Last weekend we made a trip up to Cottonwood which is one of our favorite places to visit in Arizona. There is so much to cover, so this is the start of a three part series where we will talk about Cottonwood wine tasting, our last Arizona Stronghold event of the year, and our stay at the Cottonwood hotel.
Her View
Over the weekend we had the opportunity to visit Cottonwood Arizona for a Library Dinner Crawl with Arizona Stronghold. We love Cottonwood and try to get up there on average about 4 times a year. It is a beautiful drive as you go from desert foliage to mountain foliage. You see the brown fade into green as you drive up north and the visual of that is calming and exciting all at the same time. Once you get up over the mountain and head down, the entire view changes and it is one of the reasons I love mother nature, because she is so different within a few short miles. This was the first time we have driven into the Verde Valley after dark and the view coming down the hill was totally different. You could see the lights in areas that are populated and normally you do not get to see that. So, rest assured that whether you drive in the day or the night, what you see will still be beautiful.
Since we are getting there a little late and still want to do some evening wine tasting, we drop our stuff at the room, (click here for hotel review) freshen up a bit and then head out. Due to the time of year, it is very cold in Cottonwood, and thankfully we had planned for that. We had gloves, scarves and beanies for warmth. Thank goodness we had them because we definitely utilized those on the entire trip.
We take a quick walk down the main street and take a peek inside Carlson Creek, one of our favorite wineries, 
and see the progress on the new tasting room they will be opening this month. They are making progress and we were lucky enough to run into Robert one of the owners and said come “hell or high water” they are opening on the 14th. Bummed we did not get to participate in the opening but glad to see they are making progress. We were able to take a nice photo with the logo on the window behind us.
We stopped in at Arizona Stronghold, since we are members we get free tastings with our membership, so we figured this was a good place to start. We also knew that we were going to need food and we would not be able to drink very much before we got tipsy, making this a great start to our weekend. There are a lot of new faces since our last visit so we started with introducing ourselves to Morgan, and very sweet young lady who is new to the wine world. I really like the idea that she is learning wine, she is fairly young, but apparently already has a great nose for wine. She introduced us to B.O.B, their most recent wine, which stands for Bastard of Bonita Springs. A blend of sorts and it was smooth and bold, but not too bold. They said they were down to just a few bottles so we went ahead and purchased a bottle. Since the atmosphere at Arizona Stronghold is always so chill we continued to stand at the tasting area and introduced ourselves to Amend next and then Tony. All very nice and knowledgeable about the product. They gave us the full run through of the current reds they offer, there was not one that I thought was bad. As always when wine tasting some of the wines are better than others. But as always we had a great time.
From there, we headed over to Bocce, which we also really love. They remember us every time we come in and serve us with such great care and kindness. We try to sit at the pizza bar because we really enjoy watching them prepare the foods. They are truly artists in the food world. Everything they send out looks perfect and tastes even better. We ordered a glass of Malbec, which is decent for a restaurant, not too highly priced and always on the menu and an order of the Bocce balls. Now if you have never had a Bocce Ball, you have been missing a key component in your life. These are so delicious. They are Italian meatballs with a really great sauce, heated in a small cast iron skillet with mozzarella cheese spread over them. They come with four pizza dough slices of bread that is cooked to perfection, crunchy on the edges and melty cheese on top. I usually cut a piece of the meatball off and lay it on the end of the bread with some sauce and it is a delicacy that written words cannot describe. We then ordered a pizza, I believe we ordered the Cire which is divine as well. Once you have just one of those pizzas they are all so good, it becomes hard to describe them individually. The sauce is always delicious the crust is cooked to perfection, crunchy on the edges with a little black on the tops of it. Bonus fun time is to watch the pizza cooker, turn and heat and place each pizza for the perfection. That is a talent all on its own.
As we were setting there enjoying our Bocce balls, I heard them say, ‘we have one left’. I sit up straighter and say to the chef in front of me, ‘one what left’. He looks up and says cheesecake pumpkin. I shrug a little because I make a pretty good homemade pumpkin cheesecake and I have never had one that tasted better before. I ask Derek if he wants it and he says ‘kinda’. So we have them hold it for us to go. We tasted a bite after we got back to the room and this was to die for! More pumpkin than cheesecake. It was so delicious!
We eventually packed up our leftovers, tipped the chef station, said goodbye to Bill, the manager and headed back. We were very tired at this point since we both had worked all day, then drove the hour and half up and the unloaded the car up some very steep stairs. So around 11 pm we hit the sack to rest up for the next day of fun!
