The Village of Elgin Winery and Distillery is located right in Elgin, Arizona. The eastern most of the Elgin Rd wineries, it’s hard to miss as there isn’t much around it. It is a winery, distillery, and brewery all rolled into one.
The Village of Elgin Winery is the second oldest in the state of Arizona, and was founded at the start of the rebirth of the wine industry here in the 80’s. They have many different brands, which we’ll cover a bit later.
On this day they were having some type of event and parking was sparse. They had booths set up with what looked to be your typical craft fair items, such as soaps, trinkets, jewelry, that type of thing. We weren’t there for that so we headed to the tasting room.
As you walk in they have plenty of seating, including tables and chairs, and a couch for extra relaxation. They have lots of wine on the walls and on the tasting bar. They offer the usual suspects of items for sale in your average tasting room, some cool art, coasters and lots of other goodies.
The tasting bar is not large, but just large enough for a few groups to start tasting. Tracy, our wine server for this venue, was friendly and chatty, which we always love. She explained all of the wines in a great way and managed to still smile, talk with everyone considering they were swamped. It can be hard to be on top of who was tasting what, and where they were in their tasting; this is a true talent.
Of course we went straight for the reds. They have six so we each started a tasting. The wines are all good. We tasted:
- Old World Cuvee – a Sangiovese Grosso and Cabernet Sauvignon Blend
- Tombstone Rustler – a Merlot Blend
- Playful Monkey – a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Sonoita AVA
- Sinful Monkey – a Syrah
- Willcox Barbera – a Barbaera
- Graciano – a Graciano
The most shocking I think was the Sinful Monkey, I cannot even describe this one, because the flavors are so unique. According to Derek, he described it as starting out fruity (but not really jammy), but is nicely balanced with a nice peppery finish.
They were having a case purchase deal so we bought six of the Sinful Monkey and six of the Graciano. It was a bargain at just 16.66 a bottle.
As we were tasting the wines she mentioned that they also have a distillery onsite and since Derek loves whiskey, we had to go check that out. It is kind of hidden with all of the booths that were around, but we finally found it tucked in the back to the left of the tasting room.
Derek was a little hesitant to try a sample in that since we had so many wineries to visit that day, he was concerned about trying a bunch of whiskey. Fair! He settled for one sample of their Elgin Arizona Bourbon, which was according to him was good. He was going to buy the 750ml bottle priced at $40, which is a good price. Then I overheard someone ask about sample bottles. So we ended up buying a 100ml of the both the lower end, and their high end 100 proof Arizona Craft Arizona Straight Bourbon which retails for $150 a bottle. He left very happy.
For your reference, here are the Elgin brands. We’ll let you go to their website if you want more information. As far as I know, they are all available for purchase onsite:
- Village of Elgin Wines
- Four Monkey Winery
- Tombstone Wine Works
- Elgin Distillery
- Four Monkey Distillery
- Tombstone Distillery
- Arizona Craft Beverage
- Elgin Brewery
The Village of Elgin Winery and Distillery is worth a stop on your wine trek. Just be careful, if you sample everything you might not be able to drive back!
If you have not already, check out yesterday's feature on Rune Wines, or check out all of our Sippin' September features here.
Living, loving, drinking, and traveling through life.
— Taunya
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