A monthly look at Arizona wine with Valley dining impresario Pavle Milic.
In my line of work as a restaurateur and buyer of wine, the topic of natural wine is quite polarizing and controversial – both among wine reps and savvy wine drinkers. As a buyer, I’ve had my fair share of it… but what exactly is natural wine? Ostensibly, it’s wine made with minimal intervention, particularly regarding pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers in the vineyard. In the cellar, a winemaker will typically avoid inoculating with commercial yeast, allowing the wine to ferment naturally instead – a practice known as native fermentation. Lastly, there’s minimal or even zero use of sulfur dioxide, a preservative also known as SO₂.
Now, I’ve had some delicious wines made this way, but I’ve also had some that were, frankly, not enjoyable at all. Thankfully, Timo Geis’s Cactus Cru wines fall into the former category. French-born and raised in Sedona, Geis (pictured below) has a hands-on winemaking style rooted in organic and biodynamic practices.
At FnB, I feature one of his wines on our menu: a blend of equal parts Syrah and the lesser-known white grape, Fiano. The grapes are sourced from Red Tree Ranch Vineyard in Southern Arizona, while the winemaking is done on a guest-crush basis in the Verde Valley, and the resulting wine skirts the line between a light red and a dark rosé. It offers beautiful citrus aromatics and refreshing acidity, making it a great match for most of our dishes.
Geis makes many more wines, so feel free to peruse them on his website below. But until then, come down to the little gin joint, and let me share a fantastic expression of Arizona natural wine with you.
Cactus Cru
