and the Rock Creek Rosé 2005. A successful 2006 harvest produced 29 barrels of syrah and Grenache, which are resting in the cellar. Callaghan says of his 2006 offerings, “They're much more European, earthy, meaty.” He seems particularly positive about his new red, C2, a blend of mourvedre, syrah and petite sirah. Of course, some first-timers had it rough, like those who Kathleen Walker of Tucson now adds fine wines to the long list of reasons she loves the land of southeastern Arizona. "Wildly surprised" best describes photographers Don B. and Ryan B. Stevenson's reactions upon sampling a variety of Arizona's wines during the six months they photographed for this story. The father-and-son photography team is based in Tempe.