The next morning we slowly starting moving around with the plan for the morning being, coffee, breakfast and then work on the blog. That changed quickly when the coffee pot did not work. We bundled ourselves up and head out to breakfast and coffee at Crèma. I love the vibe of this place. We have had the coffee before and it is so good. Full disclosure I get the hot chai latte and they do such a great job on this. Perfect amount of spice for the chai and the balance of the foam is great and pretty in the big round cups they bring. Totally want one right now! I ordered the croissant breakfast sandwich not knowing it was going to be so large. Good news meant that we would not have to go to breakfast on Sunday since I would have enough left over. We could just go up the coffee pick up window, grab some coffee and go back to the room. BTW, I had already planned in my head that Derek was doing that without me. Way too cold for me to go stand outside for coffee!
After breakfast, we headed back to the room to finish up our previous articles for the blog. It was nice because we were able to focus for several hours before the parade started. Oh did I mention that we just happened to be staying on Main Street during their annual Christmas Parade AND that we had the only balcony in the building where apparently everyone was planning to see the parade from. About 10 minutes before the parade started, we decided it would be best to head out, because it was getting pretty loud and hard to concentrate.
Off we went to our first wine tasting for the day. We had a free tasting for Pillsbury from our stay at the hotel. It was only three tastings instead of the normal five but it was free and our last experience at Pillsbury was less than pleasant so we figured we would start there. Also, for future reference they are the only tasting room open at 11, the rest open at noon. It was almost noon when we headed down so figured we would just get that one out of the way. We had met Rebecca on a previous visit and she appeared nice, but she was new and not clear on information and was easily distracted. It was a little frustrating that we had to keep explaining things to her, but again, she was new and we are mostly patient people. Unfortunately her ease of distraction has not changed and we had to ask for the wines on several occasions for which we had already requested. She is very busy and looks like she is very likely a hard worker, her multi-tasking skills on the other hand are not great. Toward the end of our tasting, she took our free tasting card and said that we were all settled up. Then as we were leaving, we handed her our glasses and she says did you pay already? This was a less than 5 minute span and just escalated the frustration we already had. We really like Sam Pillsbury wines, but both experiences with Rebecca have not been great so hopefully they can get her better trained or give her some memory techniques to help.
After that we headed back over the Arizona Stronghold and had another tasting and to pick up our wine shipment. We tasted the same wines of course, but the atmosphere was nice because the parade was going to we got to spend our time visiting with them a little more. We decided we needed to eat so we had the skewers. If you ever get to visit Stronghold please please please have the duck skewer. They are all good, and they offer chicken, pork, shrimp, beef and duck. All freshly grilled. I don’t eat beef but still sampled one the last time we went and it was so good. But hands down the duck is the best. You can order them one at a time or in a pack of four. We took the option for four and chose shrimp, pork, chicken and duck. It was perfect for a little meal to hold us over for the Archive walk later. We finished our wine, made conversation with another couple for a minute and then headed back to rest up and get ready for the Archive walk.
We had a little bit of time to spare since we got ready a bit early so we decided to hit up Tumbleweed tasting room. We like their wines and although the tasting room is very small it is still a nice atmosphere. We walk in, set down and they young lady remembers us from last time. We do a tasting and one thing I really like about this winery is that they are not afraid to mix wines. So they have a lot of blends and they are all pretty tasty. We tasted Earth Cuckoo, Tempranillo, Cousin Idd, Dr. Ron Bot and I believe the Syrah. We ended up buying a bottle of Cousin Idd and Tempranillo. They are really great about letting you do your tasting and then requesting to taste additional ones. We had just enough time to park the car, take the wine to the room and get to the archive event, which we’ll cover in our next article.
— Taunya
His View
This last weekend we made yet another trip up to Cottonwood. Personally, I love Cottonwood for a variety of reasons. The Old Town district has a very small town feel, however the town is big enough to have decent grocery shopping, and there is even a Wal-Mart if that is your thing (it's not mine, but that is a subject for another time).
We made the trip to attend the Arizona Stronghold Library Dinner Crawl, but Friday night and most of Saturday we spent just enjoying Cottonwood. And wine, lots and lots of wine! We were also there to collect our Winter wine shipment for AZ Strongholds. And wine, lots and lots of wine! 🍷 We've never driven into the Verde Valley at night, and it was just after dusk when we started down the mountain. I was really amazed to be able to see all the towns and settled areas in the valley which is easy to see from the lights, but not so much during the day. Recently the state has been working on improving highway 260, which is the primary way to get to Cottonwood from I-17 North. They won't be doing the final paving until spring, however the updated divided roadways are virtually complete, and all of the stoplights between the freeway and the city limits have been replace with roundabouts. The drive in was the smoothest it's ever been, so kudos to you Arizona!
