Today we visit Arizona Stronghold Tasting Room, probably one of the most popular tasting rooms in Arizona.  Arizona Stronghold was the first wine club that we joined and remain loyal to them.

We love the tasting room, although we have noticed that it is very crowded all of the time now.  If you are not willing to stand then you may not like this room. We most often have to stand and wait for a table, sometimes we get one sometimes we don’t. They do have a very nice back patio area, but that seems to be full most of the time as well.  Even when it is unbearably hot out there, they are still full. Also, not the first time we have shared a table and made friends.

Arizona Stronghold offers several options for tastings.  They also offer many different types of wines. The tasting room offers two red flights, the A Flight and the Z Flight and then another option for whites only.  They might also offer a mixed tasting. Either way they are pretty good about allowing you to sample something additional on either list. I did notice this time around that they may want to consider coolers for their wines.  The reds were a little on the warm side and heading into a warm cup of tea range. I know it was a warmer weekend, but they should at a minimum consider that wines are better at the proper temperature. Derek chose one flight and I chose the other, so that we could taste all of them.  As always the wines are good. There are lots of different tastes that can be fulfilled here.

One of the things we love love love about Arizona Stronghold is that they offer freshly grilled skewers.  They are the bomb diggity. They currently are offering, Shrimp, Chicken, Steak, Buffalo, Pork and Duck. Go for the Duck for sure, we had two of those this last time and it just melts in your mouth.  The chicken and pork are fantastic as well. The others are all just ok. Again, go for the duck you will NOT regret it. Oh, and the smell from the grill outside will make your stomach growl and your mouth salivate!

The staff are fantastic and always friendly. We’ve gotten to know them quite well, some have moved on and some new ones have joined.  Feel free to ask lots of questions, they can answer most of them. About the area, the wines and even other staff members!

All of their wines are pretty good, but hands down our favorites are the Bayshan Rhone style blend, and the pièce de résistance the Lozen Bordeaux style blend. There is a new winemaker, Matt, who is really making some good wines and I think overall the wine at Stronghold is the best it has ever been.  We’ve gotten to know Matt a bit as well, and you can see his passion when he talks about winemaking.

Arizona Stronghold is on our short list of favorite tasting rooms, and we always stop in when we are in Cottonwood.  If you make it up there, make sure you stop in and tell them we sent you!

If you have not already, check out yesterday's feature on Passion Cellars, or check out all of our Sippin' September features here.

Living, loving, drinking, and traveling through life.

— Derek & Taunya

Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on LinkedIn