Rancho Rossa Vineyards, Elgin AZ - Live Love Drink Travel

Here we are, the final day of Sippin’ September! Our last feature for the month is Rancho Rossa Vineyards, home of Rescued Hearts Cellars. We thought it was fitting since we started the month with Dawn’s Dream. Rescued Hearts Cellars is a 501c3 non-profit supporting animal rescue causes with one hundred percent of their profits.

Owner Chris Hamilton bought the property in 1999, and planted the first 12 acres of Bordeaux and Rhone varietals in 2002. Their tasting room opened in 2006. Today the vineyard has doubled in size, and contains 13 different varieties of grapes.

Ranch Rossa Vineyards uses all of their own fruit, and it may be the only area winery to feature 100% Estate wines from Sonoita. All of their wines are also unfiltered and made using an old world approach. Chris is not only the owner, but also the viticulturist and wine maker, and can often be found working the vineyard or in the tasting room.

The winery is tucked back from Elgin road quite a ways off of a dirt road. The turn from the main road is marked with a sign opposite the road. You’ll head about a third of a mile and see the vineyard on your left. The estate is actually quite nice, with a paved gravel driveway.

Driving along the driveway you are driving through the vineyard. You could easily see the grapes growing on the vines. There is a nice picnic area off to the left under a wooden pergola.

Walking into the tasting room you will enter a large rectangular space. The first thing I noticed was a huge fish tank on the opposite wall. There is not a lot of seating, but there is a pair of comfy couches.

The entire space is decorated with music themed art and posters. Thinking of Maynard Keenan, I wondered if that was significant in some way, however I found out he is just a huge music aficionado.

We headed up to the bar and met Ann who started our tasting. Ann was an absolute joy to talk to, and was extremely knowledgeable. She started me off with the Lady Stardust Grenache/Mourvèdre blend. Looking at the menu, it occurred to me that all the Ranch Rossa Estate wines have music themed names.

I liked the Spooky Tina Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre blend. My favorite was probably the Estimated Prophet Cab Sauv, Petit Verdot, Merlot blend. We also sampled two of the Rescued Hearts Cellars wines. One was a Primitivo, which Ann mentioned is actually Zinfandel as proven by DNA fingerprinting, although some people still swear the taste different.

As we were talking with Ann she mentioned that she and her late husband Al used to own Dos Cabezas, back when the vineyard was located in Kansas Settlement near Wilcox. When Ann found out we were heading to Callaghan Vineyards next, she mentioned that both her and Al had wines named after them there.

Turns out we were speaking with Ann Buhl! Al Buhl was an absolute pioneer in the Arizona wine industry, and Maynard Keenan referred to him a “visionary”. No wonder Ann was so knowledgeable about the wines and the wine industry in general.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk a little more about Rescued Hearts Cellars. This charity supports a different cause that rotates every month. For September is was the Humane Society. All three of the “The Wine Dogs” are rescues, and you can follow them on Instagram using the hashtags below.

Well that’s it folks, we made it to the end of Sippin’ September! Make sure you checkout Rancho Rossa Vineyards if you are ever in the Sonoita/Elgin area.

If you followed us through the entire month, thank you for sticking with us. If you have not already, check out yesterday's feature on Deep Sky Vineyard, or check out all of our Sippin' September features here.

Living, loving, drinking, and traveling through life.

— Derek