Out of a fondness for fine wines and having completed wine making extension classes in Pennsylvania I subsequently opened and operated a boutique winery called Vollbehr Cellars, in eastern Iowa in the mid 80's. However, this was placed on hold while serving as Public Works director in Iowa, Oklahoma and lastly for the City of Petaluma, CA, right in the heart of Sonoma County wine country.
During my tenure with Petaluma and Prior to retirement, we both attended UC Davis extension classes at Santa Rosa Junior College on establishing and maintaining a vineyard. Equipped with my previous wine making experience and our new vineyard training, we decided to make our way back to this beautiful Prescott Arizona region to grow grapes and make wine.
It was spring of 2009, when Del Rio Springs Vineyard was born. Our 6-acre property is located in the newly emerging Prescott Highland grape region. This high elevation cool microclimate has been referred to by some as northern Arizona's new wine region with just the right amount of warm breezy days and cool nights.
In 2009 we planted our dry farmed vineyard with select Pinot Noir clones all of which go into the making of our premier estate reserve wine. This was followed by plantings of Carménère, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Muscat, Vignoles, Riesling and an experimental plot of Torrontés.
Our first commercial crush began with the 2014 harvest. Our 2018 harvest was supplemented with contract grapes of Zinfandel, Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon from Silver Concho vineyard located north of Kingman, AZ.
To showcase these Prescott Highland wines we acquired a new tasting room located in Suite 4 of the Old Firehouse Plaza facing Goodwin Street in the City of Prescott. The tasting room is open Tuesday through Sunday and features live music Friday through Sunday.