A Southwestern Bacchanal

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It's festival time in the vineyards Swirl, sniff, sip, spit. This is the protocol followed by serious oenophiles at wine tastings. One swirls the dainty sample of wine in the glass to release its nose, then sniffs, then sips, studiously weighing its import on the olfactory and gustatory senses, and finally ejects it into a bucket. This fourth step is essential so that repeated tastings do not impair one's memory or critical faculties. Well, not at an Arizona wine festival. Hardly anyone swirls or sniffs. Some sip. No one spits; it would be a breach of protocol, a crime against the natural order of things.

The samples are far from dainty; they're so generous that if you were to make a thorough round of all the offerings, you would become - not to put too fine a point on this plastered. The food provided is hardly the classic unsalted crackers and mild cheese; we are more likely to cleanse the palate with garlic, onion, jalapeños, and sautéed rattlesnake.

I'm spending the day at the Blessing of the Vine festival in Elgin, 60 miles southeast of Tucson. I notice a fellow oenophile sipping a cabernet between bites of peppers and machaca, spicy Mexican shredded beef. "Let me know," I say, "if you've found a wine that'll stand up to jalapeños; I've been looking for one."

"Budweiser," he snorts.

You get the picture: the annual wine festivals in Arizona, starring the grapes from the state's young but growing wine industry, are hardly about serious tasting and evaluation. They're pure recreation - an excuse to party in a convivial, scenic setting. Somewhere in the background is a commercial objective, which is to promote Arizona wines.

"I think this is one of the premier wine growing regions in the country," he says.

The reasons are the soil, the climate, and the city of Phoenix, 160 miles to the northwest. The soil around Sonoita is of the composition called terra rossa, which is acidic. It helps avert root rot. Late summer in Sonoita, elevation 4,865 feet, brings days in the low 90s and nights in the low 60s. Those cool nights, Brady says, retard the ripening of the grapes and develop their varietal character. Then there's the rain. The rolling grassland around Sonoita, traditional ranching country, enjoys 22 inches a year, three times Phoenix's annual average. And Phoenix helps potentially because it is the nation's 14th-largest market for wine.

By 1993 Arizona had 380 acres of vineyards, seven commercial wineries, and several annual festivals to celebrate the grape. Brady predicts that by the end of the decade we'll have 25 wineries. We may never have wine snobbery.

It's almost one o'clock, time for the Blessing of the Vine festival in Elgin. Webb and Dutt, the high priests of Arizona wine, put on sackcloth robes and cinch them with frayed ropes. They look like monks. Webb's sneakers and white socks peek out from under the robe. "This is crazy," he says.

Two real Catholic priests and a Lutheran minister begin leading a procession from the town's chapel. They clamber unceremoniously into the bed of a pickup and are driven a couple of miles to Dutt's vineyard. The whole festival, some 100 of us, follows.

At the vineyard we form a pedestrian processional. We walk through the grapevines following the clergymen and a trumpeter in shorts and a pink plaid shirt blowing a jazzy arrangement of "When the Saints Go Marchin' In." By the third chorus, we're all serenading the heavens. Did I say this was informal? Yes, we've already tasted a wine or three.

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Overlooking the vineyard, Father Gregory Adolph leads a short but serious service of prayer to bless the crop and sprinkles the vines with holy water. Then we follow him to the winery. "Let's bless some vats," he says to the crowd, "and enjoy the rest of the party."

Later I ask him if this isn't a bit informal for a sacrament. "Not at all," he replies. "Wine is the symbol of gladness and rejoicing in the Old Testament. And we use this wine for Eucharist at our parish. So we bless the vineyard for gladdening all tables but especially the Lord's table."

We rumble back to downtown Elgin (population nine) for an afternoon of gladness and rejoicing. All the wines are from Arizona. They reflect various levels of seriousness, as do the goings-on at the various vintners' booths. At the Arizona Vineyards stable, winemaker Bob Bokk dispenses "Rattlesnake Red" and "Desert Dust."

Someone asks him if "Rattlesnake Red" bites. "No," he says, "we named it that because one day our winemaster opened the back door and there were two rattlesnakes waiting for him."

Webb, at the spectrum's other end, is explaining in detail how he achieved the pale

If the Elgin festival is merely casual, Bisbee's Wine at the Mine is positively giddy.

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golden tint of his '90 fume blanc, which won a gold medal at a Les Amis du Vin tasting in Washington, D.C. The industry is still so small here that several of the winemasters themselves are usually on hand, and they're delighted to talk wine with the tourists. "After 13 years, things are starting to break loose for us," he says. "We've been making 4,500 cases of wine a year, which is about the break-even point. This year we're going to make 7,500 and make a big marketing push. To make it work, we have to get into the Phoenix market." Webb says he's finally optimistic about doing just that, despite historic resistance. The big Phoenix resorts are so intent on projecting a world-class image, he says, that they automatically stick to the established products: French and California wines. The Arizona Harvest Festival in Tucson, which celebrates both wine and Arizona food, tries to head off that same misconception. "We were surprised at how few people know about all the food products being grown in southern Arizona," Maureen Booth of Virgin Vegetables, a Tucson wholesaler, tells me. The Harvest Festival is larger and more ambitious than the Elgin shindig, but no lgin's annual Blessing of the Vine festi-

