As if anyone needed reminding that wine is an agricultural product, subject to the vicissitudes of Mother Nature, wineries in South East Arizona got a potent reminder last month when a major hail storm pounded the stuffin’s out of their vineyards, ruining the entire crop for most of the growers, including the folks at Dos Cabezas WineWorks.
We’d been wanting to profile these guys since we ran into them at Hospice du Rhone last May (see picture). Not only was the wine they were pouring exceedingly tasty, they’re a perfect OddBallGrape Winery. They’re completely family-run and owned – in fact, one of the banner photos on their website features Kelly Bostock picking grapes with her baby in a tummy pack. Even better, at HdR, Anne got to chat with winemaker and co-owner Todd Bostock’s mom, Paula. And she is justifiably proud of her son.
We checked in with Todd Bostock shortly after the hail storm and he confirmed that he completely lost the grapes that were growing in his Pronghorn vineyard, near the winery and tasting room in Sonoita, Arizona.
“We’re not going to pick anything,” he said. “It’s kind of disappointing and financially stressful, but it’s not going to bring us down.”
The reason why is that he does work with the Cimmaron vineyard in Wilcox, Arizona, that was not affected by the storm. So while he’ll still be able to produce a goodly amount of wine, the loss of the Pronghorn grapes is going to hurt.
And, yeah, AZ may not seem like the best grape growing area in the world, but Bostock is producing some excellent wines. You can find out more about the winery at the website, http://www.doscabezaswinery.com/index.html. And friend them on Facebook: www.facebook.com/dos.cabezas.