Sipping fine wine at Chino Valley’s Granite Creek Vineyards, basking in the old homestead’s history and soaking up the live music on a Saturday afternoon, it is easy to grasp the magnetism of Arizona’s winemaking industry to the 70 percent of visitors who average $71 on food and merchandise and spend $70 more to walk away with 3.3 bottles of the red, white or sweet.
What is not so obvious – though a boon to the state’s agricultural and tourism sectors – is the industry’s $37.6 million in direct, indirect and induced economic impact, $5.9 million in indirect business taxes, 265 direct jobs, and 140 indirect and induced jobs reported in the same 2011 study for the Arizona Office of Tourism.
“The Arizona Wine Tourism Industry” was written by The W.A. Franke College of Business at Northern Arizona University using survey data collected from visitors to the wine growing regions in Yavapai, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties from February through May that year. Nearly 60 percent of the 504 surveys were conducted in Northern Arizona.
The study’s typical wine guest is 46 years old, traveling in a party of three adults, usually with family and/or friends and boasting an average annual income of $88,149. Fifty-nine percent are from Arizona and 41 percent travel from out of state. The Arizonans are likely to be from Phoenix (21 percent), Scottsdale (9.3 percent) or Tucson (9.3 percent), while California and Wisconsin lead the out-of-state crowd.
The majority of guests visited a tasting room or vineyard, while smaller numbers stopped at a winery or attended a festival or wine-related event. Nearly two-thirds were on day trips and spent an average of $149 directly, along with another $44 in restaurant and grocery expenses. The overnight visitors comprising the remaining one-third of guests spent an average of $370, with about $140 of that in lodging or camping.
Arizona’s major grape growing regions are located at high desert elevations of 3,800 to 6,000 feet, where the warm days and cool nights provide a perfect climate for viticulture, the growing and harvesting of grapes. Three wine country trails entice the grape-loving tourist eager to sample the flavorful bounty of the state’s winemakers in Sonoita and Willcox, south and southwest of Tucson, and the Northern Arizona Wine Trail in the Verde Valley.
The homestead at Chino Valley’s family-run Granite Creek Vineyards “has been in continual agricultural production for more than 100 years,” according to Heather Bamberg, event coordinator and daughter of Robin and Kit Hoult, who bought the property in 1974.
The 20-acre estate and its approximate 16 acres in vines are “really small as far as wineries go,” Bamberg said. The original house and barn were built in 1916, followed soon after by the building now housing the business office. A log cabin from the 1940s and concrete block structures from the 1970s round out the estate, which the family strives to remain historic, Bamberg explained.
The family business includes a farm, winery, retail sales, wholesale operations, a wholesale grape business, a catering business and an event venue for weddings and other special occasions. Bamberg’s brother, Kelsey, is an executive winemaker who apprenticed in Oregon and California and was inspired to bring his knowledge home. Her husband, Chris, is chef of the property’s Block Six Catering.
Since long before the tasting room was open to the public in 2004, the family has operated a certified organic table grape business for natural food markets and grocery stores. Grapes are harvested each fall for this venture. Granite Creek Vineyards is “one of a handful of certified organic wineries in the U.S., and the only one in Arizona,” Bamberg said. “We have been committed to sustainable viticulture since it began.”
The family always has made wine for friends and family, Bamberg said. Now, they also share a tasting room with the public Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The fare includes “a great lunch menu,” live music on Saturday afternoons and special holiday celebrations.
“We have four generations living on the property – from ages two to 89,” Bamberg said. “It’s a family cooperative, more or less. We make a great variety of wines and they change seasonally. The best thing is getting to work somewhere I love.” For more information, visit www.granitecreekvineyards.com.
The Quad Cities and surrounding area also are home to the Painted Lady Vineyard and the Juniper Well Ranch & Vineyard, both in Skull Valley, and the Del Rio Springs Vineyard in Paulden.
The Painted Lady, with an acre of land growing 750 Gewürztraminer vines, harvested its first grapes in 2009. The 2012 vintage was made solely from the property’s grapes, carefully tended by its owners, who characterize their venture as “a labor of love – love for the land, love for the outdoors, love for growing, love of wine, love of friends and family with whom we share this dream.” The wine itself is made by vintner Eric Glomski at Page Springs Cellars in the Verde Valley. For more information, visit www.paintedladyvineyard.com or www.pagespringscellars.com.
The Juniper Well Ranch, a 50-acre property named after an historic rock well house built in the early 1900s by an Arizona state senator, has been owned by the Shaw family since late 2012. Now in the process of replanting and reinvigorating their Spanish Tempranillo grapevines, the Shaws resell other local wines and spirits, including Painted Lady Gewürztraminer and seasonal varietals from Superstition Meadery. Wine tastings are not currently offered, but three guest cabins, weddings, holiday parties, other special events and horse boarding enable guests to savor nature and the ranching lifestyle. For more information, visit www.juniperwellranch.com.
The six-acre Dell Rio Springs Vineyard “sits on an east facing bench overlooking the striking Chino Valley, rimmed by the Mingus Mountains on the east, the Bradshaw Mountains on the south and Juniper Mountains on the west.” Some visitors have compared this Chino Valley Basin area to the terrain, elevation and growing conditions of California’s Napa Valley. The property, open by appointment only, was planted in 2009. An experimental vineyard contains grape varieties being evaluated for their “wine chemistry” and tested for their “adaption to our Arizona climate.” For more information, visit www.dellriospringsvineyard.com.
“The state’s wineries, vineyards and tasting rooms are a valuable tourism resource,” the NAU report concludes. “Winemaking is an environmentally sustaining practice that helps preserve open space, rural communities and values in counties where agriculture has been in a process of decline… Arizona, like many other states, benefits from a wine tourism industry that attracts higher-income demographic groups infusing ‘new money’ into rural economies.”
A study closer to home, “The Economic Contributions of Verde Valley Winemaking,” was issued in April 2011 by the Yavapai County Cooperative Extension in conjunction with the Verde Valley Wine Consortium. That report estimated the total of all economic activity in Arizona related to Verde Valley wine at nearly $25 million. At the time of the study, 78 acres of wine grapes had been planted and 14 vineyards were operating, some under the same ownership. The local wineries, vineyards and tasting rooms employed 124 people, including part-time and seasonal workers, with a payroll of more than $2 million and $6 million in 2010 sales.
The blossoming growth, income earning opportunities and financial benefits to Arizona and beyond have prompted Yavapai College to establish a Viticulture Certificate and a two-year associate’s degree in Viticulture and Enology (the study of wine and the making of wine). The program, on the Verde Valley campus in Clarksdale, includes a teaching vineyard, teaching winery, practicum with local vintners and hand-on experience from planting to pressing for 61 students this fall. Its new Southwest Wine Center ultimately will have facilities to support production of 3,000 cases of wine a year, when awaited licensing permits its opening, according to Nikki Check, director and instructor of viticulture at Yavapai College.
While popping the cork on the new educational offering, Verde Valley and Quad Cities vintners also can celebrate State Senate Bill 1397, signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer earlier this year and effective just last month, which expands custom crush, remote tasting room, wine festival licensing and off-site testing for Arizona wineries.
Additionally, a Farm Winery license-holder now may hold a Craft Distillery license on the same premises and produce up to 1,000 gallons of grappa/brandy from distilled winemaking skins, pulp, seeds and stems. That should be quick to digest – even without the mighty grappa relished in Italy after a heavy meal. Salute! QCBN
By Sue Marceau
Quad Cities Business News
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