Food & Wine USA - (12)December 2018

SUNSETS

COOL ESCAPES

Legendary names like Wyatt

Earp and Cochise drew us

southeast toward Tombstone.

But the landscape quickly stole

our attention with its constantly

changing faces. The saguaro

cacti—those touchdown-signaling

icons of the Southwest—gave

way to century plants, cousins to

the yucca, each with a towering

central stalk that blooms once in a

plant’s lifetime. And on the horizon

stood the Sky Islands, isolated

biomes popping up to 11,000 feet

above the desert like volcanic

sentinels in the Pacific. Ascending

through the pines to one peak,

we walked straight into a sunset

filtering over the rocky spires of

Chiricahua National Monument.

We found the prospect of desert-made wine a

tantalizing novelty, like honey from hives atop

a skyscraper. The Willcox area’s award-winning

wines spring from one of Arizona’s two federally

recognized American Viticultural Areas. (Sonoita

holds the other.) Here, hot days and cool mountain

night breezes create ideal vineyard conditions.

More than two-thirds of Arizona’s wine grapes

come from this area. Downtown Willcox hosts

several tasting rooms, including Keeling Schaefer

Vineyards’ in a 1917 bank building.

COCHISE

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SKY ISLANDS

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