Wines are liquid landscapes.
"People tend to think of landscape expressions in the context of painters," wine-maker Eric Glomski said. "Take somebody like Monet or Van Gogh, who paints a landscape and everybody can say clearly this person is expressing the landscape. Take Vivaldi, the 'Four Seasons,' magnum opus that goes through all these seasons. People fail to realize that wine does the same thing Vivaldi did with music and what Monet did with ponds of lily pads. It's a liquid expression of the landscape."
Glomski, along with Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of the band Tool, co-owns Arizona Stronghold Vineyards, located in the mountains of central Arizona. They will sell and sign their wines Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Whole Foods Market at 2103 Carlisle Blvd. N.E. They're also bringing wines from Caduceus Cellars, Keenan's solo wine line, and Page Springs Vineyards and Cellars, Glomski's own project. The wines cost between $20 and $100.
The first time they staged a bottle signing, they sold $40,000 worth of wine in three hours.
"A lot of times your wine gets there on the shelves, and maybe someone buys it because they like the label or they've heard of the name," Glomski said. "It's getting to know each person intimately. At least you're handing each person the bottle of wine. It's not completely faceless. It was such a success we began doing these in sets."
He said many people don't think of Arizona as a good wine-producing region.
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"Prior to getting into wine-making, I was working as an ecologist, and I worked as a college instructor," he said. "Having studied Arizona at great length from a microclimate and ecological perspective, I'm 100 percent convinced we can grow any kind of wine.. Both Maynard and I feel very strongly that this is our home despite we weren't born here. It resonates for us spiritually."
He said they share wine with their friends and hold events in which they can showcase their bottles.
"Wine is a symbol of a lifestyle, of the good life," Glomski said. "I don't mean that in the sense of being snooty and pompous and materialistic; I view it as culture and people getting together and sharing a glass of wine over a meal, overlooking a vineyard and living close to the earth by growing grapes."
He said the older generations of Keenan's family farmed grapes in northern Tuscany. Glomski is the first in his family to enter the wine business.
"My Irish grandmother ran an Irish pub in Chicago - she's in her 80s now," he said. "When I was in college, I made blueberry wines, and I made some peach and apricot, and those were my first experiments. I definitely grew up in a beer-drinking family. I really didn't get exposed to wine."
Seventy percent of Arizona Stronghold's grapes are grown organically on-site, he said. The rest are shipped from nonorganic sources in Arizona and California. Getting into wine-making 12 years ago sharpened Glomski's senses and opened his nose up to a new olfactory world.
"You start to notice these subtle but later marked differences and say, 'God, this wine reminds me of this place,'" he said. "'This one's spicier and darker and more acidic - that reminds me of the cooler site with the volcanoes. And this one reminds me of the hot site on that hill slope over there..' Think of how many shades of red we could describe now. If I ask, 'Tell me what you're smelling,' people go, 'God, I don't really know.'"
People must purchase at least one bottle to proceed into the signing line.
Bottle signing
Sunday, 2-5 p.m.
Whole Foods Market
2103 Carlisle Blvd. N.E.
