Winemaker Kief Manning gives a whole new meaning to house wine.
“My bed, my kitchen, my garage,” said Kief, “on the other side of my other garage, this is where I live, work and keep all my stuff.”
What looks like a fancy tasting room is actually Kief's living room and kitchen.
“It is our house,” he said. “I live here, I'm here every day of the year. I work, sleep, eat and that's about it. We open up the doors to our house every day to allow people to come in, taste through the wines, get to meet us, get to know our wines, and hopefully just enjoy themselves.”
He said, working in the hospitality industry, he wants people to come and enjoy themselves.
Kief’s house is also literally the home of Kief-Joshua Vineyards in Elgin.
He used his experience in construction to build the winery himself.
“We designed, built it,” said Kief. “I built all the furniture in it. We do have picnic areas, room for people to set where we do live music every weekend through the summer and give some place to sit, hang out, you don't have to rush through it.”
The vineyard was started in 2003. Twelve years later, they have 18 acres of grapes, and plant two more acres every spring.
“Most of our wine is sold right out of the door here. In fact, most of our wine is only available here. We are available at a few retailers like Total Wines, Whole Foods, but pretty much most of the wine is sold right out of the building where I make the wine,” Kief said.
It's a high-end product with a laid-back attitude.
“We're definitely not pretentious,” said Kief. “It's me, my mom and my dad here. We don't have any employees. It's just a small family business like any other.”
He said most people feel like they don’t know much about wine and are afraid of being wrong about wine.
“You don't have to know all 2,000 recognized grape varietals,” Kief said. “You don't have to know the difference between tannin and dry and sweet. You just have to enjoy it and drink what you like and try not to be too pretentious about it, because wine's not pretentious, it's people who make it pretentious.”
Kief said this was the second place in the country to be planted with European wine grapes, 120 years before they were planted in California, thanks to the Spanish.
“Probably more often than not, we hear, "Oh my gosh, this wine's actually really good, I never would have expected Arizona," said Kief.
Kief-Joshua Vineyard produces a few different types of wines.
“We do 100% tempernio, which is a really good grape for the area, loves the sun, performs really well just about every year,” he said. “Our vignette is the same for white -- usually light, crisp, fruity. Great for the Arizona summers. And probably, not to say flagship, but our most popular wines would be our Magdelena, which is barbera and cabernet Franc blend, usually aged for about two years in oak. It’s named after my grandmother, Magdelena, who is turning 96 this year.”
He explained that they have a birthday party dubbed the Magdelena Bash for her every year. The celebration includes music, food and up to 1,000 attendees.
For those wanting to taste Kief’s wines, there’s no need to RSVP. Just show up between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. daily and have a good time.