The Original Jerome Winery, Jerome AZ - Live Love Drink Travel

Next up on our Sippin’ September series is The Original Jerome Winery in Jerome AZ. The Jerome Winery label is part of the Cellar 433 family of wines and has recently moved into its own tasting room.

The Original Jerome Winery harks back to the 2001 establishment of Dragoon Mountain Vineyards. The Old Jerome Winery label was John McLoughlin’s original line of handcrafted Arizona wine. All of the wines come from the Dragoon vineyard.

John McLoughlin’s initiation into the wine industry began in the early eighties. John worked all over Europe and California to hone his craft. In 2001 John began planting Dragoon Mountain Vineyard in near Willcox Arizona. As you may know the Willcox AVA is at about 4000 feet and features hot days and cool nights in the summer. Viticulturists believe this produces robust grapes that make great wine.

Until last year, The Original Jerome Winery wines were sold out of the Cellar 433 tasting room in Jerome when that tasting room closed. A new Jerome Winery tasting room opened half a block away and we visited it for the first time for Sippin’ September.

The tasting room is located in a really cool historical building on Jerome Avenue. When you walk in it’s a nice open and airy space. They struck a nice balance between the historical nature and an inviting space. We were greeted by Tony right away who was really friendly.

They are handling the reduced capacity really well. Currently they are limiting the capacity to 10 people max, and will wait list a group that would put them over that number. We only had to wait about 10 minutes to get a table and begin our tasting.

We started with the 2014 Dolcetto, which Tony described as a sort of Italian Pinot Noir style grape. Dolcetto means “little sweet one”. It was good but not overly memorable. Tony paired this wine with a pretty decent “dad joke”.

Next up, the 2012 Pinotage. It doesn’t have that tar in the throat feel, or paint smell you can sometimes get with a Pinotage, but it did come with another dad joke. It has strong flavors of mocha, and I can best describe it as tasting exotic. Honestly though, I liked the Pinotage from Tantrum better and it comes from the same Vineyard.

We moved on to the 2013 Merlot. It was also good and very easy to drink. The 2013 Malbec was a little on the fruity side for my taste. Did I mention there were two more dad jokes?

On to the 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon. This one tastes more like a typical Arizona Cab and I liked it better than the last two. The dad joke was a bit better too.

We ended on the 2017 Caledoc. At the time I had not heard of this one before, but it is a French grape that is a cross between Grenache and Malbec. This was the most interesting one we tried all of that day. Alas the paired joke was not as good as the last one.

This wine was very spicy on the nose. You can still taste the spicy on the tongue, yet pick up some notes of fruit as well. I can best describe this wine as interesting, big and bold. I think Tony may have been all “joked out” by this point.

The Original Jerome Winery Menu Summer 2020

We did get one additional taste of their Montepulciano off menu. I like a nice Montepulciano although I find them to be a bit hit or miss. This one has a nice fruity aroma and was pretty amazing.

All of the reds in the tasting are priced at $42 a bottle. For me that seems a bit high for what I would want to pay, except for the Caledoc which I truly found different and interesting. Everyone’s taste is different though, which is the beauty of wine, so your experience may vary.

I truly like The Original Jerome Winery. I did jest about Tony’s dad jokes, however he is a really nice guy and very friendly. He knows his wines well. It was a great experience and we will go back again.

Be sure to check out tomorrow's feature on Vino Zona. You can read yesterday's article on D.A. Ranch, or see all of our Sippin’ September articles here.

Living, loving, drinking, and traveling through life.

— Derek