Arizona
New water rules could put the squeeze on southern Arizona vineyards
The winners of the 2026 azcentral wine contest
The Arizona Republic’s Richard Ruelas announces the winners of the 2026 azcentral wine contest.
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.
The Willcox valley, on the other hand, has an ideal climate and an established agricultural history, he added: “There are axillary components to an ag community that support the wine growers. Everything from agricultural zoning, labor, well/irrigation supplies, tractor repair, etc.”
That kind of agricultural history and infrastructure is not easily found in the other viticulture areas, and new growers would need to make bigger investments.
“I anticipate that we will continue to see small plantings in the Verde Valley,” he added. “But nothing in comparison to the size that is possible in Willcox.”
Different water users, uncertain cuts
By 2000 there were only a couple of vineyards in the Sulphur Springs Valley; now there are over 40.
For a valley with a multi-generational farming and ranching history, wine growers are newcomers, but a decade after them came Riverview, one of the biggest dairy companies in the United States with operations in five states, and other outside investors. Eventually, Riverview became the biggest landowner in the valley.
Groundwater levels in the valley have been dropping for a long time, with ups and downs depending on the farmland expansion and contraction and the dry and wet years. At this point, the prolonged drought and an increase in pumping from agriculture have created a situation that, the water agency concluded, requires active management.
Across the valley, there are cases of wells losing capacity or going dry.
Mark Jorve and Rhona MacMillan moved to the valley, or more specifically the “Willcox Bench” growing region, in 2009. After leaving their corporate work in Phoenix behind, the couple semi-retired and planted the Zarpara Vineyard, which fittingly comes from the Spanish verb for “set sail.”
It didn’t take long before they learned from neighbors that groundwater levels were going down. MacMillan said they started putting money aside. In 2021, their neighbor told them his pump was pulling air and losing capacity.
“We knew that we would have to drill deeper at some point looking at what everyone else was doing,” Jorve said.
In 2022 they drilled a new $120,000 well, 800 feet deep, with their savings and a loan. Just a year later, their old well started pulling dirt and silts, and then the state designated an AMA. Since moving in, water levels in their property went from 320 feet below ground to 420 feet.
“Go find a 10-story building,” Jorve said. “That’s how much water is gone.”
The couple were concerned about the imbalance in the aquifer and saw the regulation as a necessary step forward. They are also concerned about how it will impact small-scale farms and low water users.
“You stopped the wine industry at this point,” said Macmillan of the effect of the AMA. They want to sell Zarpara Vineyards and fully retire but the AMA means the next owner wouldn’t be able to plant the 6 acres still in the property. Like other farmers, they asked for water rights based on “substantial capital investment” but won’t hear from the water agency until the end of the year, when they begin to issue certificates.
Vineyards in the Willcox Bench are neighbors to Coronado Dairy, one of Riverview’s operations. Pierce and Noble told The Republic they haven’t had groundwater issues or seen a big decline in their well’s water levels. Noble has seen a 32 feet decrease in the last decade.
For decades there were no requirements to measure groundwater use or well depth around the Willcox basin, so the state only had consistent data from 52 index wells it monitors regularly. The index well closest to the vineyards, located to the southwest between crop circles of alfalfa, showed a drop of 130 feet between 2010 and 2024. The AMA will require all water users with a well that pumps more than 35 gallons per minute to report their annual water use.
Growing grapes can take as little as the 12 inches of rain the region gets every year. In the high range, wine growers use less than 1.5 acre-feet of water a year per acre, while growing alfalfa with center pivot irrigation takes up to 5 acre-feet per year. An acre-foot of water can supply about 3.5 family homes in Arizona for a year.
One of the criticisms of the AMA regulations is that they cap water rights for each farm at the volume they’ve historically used: The dairy would keep its right to use many acre-feet of water, while farms growing hardy vines or watermelons would be locked in at a low water use. It’s still not clear how future water cuts would be distributed among growers.
Effect of water rules felt miles away
The Arizona Wine Growers Association opposed the creation of an AMA. King, lobbying for the group, said that opposing regulation is far from opposing water conservation.
“Wine growers are really the poster child of water efficiency,” she said, adding the economic return for the water used is also higher than other crops.
The laws governing AMAs were written nearly half a century ago for urban and suburban growing areas, not rural communities, and they didn’t consider some low-water use crops like wine grapes, yucca-like plants or lavender.
Growers are also concerned the water agency could mandate water cuts for growers with perennial crops, like vineyards and tree farms, as they already use highly efficient irrigation. The only way to lower their water use would be to rip plants out.
On Feb. 18, about two dozen wine growers met with Arizona Department of Water Resources staff, ahead of a public agricultural workshop, to present their unique situation and explore flexibility within the AMA law statutes. Growers say the high-value, low-water use crop should be treated differently. Noble said discussions are still “vague.”
The association is not actively running legislation proposals but they have been in conversation with the water agency, the governor’s office and lawmakers, King said.
