• New groundwater rules in southeastern Arizona threaten to halt the growth of the state’s wine industry.
• Nearly 80% of Arizona’s wine grapes are grown in the Willcox basin, which is now under strict water management.
• While vineyards are low water users, they are grouped with high-use farms, raising concerns about future water cuts.

Arizona’s wine industry has seen exponential growth in the past three decades, going from a couple of wine producers in the early 1990s to about 168 today. Now, winemakers, viticulturists and their allies fear that new groundwater rules in southeastern Arizona could stunt that growth.

To make wine, you need wine grapes, and nearly 80% of all the fruit used by Arizona winemakers is grown in the Willcox groundwater basin.

But since December 2024, no new acres of land can be farmed around Willcox due to an “active management area” designation by the Arizona Department of Water Resources. Plans and conservation goals are still in draft but farms will be expected to cut their water use in coming years.

The region has been the center of water controversies: A Midwest-based mega dairy and other outside investors expanded operations in the last decade and drilled deeper wells. Some local wells lost capacity or went dry. And a citizen-ballot measure to create groundwater rules created tension between neighbors.

In Willcox, a majority of residents voted against the regulations, but based on the rate of aquifer depletion and land sinking, the state stepped in a year later.

Willcox vineyards are among the lowest water-users in the area, but they have put all expansion plans on hold.

Jesse Noble, vineyard manager of Merkin Vineyards, planned to grow 40 acres more of wine grapes at the Buhl Memorial farm. His neighbor, Arizona Wine Growers Association President Barbara Pierce, wanted to add 20 acres, and south of her, Zarpara Vineyard hopes future owners can plant the remaining 6 acres.

Like other farmers in the area, they asked the state water agency to grant water rights to their property based on the substantial capital investment they’ve made to farm new ground. The agency will make determinations and begin issuing certificates of water rights sometime in October. Land that doesn’t have a certificate cannot be irrigated.

“A freeze in Willcox ripples across the whole state,” said Lauren King, who is lobbying for the Arizona Wine Growers Association, looking for flexibility on the new rules and a path to growth. They haven’t introduced any legislative proposals yet that would directly address the industry concerns.

The AMA could mean farmers in the southeast corner of the state can’t grow their business, said King, but communities in northern Arizona would feel the impacts, too.

Many Willcox growers send a portion of their grape harvest to wine makers in the Verde Valley and other parts of the state, who then crush, press, ferment, filter and age the fruit to get wine bottles. Those wineries and tasting rooms in turn attract wine tourists who also leave money at local restaurants, hotels, grocery stores and gas stations, spending some $241 million annually. Advocates say there is still much room to grow but there are few places with the right conditions.

Willcox is one of Arizona’s three designated wine-growing regions and the one with the best prospects for growth, considering the threat of hail and frost in Sonoita and the pricey farmland in the Verde Valley. Noble, overseeing grape-growing for Caduceus Cellars’ wine, said that while Merkin Vineyard has five farms in northern Arizona, two-thirds of all their grapes come from southeastern Arizona. They have 67 acres of vineyard in the Willcox basin.

“We can’t expand past that,” said Noble about the effect of the AMA. “More importantly, the industry can’t.”

Pioneers and newcomers

Arizona’s winemaking history spans over two centuries — from settlers’ orchards to pre-prohibition wineries to university research experiments to ventures from modern-day wine pioneers, chronicled by Southwest historian Erik Berg.

The state offered ideal growing conditions for wine grapes, but it wasn’t until the early 1990s when Arizona’s young wine industry had its start.

By the turn of the century, entrepreneurs were experimenting with unique varietals for the Arizona climate, a vineyard-to-bottle college degree was created to support the growing industry, and Arizona-made wines began stalking awards.

Some of the biggest growth came from the number of bonded wineries, facilities authorized to produce wine. There were 10 wine producers at the start of the century and today there are 168, according to government records. The number of wine growers didn’t match that growth. Today some 74 commercial vineyards produce grapes in Arizona.

Willcox, because of its milder winter and available farmland, became the most prolific grape producing region and, by some accounts, the “heart of the state’s wine country.” A report from the University of Arizona shows that nearly 60% of all acres of wine grapes in Arizona are in the basin, now under AMA designation.

There is a varied mix among the wine growers in Cochise County, with wine enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and retirees making the most of it. Most operations across Arizona are 10 acres or fewer in size, but some are as big as 400 acres.

Growing wine grapes in a relatively new viticulture area was “an interesting challenge,” said Noble, who harvested his first vintage in Willcox in 2014 and lived in town for nearly a decade.

The Sulphur Springs Valley, a historical agricultural region with deep, well-drained soils, an abundance of sunshine and few winter frosts, is ideal for many crops, but many wine grape varieties were being tried in that soil and climate for the very first time.

“It was something to figure out,” Noble said. “There wasn’t a recipe, there wasn’t a playbook.”

His neighbors to the east, the family running Bodega Pierce, studied enology and viticulture in California and Washington and worked in wineries all around before purchasing farmland east of the Willcox Playa to start their own vineyard.

“(Arizona) was our best bet to be successful because it was small and growing,” said Barbara Pierce, who runs the taste room and handles administration, finances and marketing. They kept some of the varieties already on the farm, like a pinot noir ill-suited for the high desert climate that they’ve managed to turn productive, and added new ones like Graziano, a Spanish varietal that works great for the area and one that visitors love, Pierce said.

Since the Pierces’ first vintage in 2010, they’ve been experimenting with some 18 varietals of wine grapes and fine-tuned their selection and farming to make wine that resembles the “terroir,” as the French would say, or the unique mix of physical and environmental conditions where and how grapes are grown.

Arizona wine growers would have failed if they simply followed lessons from California, Noble suggested. “Grape vines are very hard to kill but they’re also very hard to make good wine from.”

Today, there are some 400 acres of wine grape crops in the Willcox area — the equivalent of about 363 football fields — yielding 650 tons per year, according to University of Arizona surveys.

Sonoita and the Verde Valley provide the right conditions for wine growing and both have successful vineyards, but the fact that nearly two-thirds of all acres are in Willcox is telling, said Michael Pierce, the winemaker at Bodega Pierce and a commercial horticulture agent with the University of Arizona, who co-authored the UA report.

The Verde Valley has ideal climate but land prices are “prohibitive” and a pending court case makes future water access uncertain, Pierce explained. Sonoita sits at a higher elevation and has more threats of spring and fall frosts. It has some “successful growing locations” in high slopes, but those locations are limited.