A number of years ago I watched a fascinating movie titled "Blood Into Wine". The central charismatic character of the documentary is Maynard James Keenan. For my much cooler friends he is well known as the lead singer for the heavy metal rock band, Tool. The movie is a great story of Keenan trying to find a new way in life. He moves to Arizona to get away from it all, to return to the earth and recharge. Along the way he becomes interested in wine. Here is a quote from his interview with the Wall Street Journal: "He came to appreciate wine as a consumer when he lived in Boston in the mid-1980s. A friend worked in a wine store near the city's North End. "There we were, summer in Boston, sitting on his roof," Mr. Keenan told me. "He'd bring home fantastic wines and grill salmon. To me, the biggest part of wine was the social part. That's what set the hook."
I would say that was the hook for me as well. It's pretty strange to have a hard rocker say that his attraction to wine was so similar to my own, when I was coming from the perspective of an ordained Lutheran minister! Last week when we were visiting family in Arizona we ended up walking into Keenan and company's tasting room in Cottonwood, Arizona! He has two different wine concerns and this one is called Stronghold. The tasting room is bright and welcoming with a cozy, make-yourself-at-home southwestern jibe. That's it in the photo to the right. Our Host for the day was Kevin, the tasting room manager. He is one of those guys who makes you feel comfortable and at home. The tasting room was being slammed, and he was running around making sure everyone had a place, and also trying to find the wines he wanted to pour. I didn't take specific notes, but some general impressions stuck with me. First of all because of the owner and his background, and because the grapes were grown practically in the deserts of Mexico I was expecting huge over-extracted high alcohol wines. I couldn't have been more wrong. The wines were delicate with a very good acidic structure. They use almost all neutral oak barrels, so the aromas of the wines really shine through. We chose the red blend tasting. The cost is $9 and includes a complimentary glass. Robin and I shared the tasting, and the pours were very generous. I really loved the Cochise Rhone style red blend. It is widely available, and costs only $22.
I never thought I'd get to see Maynard's wines in the flesh, so it was a great experience. We also got to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's famous western outpost Taliesin West. I was impressed again with the fact that Wright didn't begin construction on this compound until his 70's! (There is hope for all of us middle-aged people who haven't yet begun our great opus!) Wright was following a Maynard-like impulse when he took up summer residence in Arizona. Instead of simply drawing designs for the campus, he actually helped select the stones and place them in the walls. It was decidedly hands on. There are beautiful, wonderful things about Arizona (especially in the cooler days of November!) Just don't expect me to move there upon retirement!