“What happens as a result of this AMA, and whether or not there is flexibility for wine growers, is going to be critical to the growth of the industry for decades to come,” King said.
“Decisions made today could have direct impact 20-30 years down the line.”
Clara Migoya covers agriculture and water issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to clara.migoya@arizonarepublic.com.
The Arizona man known as the “QAnon Shaman” said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s new Anti-Weaponization Fund is an abuse of power by a would-be “king.”
Jacob Angeli-Chansley – the face of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot with his red, white and blue face paint and horned fur headdress – denounced the $1.776 billion program as a “slush fund” for Trump to reward his loyalists.
The Justice Department announced the fund on Monday as part of a settlement with Trump, who had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. The settlement included an assurance that the IRS will drop all audits and claims for back taxes against Trump, his family and businesses.
“You think I’m gonna take a f—ing dime from Trump and the government after he’s using this thing to cover him and his family in perpetuity for all of their crimes?” he told Cronkite News by phone. “You think I’m gonna take a dime of that blood money?”
Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6 riot the day he returned to the White House in January 2025. Many had been convicted of assaulting police officers.
Cronkite News reached out to 17 of those defendants with Arizona ties. None besides Angeli-Chansley responded.
Thirteen were convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes related to the attack. Four of the cases were dismissed after the pardon. The charges included assault on federal agents, physical violence at the Capitol and seditious conspiracy.
See our previous coverage of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and “QAnon Shaman” in the video player above.
Angeli-Chansley pleaded guilty to a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. He served 27 months of a 41-month sentence. He was released from federal prison in March 2023.
During the riot, he carried an American flag fastened to a spear and used a bullhorn to call other rioters to the dais in the Senate chamber.
“He stated that ‘Mike Pence is a f—-ing traitor’ and wrote a note on available paper on the dais, stating, ‘It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming,’” according to prosecutors.
At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the compensation fund, saying it will be open to anyone victimized by a politically motivated prosecution, not just Jan. 6 defendants.
“It’s not limited to Republicans. … It’s not limited to the Biden weaponization. It’s not limited to, in any way scope or form, January 6 or to (targets of special counsel) Jack Smith. There’s no limitation on the claims,” Blanche said.
He rejected Democrats’ assertions that the fund is a massive, taxpayer-funded attempt by Trump to whitewash the assault on democracy.
“I think it’s telling that everybody on the left and … the liberal side of the media immediately says it’s a slush fund for President Trump’s friends,” Blanche said. “If anything else, that’s an outright admission that they know that the people that really had this Department of Justice weaponized against them were President Trump and his friends. But … that is not what the AG order that I signed yesterday says.”
Blanche, who served as Trump’s private attorney in several cases – prosecutions over election interference and classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and allegations of hush money paid to an adult actress ahead of the 2016 election – faced strong criticism from Senate Democrats.
“You are acting today like the president’s personal attorney and that’s the whole problem,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who also noted that a huge banner with Trump’s portrait was draped over the front of the Department of Justice building in February.
At a homeland security committee meeting Tuesday, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego called for legislation barring establishment of a fund of the sort proposed by the Trump administration.
He called it outrageous to provide compensation to “traitors who attacked the Capitol.”
“No president, Republican or Democrat, should be able to use the federal treasury as a personal checkbook,” he said.
Angeli-Chansley now refers to himself as the “American Shaman.” He was heavily involved in the QAnon movement, which centered on a conspiracy theory that Trump was fighting a cabal of Satan worshippers who engage in child sex trafficking.
He was a strong MAGA supporter when the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, interrupting congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Angeli-Chansley has since become disenchanted with Trump. He has also repudiated the QAnon movement.
In a rambling phone conversation with Cronkite News, he repeatedly cited Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting federal trial for trafficking young women and girls for sex.
He reiterated his anger with Trump for resisting the release of the Epstein files.
And he criticized Trump for attacking Iran and supporting Israel, among other things.
Angeli-Chansley sued Trump for $40 trillion in September 2025, asserting he is the true leader of the free world and vowing to use the sum to wipe out the national debt. The lawsuit was dismissed. He later filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, World Bank and others in Maricopa County.
He urged fellow Jan. 6ers to “reject that … money.”
If courts allow the fund to operate, Angeli-Chansley said, it would mean that Trump “can do whatever it is that he wants.”
Teacher unions call for board member’s resignation after ‘Nazi salute’
Teacher unions call for District Boardmember Kimberly Fisher’s resignation after she made a “Nazi salute” during a public meeting on May 26, 2026.
Provided by Deer Valley Unified School District
School teacher unions are calling for the resignation of a Deer Valley Unified School District board member after she made a “Nazi salute” and said “heil’ at the end of a public meeting on May 26.
Boardmember Kimberly Fisher stretched out her arm, making the salute motion and repeating the word “heil” twice after the board president called for a vote to adjourn the meeting.
Fisher defended her actions in a Facebook video after the meeting, stating she made the gesture because she felt that the board had been under a “dictatorship” led by Board President Paul Carver and the district’s superintendent.
