The Wine Buzz
Arizona Wine Growers Association New President Rod Keeling
Story by Rod Keeling
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Visitors to KeelingSchaefer Vineyards will experience estate grown and bottled Rhone-style wine from the 21 acres of vineyards located along Rock Creek on the western slope of the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona
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y grandfather, M.H. “Monty” Montgomery, was a lifelong Arizona farmer. He grew cotton, alfalfa and grapes west of Casa Grande for more than 50 years. Monty was very active in the community, serving on the local school board and the Casa Grande City Council. Born in 1885, his lifelong passions were his family and his farm. Today, my brother Doug Keeling farms 4,000 acres with his family. The core of this Keeling farm is the 160-acre Montgomery “Home Place.” Doug has been fortunate to own and build Montgomery Farms for the last 38 years. One evening about 19 years ago, our good friend and partner Roger Egan took me over to the new PF Chang’s on Mill Avenue in Tempe. It seems strange now, but there were no wine bars to speak of in Phoenix back then, and PF Chang’s, with only two restaurants, was one of only a handful of places that had an extensive wine-bythe-glass selection. Roger has a long history of successful restaurants in California, Arizona and Idaho, and he was very involved in the emerging wine industry in northern California 30-40 years ago. Roger ordered a glass of Grgich Hills Zinfiandel, and my whole perspective on wine, and what it can taste like, was changed forever.
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Jan and I retired from our longtime jobs in Tempe and sold our house in 2007. We moved down to the vineyard in July of that year and lived in the winery tasting room for the next 18 months. After two years of hard work, we moved in to our new house on the vineyard on the day before Christmas, 2008. The best part is, the vineyard is productive, the wine is good and people like it! After all our hard work and investment, we are living the vineyard life in the foothills of the most beautiful “sky island” in America. Keeling Schaefer Vineyards 154 N. Railroad Avenue, Willcox, AZ 85643 KeelingSchaeferVineyards.com
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At 5,000 feet above sea level, the summer climate of warm, sunny days and cool, high desert nights combines with the unique rhyolite volcanic soils and hands-on winemaking to create some of Arizona’s finest wines
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Photos courtesy of Keeling-Schaefer Vineyards
Needless to say, some people who have a wine epiphany start to collect wines and build a cellar. Not me; I wanted to start making my own wine at home. After a few less-than-satisfying tries with hobby kits, I decided I needed real grapes to work with. I struck up a friendship with Al Buhl and his partner Sam Pillsbury at Dos Cabezas near Willcox. My harvest day consisted of a three-hour drive down to Willcox to get grapes from Al, a mad dash home to Tempe and then a late night with the neighbors crushing wine. On a weekend trip to the Chiricahua Mountains in 2000, my wife Jan and I spotted a small ranch for sale on Rock Creek, 12 miles south of the National Monument. It was all grass, with oak and ash trees along the creek in the back. Could this be a vineyard estate for us? Maybe…. We purchased the property and began the journey that has led us to our new home in wine country. We drilled our well in 2002, did all of our permit work and built the winery building in 2003. Along the way we had to explain to the county and our neighbors what we were doing, prove out the easement for electricity, and suffer through the application process and the public hearings for our winery licensing. The Home Place vineyard was planted in 2004 and we harvested our first fruit in 2005. It was a small harvest from the young vines, but we made wine and after 18 months in the cellar, we began sales operations in 2007. Jan and I were still working in Tempe and we would dash down to the vineyard every Friday night to work on the vines all weekend. Early on Monday, we would get dressed for work and drive 3 hours back to Tempe for Jan’s 8 a.m. staff meetings. The first two years, we did everything and we trained every vine and made all the wine ourselves.
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