Phone
Tasting Room / Sales: 520.222.7114
Marketing: 602.904.3088
Winery / Vineyard: 602.885.8903
Email
info@zarpara.com
Address
Zarpara Vineyard
6777 S. Zarpara Ln
Willcox, AZ 85643
Are you a store or restaurant?
Zarpara Vineyard is an Arizona Farm Winery. We self-distribute our wines within the state of Arizona. Please give us a call if you would like to offer Zarpara wines in your establishment.
Zar•pa•ra: español. NAUT. weigh anchor, set sail
In 2009, we embarked on this journey. With the nest empty and the daily commute becoming tiresome, we were ready to launch ourselves into a new adventure. Why not combine our love of wine and the outdoors? We could plant a vineyard where we could spend every day together and create a destination for sharing our wine.
We pointed our ship to Cochise County. This is the sky island country of southeastern Arizona, where broad valleys separate high mountains. In this part of Arizona, grape vines thrive in the sun and soil of the high desert. During the growing season, the cycles of warm, sunny days and cool nights infuse the grapes with flavor. The wines from this area burst with sun-splashed fruit and an abundance of fertile earth.
Starting with bare land, we marked out rows, put up trellis, and planted our first vines in 2010. There are now over 5,000 vines in the ground, and we take care of each and every one - from pruning, training, and thinning to hand-harvesting. We touch every vine multiple times during the growing season to ensure high quality grapes and premium, hand-crafted wine.
In 2011, we broke ground on the winery and tasting room. The building also has a studio apartment in one corner, and the tasting room doubles as our living room and kitchen. When construction was completed, we moved out of our cozy Rolling Love Machine (the camper) and into the new spacious accommodations. We opened the tasting room January, 2012.
Come pour a glass of wine and join us on this voyage. Welcome aboard!
Rhona MacMillan and Mark Jorve
Owners – Zarpara Vineyard
Tilly joined the crew as a "walk on" on July 14, 2012. July 14 is Bastille Day so we aptly named her Tilly.
She kept us great company for all of these years until recently when it came time for her to go.
Tilly acquired many awards during her visit with us including:
• Best vineyard dog ever
• Best tasting room greeter ever
• Best black lab mix ever
• Best morning walk dog ever
• Best hole digger ever
• Best snake warning dog ever
• Best skunker ever
Dogs fill your heart up while they are here and then rip it to shreds when they leave. It's the singular but sorrowful reward dogs bestow after allowing us to be with them for a far too short time.
Happy journeys, Tilly. We will miss you so so very much :-(
The vineyard is tucked under the Dos Cabezas Mountains in Cochise County in southeastern Arizona, in an area called the Willcox Bench.
What is the Willcox Bench? It is a name given to an area south of Willcox that is ideal for growing grapevines. At 4,200 feet, the elevation makes for warm days and cool nights over the growing season. The soil is mostly sandy loam and rocky and has a slight slope. There are currently close to twenty vineyards on the Willcox Bench. Grapes from this area are known for producing world-class, award-winning Arizona wines!
We have 7 grape varieties in our vineyard:
Yes, that's right, Mark and Rhona are thinking about retiring. This time for real!
Have you ever thought about getting away from it all? Get off the freeway? Be your own boss? Play in the dirt? Drive a tractor? Meet all kinds of fascinating people? Maybe this is your chance!
Don't know anything about farming or making wine? We didn't either when we got started. We can show you the ropes.
Click here for the details.
