Verde Valley Wine Trail

Two years ago, we hadn’t seen Sarah’s excellent 4 year old post but exactly duplicated it and had a GREAT time. Let’s call it a 5 for live real vineyards tastings and scenery and a 2 for the wine and no refund on your tasting when you purchase, oops. A-​OK if you like paying $ 5 – 10 for 3 – 4 ounces of so so local wine.
Coming from Sedona, we did start at the far end driving to Alacantra first, our favorite of these four real vineyards. And really enjoyed working our way back to Cottonwood and Sedona (I wrote separate reviews) and did buy two bottles then, one at Alacantra and one at Stronghold.
This year we didn’t buy because we buy online from the East and West coast and felt there wasn’t ANYthing locally that could compete, particularly when they are trying to get WAY over $ 20 a bottle and NOT refunding your tasting fee, what?
Just do it. Cottonwood has tasting rooms and we liked Stronghold the best.
Split a tasting, and go buy a better bottle somewhere else and have it with dinner, try BYOB for lunch at Shallot café in Sedona, we can’t recommend it for dinner, but we DO recommend BYOB!
Try
Sarah rocks, great first to review post.

I’ve visited four wineries on the verde valley wine trail: Alcantara Vineyards, Oak Creek Vineyards, Javelina Leap Vineyards, and Page Springs Cellars. The two I haven’t yet been to are Jerome Winery & Caduceus Cellars. They are all located near Sedona, Cottonwood, Jerome, and in the Verde Valley in Northen AZ. Each winery and tasting room has it’s own personality. I liked different things about each one. They all had a variety of great wine too. Alcantara is on the Verde River and has one of the biggest vineyards next to its tasting room, which has the option of a cozy lounge or an outdoor patio. Oak Creek has a bar that you can sit at in a big room with lots of fun merchandise options or an outdoor area where you can see the vineyard. Right next door, Javelina Leap has a charming dark green old salloon style tasting room, and outside is their vineyard. Page Springs Cellars has an indoor tasting room and an outdoor patio overlooking the vineyard. Not far away is Oak Creek.