Arizona wine sounds like a contradiction until you understand the elevation. The catalog tracks over eighty Arizona wineries, and the good ones sit at four and five thousand feet, high enough that the desert nights turn cold and the vines get the swing between hot days and cool nights that great wine needs.
The state has three wine districts and a genuine cult following, helped along by one very famous vintner.
Willcox: The Growing Heart
The high desert grassland around Willcox, in the southeast, grows the majority of Arizona's wine grapes, even though many of the tasting rooms sit elsewhere. This is the state's workhorse AVA, planted heavily to warm-climate Rhone and Spanish varieties. Producers like Aridus Wine Company - Willcox Tasting Room pour here, while others, such as Arizona Stronghold Vineyards - Cottonwood up in the Verde Valley, draw on Willcox fruit for wines poured elsewhere.
Verde Valley: Cottonwood and Jerome
The Verde Valley in the north, around Cottonwood, Jerome and Sedona's red rocks, is the most scenic district and the easiest to visit as a tourist. This is also where Caduceus Cellars, the winery owned by Maynard James Keenan of the band Tool, put Arizona wine on the national map.
Sonoita: The Original AVA
Sonoita, in the grasslands south of Tucson, was Arizona's first federally recognized wine region and remains its most pedigreed. Callaghan Vineyards here is one of the state's most respected estates, its wines poured at White House dinners.
What to Drink
Think Mediterranean. Rhone grapes like Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre, plus Spanish and Italian varieties, are what the Arizona climate does best. Do not come looking for Napa-style Cabernet; come for the warm-climate reds and the surprise of it all working at all.
Visiting Arizona Wine Country
Fall through spring is the season; high summer is hot even at elevation. The Verde Valley is the most visitor-friendly base. See every Arizona winery on the winery browser or map the districts on the map.