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Eric Glomski still remembers the first time he discovered his “liquid landscape.”
“I remember closing my eyes and smelling this wine, and it reminded me exactly of the place where I harvested those apples,” he recalled in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Glomski had not been a winemaker at that time. He was a restoration ecologist, hiking the perennial streams of central Arizona, cataloging river systems and abandoned homesteads.
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It was there he found heirloom apples growing wild. He hauled them out in a backpack, made apple wine with a mentor and, eight months later, experienced what he calls his epiphany.
“I realized I was having an artistic experience with the landscape that wasn’t analytical, and it wasn’t scientific,” he said.
He dropped out of graduate school, moved to California and volunteered at wineries — sleeping in his truck.
He finally landed a position at the acclaimed David Bruce Winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
For nearly six years, Glomski immersed himself in a culture guided by one principle: “What’s best for the wine?”
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Glomski said he always intended to return to Arizona.
“I always wanted to come back to Arizona and make wines that expressed Arizona,” he said.
In 2003, he founded Page Springs Cellars & Vineyards in the Verde Valley. The region’s volcanic soils, limestone deposits and elevation offered what he saw as untapped potential.
Contrary to popular perception, Arizona wine country is not a blistering desert floor, Glomski said.
“My two biggest issues are frost and freeze, and monsoon rains — the exact opposite of what people expect,” he said.
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His vineyards stretch from 3,500 to 5,500 feet in elevation.
“It snows in my vineyards regularly,” he said. “People don’t realize this, because Arizona is very mountainous.”
“I like to think of myself as an ambassador for Arizona.”
That elevation, combined with volcanic, limestone and even granite soils, allows him to grow Rhône varietals that express distinct personalities depending on where they’re planted.
He grows Syrah in multiple estate vineyards, and said the differences are unmistakable.
“They’re so distinctive because of these different ecological characters,” he said.
For Glomski, that distinctiveness is the point.
“I like to think of myself as an ambassador for Arizona,” he said. “I mean, obviously I have my own business, and I’m excited about doing well, but I really believe in Arizona too.”
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That belief was tested in 2006, when out-of-state distributors introduced legislation that would have prevented small Arizona wineries from selling directly to consumers and retailers.
Glomski and the other small group of winemakers received notice from the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control ordering them to “cease and desist all direct-to-consumer sales.”
Wineries would have been forced to sell exclusively through wholesalers — even buying back their own bottles to pour in tasting rooms, Glomski said.
“It was this very heavy-handed middleman move to control the market,” he said.
Working with a volunteer attorney and a handful of fellow winemakers, Glomski spent two months going “door-to-door” at the state Capitol, meeting “every senator and every representative in our state” to help reform the legislation, he said.
“Ultimately, we beat them,” Glomski said.
In the decade that followed, Arizona’s winery count grew from eight to more than 100.
“If that isn’t case in point about what a difference that made to the ability for a free market and these businesses to grow,” Glomski said.
“I think in the next decade-plus, you’re going to see Arizona really making some waves.”
Today, that growth is finding a national audience. Page Springs’ Alma del Suelo red and white wines are featured in the Fox News Wine Shop.
The wines aim to introduce drinkers to Arizona’s emerging identity.
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“We knew we wanted it to really speak of Arizona,” Glomski said.
He believes the state is still defining itself.
“Arizona is still, I think, figuring that out,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s going to be as limited as that. I think we’re going to have regions developed that have really, radically different themes.”
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If lawmakers continue to modernize regulations and allow investment to flow, he sees enormous potential.
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“I think in the next decade-plus, you’re going to see Arizona really making some waves,” he said.
Learn more about the Fox News Wine Shop here.
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