Photographing Arizona's Wine Country

AZ Wine Country - Images by Pat Shannahan

These are my favorite pictures I made for a recent story about Arizona's wine country. We went to vineyards in Arizona's Verde Valley as well as vineyards in Sonoita to the south. For me, the most interesting part of working on this story was meeting the wine makers and seeing the work that goes into making wine. In Sonoita, we walked through Todd Bostock's vineyards at sunset sipping Dos Cabezas wine made from the grapes that surrounded us. In the morning we photographed Dick Erath walking though his vineyard outside Wilcox as workers harvested grapes. He started the wine industry in Oregon and is bypassing retirement to experiment with making wine in Arizona. In Jerome we hung out with musician Maynard James Keenan of Tool in his Caduceus Cellar. He is teaming up with Erik Glomski of Page Springs Vineyards to make Arizona Stonghold wine. These photos will be part of a AZ Mag edition dedicated to Arizona's WIne Country. We are also planning on creating a wine page for the travel section of AZCentral.com.

Pat Shannahan
@pshannahan
www.patshannahan.com