Here are 3 more wineries I visited with at the 3rd Annual Festival at The Farm last weekend.
Keeling-Schaefer Vineyards produces about 3,000 cases annually from their 21 acres in Cochise county. Winemaker Rod Keeling has been making wine for 13 years and his experience shows. I had the opportunity to chat with Rod and his daughter Cecelia while tasting 3 wines, with 2 of them being available only from the winery. The 2009 Three Sisters Syrah is soft, ripe with good fruit. It’s complexity and medium body give it a nice mouth feel. Plenty is available as they made 539 cases, quite a bit for an Arizona winery. The 2007 Home Place Reserve Syrah gets aged for 3 years in new French oak and delivers a soft start that leads to a full bodied wine. With only 96 cases produced this wine is only available at their tasting room and online, as is the 2008 Schaefer Boys Mourvedre. This 68 case production wine is spicy with dark fruit and is terror driven, showcasing their Rock Creek vineyard. http://keelingschaefervineyards.com
Kief Manning is the winemaker at Kief-Joshua Vineyards in Elgin is very well versed at wine making & the wine business having earned both an undergraduate & graduate degree at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Grapes are provided by their 2 vineyards with 60 acres planted to vines in Elgin and Kansas Settlement. Pouring 2 white wines and 2 reds at the festival all were good, solid wines. I was especially fond 2 of them. The 2010 Cephus is easy drinking blend of Chardonnay and Rousanne. Light and crisp this is a good food wine or drank by itself. His 2009 Magdalena is 70% Petite Sirah and 30% Barbera that has some earthy overtones and solid dark fruit qualities. Kief-Joshua is striving to be environmentally friendly by implementing several techniques in the vineyards and at the winery. I’m curious to see what Kief can do with Pinot Noir as he has some currently in the barrell. http://kj-vineyards.com/default.asp
Dos Cabezas Wineworks is owned by the Bostock family and Todd Bostock is their winemaker. Getting most of their fruit from Dick Erath’s Cimarron vineyards next door, Todd not only makes good wines, he is also experimenting with others plantings of varieties from from Spain, Italy and France. Making about 3,000 cases annually some of Todd’s stand outs were the 2009 El Norte which is a Syrah based blend and is dry, soft and spicy with medium tannins. The 2009 Red is Grenache based and offer good fruit and a soft on the palate. I also enjoyed the 2009 El Campo which is an interesting blend made mostly of Tempranillo and Mourvedre that I found spicy, with good tannins and fruit. http://www.doscabezaswinery.com/index.html
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