A monthly look at Arizona wine with Valley dining impresario Pavle Milic.
Harvest 2025 for the wine industry moved fast – Arizona fast. At Los Milics Vineyards, we found ourselves singing a familiar tune: It was a bone-dry season, with fruit arriving in a tight six-week burst, and with lighter yields – especially in Elfrida (where I grow grapes) compared to Sonoita (about 65 miles west).
It was fast and uneventful in the best way, the kind of harvest that lets you focus on cellar decisions. As I type this, we are about to press our last lot of 2025.
For many, the tempo presented logistical challenges. Timo Geiss of Cactus Cru in the Verde Valley says the harvest “hit like a monsoon downpour” as he added two new grape varietals: Mission grapes grown on the Navajo Nation and Grenache from D.A. Ranch’s House Mountain Vineyard. “It was a fast and intense challenge that taught me so much,” he says.
Jason McCluskey at Arizona Stronghold Vineyards calls the season “early and lean, but high quality.” ASV wrapped before October (“Unheard of”) and pivoted straight to bottling.
At Château Tumbleweed, Kris Pothier says the vintage came on “early, fast and full-throttle,” with most of the fruit processed by late August, including D.A. Ranch’s Verde Valley grapes. The odd part? Hitting the brakes so soon. With plenty of tasty lots already resting in cold storage, they chose to contract less fruit than usual.
In Elgin, Kent Callaghan at Callaghan Vineyards recites the classic Arizona viticultural equation: smaller crop + heat + low rainfall = intensity. “Those conditions almost always give us great fruit,” he says.
And then there’s Dos Cabezas WineWorks. Todd Bostock’s crew “kicked off our Crocs” and realized 30 percent of the harvest arrived in the first week – ferments were clean, colors deep and the wines “taste delicious,” he says. “We zigged when we needed to zig and zagged when a zag was what the doctor ordered.”
Different cellars, same refrain: low yields, high character, a rewarding vintage. Look for the first of it in bottles come next spring.
