A Day Trip to Northern AZ Wine Country

traveled south on Hwy 69 to Dewey, then northeast on Hwy 169 to the I-17 junction, took I-17 north to Hwy 260 and traveled northwest about 8 miles. Turned North on Thousand Trails and take it to the gate of Thousand Trails Resort, turned left onto Alcantara Way and followed the dirt road to the gate.

Almost exactly 1 hour from Prescott.

Alcantara is a new winery with big plans for the future. Plans call for a Bistro, farmers market, B&B, shopping areas and, of course, a bigger and better winery.

For now, what Alcantara has is quite enough to be charming and a lot of fun. So far, the perfect Day trip.

Located on 87 acres of rocky limestone at the confluence of the Verde River and Oak Creek , Alcantara has thus far planted some 17 acres in 11 different varieties of  wine grapes. With the oldest of the vines only 3 years old production is just beginning to ramp up - with some really great results.

The Tuscan Style farmhouse houses the tasting room, lots of art and a friendly, enthusiastic staff. The tasting room is run by the "Wine Goddess", Kat who is both knowledgeable and enthused about Alcantara's wines.

Since it was such a beautiful day we decided to taste outside on the deck that overlooks the vineyards and the distant banks of the Verde river. The view is spectacular, the setting terrific.

We ordered up 2 flights($8 ea) between the 4 of us - which gave us a taste of everything that Alcantara makes. The tasting also includes an etched "Alcantara" glass - nice touch.

While we enjoyed all of the wines, the clear winners were the

Chardonnay.  Both wines are made solely from grapes grown at Alcantara.

Bob Predmore, co-owner with his wife Barbara, took us on a tour of the winery and vineyards.

Bob is a deep well of information and interesting facts about all things wine. We discussed, for this tour is a give and take between the tour guests and the guide, grape variities, irrigation techniques, pruning, soil variation within the Alcantara property, yeasts, the effect of sun on the grapes, de-stemming, crushing, aging and just about everything else that went on at the winery.

The tour was a blast! Exactly the kind of thing that makes a day trip worth while.

By now we were getting hungry, so we placed our orders, said our good byes and were out the door at around 1:00pm.

We proceeded NW on Hwy 260 toward Cottonwood, turned N on Hwy 89A to Cornville Road. Traveled  E on Cornville Rd for about 4.5 miles. Turned N on Page Springs Rd. to our next day trip destination - The Grasshopper Grill, Restaurant & Sports lounge.

It's 2:00 pm and we are on the next leg of our day trip, 3.7 miles N on Page Springs Road - to Page Springs Cellars.

The short trip from the restaurant to Page Springs Cellars is a beautiful drive. The road is good - not too crooked, the scenery is spectacular and the weather extraordinary.

We pulled in to Page Springs Cellars just after 2:00 pm, parked in the ample, paved lot and headed for the tasting room.

What a gorgeous setting! The tasting room is adjacent to a large deck that overlooks the estate vineyard and Oak Creek. The massive cottonwoods along the creek create a really spectacular backdrop for what is one of prettiest pictures I have seen in a long time!

Again we ordered 2 flight for the 4 of us and, again we enjoyed all of the wines. Eric Gromsky, the owner and wine maker, is passionate about his Rhone style wines and it shows in the quality of the wines he is producing.

We all agreed that the most interesting of the wines we tasted were the Cabernet Pfeffer and the Ecips - both with pronounced peppery notes - an attribute of  the Cabernet Pfeffer we were told by Micheal - our highly competent and personable winery representative.  

Ha! we learned something new - the perfect outcome for a day trip!

We ambled down the trellised

arbor way to a deck that overlooked Oak Creek - the perfect spot for the many events that the Winery hosts during the year - blending parties (for wine club members only), barrel tastings and the like.  

Sounds like fun!

By the time we had finished soaking up the ambiance of the Page Springs Estate (and the wine) it was around 3:30 pm - time to go to our next stop ...

Javalina Leap Vineyards

This 10 acre vineyard and winery is just  a couple of blocks up Page Springs Rd from our last stop. There is a nice "park" like area outside with big trees and a picnic table - if you are so inclined, the parking lot isn't paved, but it's smooth enough and really -who cares?

The winery/tasting room is a little more rustic than either of the other wineries we have visited - modeled after a Victorian era saloon rather than a wine bar - kind of cute in a touristy kind of way.

We tried all four wines that were available that day - all reds (that's all that owner/wine maker Rod Snapp makes)  2 Zinfindels a Cabernet and a Merlot.

As I have learned on this day trip, there really is good wine made in AZ! Again we enjoyed tasting every wine we tried. The winery representative was knowledgeable and pleasant - well worth the stop.

There was one more stop on our itinerary so we piled into the car and headed back the way we came on Page Springs for about 100 yards where we piled out of the car at our final stop on this day trip...

Oak Creek Winery

This is a perfect example of a classic winery tasting room. It is exactly what it professes to be - a tasting room. Well, we were still game so we bellied up to the tasting bar and tried everything they had.

Our winery rep set them up and we went through them - Voignier - pretty good, Chardonnay- ok, Syrah - again good - you get the picture - all the wines were well made without any huge flaws. They may not be my cup of tea - but they might be yours!.

My brother - in - law bought a bottle of Arizona Port - very good by the way - and we were done for the day.

We all sat back and enjoyed the great scenery and reminisced about the good times we had had at each and everyone of our stops.

Nice people and good wine were the order of the day, the scenery was great and the drive was easy. Before we knew it we rolled into our driveway and our day trip came to an end - at 6:20 pm.