After dropping off our luggage at the hotel, we decided to stop in at Arizona Stronghold for a wine tasting. I absolutely love the people in the AZ Strongholds tasting room. We have been members for quite a while now, and since we only get up there a few times a year, we have seen new employees come in and existing ones move on (going to miss you Jay!). This time we got to meet Morgan, who was only in her second week in the tasting room. We only drink reds, so we had her just pour us whatever she wanted to. The poured us some of our favorites, and the new B.O.B that Taunya mentioned before. I was really impressed in the smoothness and bold flavors. It was a small production and they were close to running out of stock in the tasting room so we bought a bottle. My hands down favorite however is the Lozen, which in my opinion is currently the best red on their menu.
By now we were pretty much starving, so we headed to our absolutely favorite restaurant in the area, Bocce. I have to tell you, Bocce has some of the best pizza in the state. Their oven was built in the true Italian Napoletana style, and the head chef trained has been certified in Italy. Every time we eat there, the pizza crust comes out absolutely perfect, firm and with just a slight blackening of the top and edges. Too many places burn too much of the crust. Bocce also has a pretty decent wine list as well, though we usually have the Malbec that has been on their menu a while. If you ever go, make sure you try the Bocce Balls, which are little meatballs of goodness, smothered in their red sauce and cheese and fired in the pizza oven in a small cast iron skillet. I could spend an entire article talking about their food, so for now I'll just say that my personal favorite is the "Cire's". By this point were were pretty tired having worked all day before heading up, so we started to head back to the hotel. On the way we stopped in at Burning Tree. Now I really like Burning Tree, they have pretty good wines. The only reason we didn't join their club a long time ago is the wine maker does not let you adjust your shipment and it will contain both reds and whites. Have I mentioned I don't really drink whites? We sat and listened to one of the locals play guitar and sing for bit. By then we were pretty tired having worked all day and driven an hour up, so we headed back to the hotel.
In the morning, we started out by heading to Crèma for breakfast. We have gotten coffee from their takeout window before, but have never had breakfast before. I ordered a mocha, which was incredible as always, and the chorizo biscuits and gravy which was incredible. It wasn't overly hot, and had great flavor. From there we headed back to the room to finish up last months article. Little did we know that Saturday was the annual Cottonwood Christmas parade! And the Cottonwood hotel has the only balcony on Main Street, which our window just happened to open onto. did The owner of the hotel had invited all the guests and some of her friends to watch the parade, and by 11 it was too noisy to get any real work done, so we decided to venture out into the world and maybe do some more wine tasting.
First we headed to Pillsbury because the hotel had provided a set of complementary tasting coupons. I love the tasting room, and most of the employees are pretty good. Eric is great, and Val is the absolute best! However the last couple of experiences have not been the best, mainly because Rebecca seems to lose track of things. On this visit she kept forgetting what wine we had already tasted, took forever to realize we needed our next pour, and whether or not we had already paid. We kept our visit short and moved on.
By now the parade had started, so we decided to head over to Arizona Stronghold because we had heard the night before that Penny was supposed to be working (hello Kitten!). Strongholds has a good sized wine menu, so we revisted a few and had a couple of new ones, all the while chatting with the employees and watching the parade through the window. By now we were getting a little hungry, and earlier this year they started serving food. We ordered a set of four meat skewers, all of which were grilled well, and juicy and flavorful, but my favorite hands down is the duck. All too often duck does not turn out well because of how it's cooked, but they know how to do it right! So good, so if you stop in you need to try them. While we were eating Taunya looks over to me and says "is that Robert?" Robert is one of the brothers behind our favorite Scottsdale tasting room Carlson Creek. The gentleman is not facing me so I say, "I'm not sure, could be but if it is he cut off all his hair". Turns out it was Robert, who was up supervising some work on their soon to be opening tasting room on Main Street. We chatted for a bit, then he left and we finished up lunch and our tasting. By now we were ready to head back to the room to rest and get ready for the Library Dinner Crawl later that night.
We actually got ready a bit early, so we decided to drive over to Chateau Tumbleweed, whose tasting room is not in Old Town but rather on highway 89A which heads toward Jerome. Now we only recently found Tumbleweed, but I really love their quaint tasting room. It a bit off the beat path, but worth the trip. I like almost every red wine on their menu, and it has become one our "must do" stops when visiting Cottonwood. This time we ended up buying the Cousin Idd and the Tempernillo. Well cover them in more detail on our next trip, because they definitely deserve it. By now we had just enough time to stop by our hotel room and drop of the wine before heading to the dinner. But that is a topic for our next installment, so stay tuned and we'll see you again next week...
— Derek
Living, loving, drinking, and traveling through life.
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