Tucson 2025
We finally got down to Nogales which is a small town straddling the US/Mexican border and visited some nearby wineries with which we had no previous experiences.
Our tour guides were Doug and Gay Scholma who spend most of their winters in Tucson now and do a lot of volunteer work near the Mexican border which is where most of the wineries are located. This is an area of vast grasslands and rolling hills at between 4,000 and 5,000 feet elevation. This seems to be the ideal terroir for Mediterranean grape varieties from Spain, Italy and France. All of the wineries we visited are in the Sonoita-Elgin region though most also buy grapes from the Wilcox region about an hour to the east in Cochise County. Our fist stop was Rune Winery where we tasted some remarkably good wines. It will be interesting to see if in the context of a blind wine tasting whether they are as impressive. We started with an emphatically aromatic floral Malvasia which, like Georgian Rkatsiteli is aged in amphora to broaden the aroma and add a sense of the earth. The Roussanne is classic Rhone style white wine with bright exotic fruit and clean minerality. The reds were just as impressive starting with an exquisitly vibrant fresh Grenache, a bold, jammy, tannic Graciano and a hearty Syrah co-fermented with Viognier, Mavasia and Rousanne on wild yeast emphasizing spice and it’s regional identity. We continued down the road a bit to Rune’s two “sister wineries” Deep Sky which offered a real nice red blend Gravity and a GSM called Comet. Autumn Sage winery served a brilliantly fresh Albarino and a massively rich dark Sagrantino. We continued south to Nogales which even on the US side is 100% Mexican both in its people and the rather organic style of architecture and urban planning. We stopped at a small restaurant on a back alley called Cucina La Ley. Being that we were the only “gringos” in the place, we were pretty sure that the Mexican cuisine was authentic. The birria and seafood tacos burst with flavor, the beef tongue soup just made my soul sing. The food couldn’t be better. If there was any fault, it was that they did not have beer or wine but we did enjoy real Mexican Coca Cola and fruit beverages.
Another winery that Alice and I visited just outside of Tucson in Vail is Charron Vineyards. They only grow Merlot on site which sells out quickly. We did enjoy a wonderfully aromatic Whetstone White which reminded me of Michigan Niagara with its purer than pure fruit and a big dry slightly bitter finish. We also enjoyed a deep blackberry scented Tempranillo as well as a reserve wine made by the winery that supplied much of Charron’s grapes called Sand Reckoner Red with its fine balance and depth.
We’ll be holding a tasting in a few weeks with our Grand Rapids tasting group featuring these wines and I will include the tasting notes and scoring to this blog post shortly thereafter.
Tucson is a great town for food so we try to hit as many restaurants that we’ve not experienced in the past every time we visit. Two old favorites that we just couldn’t miss are Locale which offers the best Italian cuisine in the city and La Frida whose Mexican cuisine is more like you’d encounter in Mexico City or Ensenada that along the border. New for us on this trip were The Cork which is a real throw-back to 1970’s steakhouses and delivers prime beef cooked perfectly. Jojo’s is a must for outdoor dining featuring Mexican and Spanish cuisine in a shady courtyard surrounded by many artisan shops. Amelia’s Mexican Kitchen was a lot like Cucina La Ley in terms of the food but it offered table service, English is spoken and the place had more of an American SW vibe. The food was classic Mexican however. and they offer a full bar. On our last night in Tucson we walked over to Miss Saigon which was just down the street from our Vrbo. It is a simple but very modern neighborhood eatery serving curry, pho and the best spring rolls served with peanut sauce.
Look for updates in the near future.
Enjoy in Good Health,
A Brian Cain, the Michigan Vintner