WHEN YOU GO

Elgin's annual Blessing of the Vine festival is in early April; the Harvesting of the Vine Festival is in early August. Elgin is 60 miles southeast of Tucson on State Route 83. To get there, travel 21 miles east on Interstate 10 to the exit at Mountain View for State 83. Head south 24 miles to Sonoita and follow the signs east to Elgin. There are no overnight accommodations. For more information, contact Sonoita Vineyards at (602) 455-5893. Bisbee's Wine at the Mine festival is in late May. For information, contact the Bisbee Chamber of Commerce at (602) 432-5421. Bisbee is 100 miles southeast of Tucson via 1-10 and State Route 80. The Arizona Harvest Festival, which features both state wines and Arizona-grown foods, is held in early October at St. Demetrios Community Center, 1145 E. Fort Lowell Road, Tucson. For information, contact Donna DeConcini, (602) 293-5637. In addition, some Arizona wineries offer tours and tastings on the premises. For their schedules, contact the wineries directly.

more pompous. The grassy courtyard behind St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church is jammed with booths from 32 food producers, 22 wineries (including some in California), 14 restaurants, and two boutique water bottlers. The producers range from Harlekin Gardens, an organic farm some 50 miles south of Tucson, to Merle Effing, who is selling jars of olives that he cured, Greek-style, in his kitchen. By the way, the olives, which he slits by hand so that the brine will penetrate, are remarkably good. As is most of the food at this festival. There are catfish and black bean tacos, spicy pumpkin soup, and rattlesnake prepared as if an errant buzzworm had slithered into Paul Prudhomme's kitchen: it is chopped and sautéed in butter with roasted hazelnuts and garlic, flash-seared with Pernod, and served on a diamond of jalapeño cornbread with a layer of prickly pear compote. If the Elgin festival is merely casual, Bisbee's Wine at the Mine is positively giddy. This year I'm swirling my chardonnay and listening to the leader of a local band, the Buzzards, exhorting us to taste every wine available. "If you do," the leader promises, "we'll sound a lot better." Around a corner, the tireless Webb is explaining to one of the actual oenophiles at this festival why he doesn't age wine in new barrels: they destroy the complexity of the flavor. The bulk of the wine-tasting crowd is lounging on the grass surrounding the Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum, and they are neither swirling, sniffing, nor spitting. They are enjoying. Eventually Arizona wine festivals may rival the sophistication of neighboring California's; the wineries are determined to head that way with their products. In the meantime, swirl, sniff, sip, spit is still a useful mantra. Eugene Voelzow, a connoisseur and Tucson wine merchant, tells me why: As you leave the festival, if you can't say it quickly three times without goofing up, you need your designated driver.

hoto Adventures Focusing on Rafting the Colorado River

In 30 years, nationally noted outdoor photographer Gary Ladd has spent hundreds of days hiking the Grand Canyon, one of his most beloved spots on Earth. He's traveled more than 1,000 miles from one end of the natural wonder to the other, some of the time photographing well-known Canyon sites, but mostly hiking offtrail, photographically revealing the land's hidden beauties.

Ladd will share his uncommon knowledge of the Grand Canyon and his award-winning photography skills with amateur photo enthusiasts April 10 through 16 when he leads the River Rafting Photo Workshop on the Colorado River.

For seven days, Ladd and workshop participants will travel the mighty river by motorized raft, each day marked by thrilling water adventure and hiking trips to the Canyon's most stunning locations.

At night participants will camp out under the stars on the white-sand beaches that line the Colorado.

"We'll start at Lees Ferry," says Ladd. "Then, for the next 60 miles, ancient rock walls will emerge higher and higher from the river, forming the Canyon. We'll see the Earth as it was formed 100 million years ago, even a billion."

The rafting trip will cover more than 280 miles, including white-knuckle rides through the famed Lava Falls and Crystal rapids as well as instructional side trips to photographic sites such as Deer Creek Falls, Elves Chasm, Tapeats Creek, and Havasu Creek.

Following are other trips in upcoming months.

PHOTO WORKSHOPS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS

Sonoran Desert in Bloom; March 16-19; Randy Prentice. Baseball Spring Training; March 24-26; Jeff Kida. Grand Canyon Rafting Adventure; April 10-16; Gary Ladd. Superstitions on Horseback; April 13-16; Gary Johnson. Monument Valley; April 20-23; Tom Till. Slot Canyons and Lake Powell; May 4-7; Michael Fatali. Paria Canyon Backpack; May 10-14; Jerry Sieve.

WHEN YOU GO

Photo Workshops, sponsored by the Friends of Arizona Highways, provide amateur photographers with tips and hands-on experience to help them take pictures like those that appear in the magazine. Our premier photographers lead the workshops and are assisted by experts from Nikon, Hasselblad, Fuji, and Image Craft. Scenic Tours also are available. For information on these and other tours, telephone the Friends' Travel Office, (602) 271-5904.

FRIENDS SCENIC TOURS

Keet Seel and Betatakin Ruins Backpack; June 2-5. White Mountains by Horseback; August 23-27. White Mountains Fly Fishing; September 29-October 2.

SCENIC TOURS WITH RAY MANLEY

(These trips are organized primarily for mature adults.) Arizona Grand Tour; April 19-27. Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly; May 5-9 and October 27-31.

ALL ABOUT SAGUAROS

Nothing so symbolizes the Southwestern lowlands as a single plant, the saguaro. This giant cactus has become a desert icon beloved by cartoonists, photographers, movie-makers, and familiar even to foreigners who will never see one," wrote the late Carle Hodge in his classic popular study of the largest and best-known cactus in the United States.

Find out all about the fascinating saguaro - its germination from seeds smaller than a pinhead, the precarious survival rate of its early years, its nearly two-century life span, the amazing variety of wildlife it shelters, its religious significance to Southwestern Indians, the possible endangerment of the species, and more.

Now in its second printing, All About Saguaros is illustrated with more than 100 full-color photographs and illustrations and is an entertaining and informative addition to any desert-lover's library.

Order through the attached card or write or visit Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009. Or call toll-free nationwide 1-800-543-5432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.