“All I could think of tonight was Hitler, so that’s why I said heil or whatever,” Fisher said in an eight-minute-long video.
Prior to the motion, Fisher and the board members were speaking on scheduling future meetings to discuss changes to district boundaries. Superintendent Curtis Finch stated they could not discuss the topic because it was on the meeting’s agenda. Then Carver quickly called for a vote to end the meeting, which prompted Fisher to make the salute.
The board members did not immediately react or acknowledge Fisher’s salute at the May 26 meeting.
This was not the first time Fisher has recently come under scrutiny. In October, she was slammed with a violation of Open Meeting Law by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, The Daily Independent reported.
Fisher could not be immediately reached for comment.
How the community is reacting to Fisher’s Nazi salute
The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization focused on advocating against antisemitism and hate, denounced Fisher’s use of the salute.
“We unequivocally condemn this behavior that glorifies Nazis and Hitler. Regardless of intent, these actions instill fear in the community and are unbecoming of officials entrusted with educating children,” said Sarah Kader, the deputy regional director of ADL Desert, in a social media post.
The Arizona Education Association and the Deer Valley Education Association are calling for Fisher’s resignation.
“Kimberly Fisher should apologize to the DVUSD community and step down,” the state union group wrote on X.
The local teacher union wrote in a Facebook statement that they were “horrified and disgusted” to see Fisher’s actions.
“Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service. There is no justification for this behavior,” the union wrote.
Boardmember Stephanie Simacek, in a statement, said “this is what antisemitism looks like when people get comfortable” and called for an “immediate censure.”
“I am calling for accountability. And I am calling on every parent, educator, and elected official Republican or Democrat — to stand up and say clearly: THIS HAS NO PLACE HERE,” she wrote in the statement.
Simacek is also a house member in the Arizona State Legislature and is running for a state senate seat.
She wrote, “What happened in that room was not a joke.”
The school district “does not condone, support, or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation, or violence in any form,” said Kayla Pologa, a spokesperson for Deer Valley, in a written statement.
“As an elected official, Mrs. Fisher speaks and acts independently,” Pologa wrote.
She said Fisher’s views don’t reflect nor should be attributed to other board members or members of the school district.
Who is Kimberly Fisher?
Fisher has been a Deer Valley School District parent for 24 years, according to her biography on the district’s website. She had two children graduate from the district and her third is being homeschooled in his final year, her biography states.
She had previously served on the board from 2015 to 2018.
In 2017, Fisher was the school board president and was criticized for a social media exchange with a teacher.
She was reelected in 2020. Fisher’s current term ends in 2028.
Former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, the Republican candidate for Congressional District 5, is facing new criticism following a recent report published by The Arizona Republic.
What we know:
The article cites unidentified sources who allege Lamb engaged in racist and homophobic text exchanges and sent inappropriate and threatening messages to women.
There are a few things working in Lamb’s favor, which are his name recognition combined with an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
Big picture view:
Analysts said it ultimately comes down to what voters decide at the ballot box.
“People have weathered worse,” Stan Barnes said.
Barnes is a political consultant and former Republican state senator. He points to other figures, like former President Bill Clinton and current President Trump, who both faced high-profile misconduct allegations.
“The American people said, all right, but we still want to vote for him, and Mark Lamb could be in the same situation,” Barnes said.
What they’re saying:
Lamb has largely kept quiet on the issue, a strategy Barnes said can work for candidates.
“He might decide, you know what? It’s salacious, it’s unprovable,” Barnes said. “A lot of people won’t believe it, people aren’t paying attention, and name ID and Trump endorsement’s going to carry me through.”
Inquiries were made to Lamb’s campaign. They responded with a statement, saying in part: “The Arizona Republic admitted that their article was based on a 10-year-old text from a person that couldn’t be located, or might not be a real person. Not exactly what one would call quality, independent journalism.”
However, the allegations could present challenges for his path to Congress.
The other side:
“The problem for Mr. Lamb and his candidacy is that his opponent will attempt to remind voters,” Barnes said.
Lamb’s Republican opponent, Daniel Keenan, spoke out against the former sheriff following the report.
“This story only adds to a pattern of disqualifying, disgraceful, and embarrassing behavior unbecoming of a congressman,” Keenan said in part.
Dig deeper:
Noble, a political data researcher, said the accusations could hurt Lamb with moderate voters.
“There’s really no strong candidates running in that primary because he’s cleared the field,” Mike Noble said. “It’s going to hurt him with women, it’s going to hurt him with independents, self-identified moderates, those that have a high school or less education.”
In a heavily Republican district, Noble said if the accusations gain traction, it could help the opposing party.
“It could potentially be fatal for him in the general election and actually give Democrats an opening in the general election, which normally they wouldn’t,” Noble said.
What’s next:
On the Democratic side, there are four people running in the primary for Congressional District 5. The primary election is scheduled for July 21.
The Source: This information was gathered from the article from The Arizona Republic, a political consultant and Lamb’s campaign.
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