Tucson Homes for Sale with Faces of Tucson AZ with Brett Wagner

So today we're here with Brett Wagner. This is a special occasion because this is the winemaker for Twisted Union. It is rare that you get to talk to or hang out with the winemaker. Darren and I are really super happy and grateful that you let us come down and play. Today we're bottling the 2022, 2021 Joyride. One of them, one of our favorites was the 2020.

20. 20.

Which, yes. Do you think we would know that? Because we like to buy that. And this is the bottle here. If you can see that, that's the bottle there of Joyride that we love. And then, well, first of all, congratulations. Looks like, I was looking at all the wines you got.

Yeah.

Several awards. What are those awards?

Yeah, well, through the Arizona Wine Growers Association, every year we get to submit, you know, pretty much as many wines as we want. Into the competition to be judged by sommeliers and people within the industry. And, you know, they kind of score it and, you know, kind of give medals to people who earn some of the top wines in the area.

And you submitted 6 wines?

Yes.

And all 6 took awards?

Yes. Yes.

Including you, one of them took a gold.

Yeah. So the Best in Show, Sangiovese in Arizona, Soar Charm School ended up winning that award. So it was a real, real treat to be able to see one of my wines be so highly recognized. So I'm very, very happy about that.

That's awesome. Okay, so tell me what goes into— we have some video of us bottling the wine and there's all different processes and steps to get there, to get to bottling, which we're doing today. What I'm most interested in is the recipe. Like that has to be— it's in your head, right? It's like, how do you decide when and what and how it's going to be blended together? If you're going to do a blend, tell me, give me some insight on this. How— like, you're like a chef.

Yeah, well, and I mean, that's— I really tell people that I take a culinary approach to a lot of the blends that I have. Um, you know, initially when you're done fermenting and everything, you don't have a true idea of the individual flavor profile of each wine in each barrel that you have. But, you know, let's just say a year after everything is processed, you get a little bit better idea of what the end flavor profile is. And, you know, sometimes there's a single varietal that stands out to be so magnificent that you don't want to blend it. The great does all of the work as long as you keep up with the sanitation, sterilization, keeping up with topping, preventing oxidation, and anything that can bring faults to it. But outside of the single varietals, every single barrel that I have, I treat it as if it's a different spice on the spice rack. And when I'm coming up with the initial blend, I really, come up with a vision. You know, I try and stylistically go in a single direction. So we'll talk about what we're doing today, the Super Tuscan. So, you know, a lot of times it's a Sangiovese base. That's when the Italians were trying to rock the boat and not just use Italian varietals and trying to get more things incorporated in there and make more complex blends. So yeah, it was kind of the wine when the The Italians were trying to break the rules, and I love that because I love breaking rules and doing things that a lot of people wouldn't think about. But with this Joyrider, it's a base of Sangiovese, so that's the main varietal. But looking at that, I also put in Cab Franc, and this year it's not. The previous year, in place of it's not, I used Petit Syrah. I just wasn't able to source it this year. But when I'm making these blends, I try and break up a wine in a beginning, middle, and end. And with this one in particular, the Sangiovese gives it a nice cherry note up front, the good acidity. Then it moves into the Cabernet Franc, which gives it a little bit of that earthiness to it. And then it's not like the Petit Syrah before it, a bigger, robust varietal that really gives it a nice long finish. So the whole entire time you're sipping this wine, you're going through this journey. And in this journey of all of these different flavor profiles, it really just comes out to be something amazing. And it's just so interesting how you can incorporate so many different flavors from these simple grapes. So Long story, kind of long, a little bit short.

I think it's awesome. But yeah, it's interesting. I love that.

That's with the blends.

Yeah. Yeah. I love how you do that. So cheers to the new Joyrider.

You know, we're happy.

Cheers. Yes, I do. I do. The winery is located down in Elgin. You're technically in Elgin.

Yes, we're in Elgin.

Sonoyta and Elgin are just about 40 minutes, probably 45 minutes away from Tucson. And, uh, what is the address for the Twisted Union Winery?

It's 370 Elgin Road in Elgin, Arizona.

Okay. And then if somebody wanted to buy wine and they don't live in the area, can, um, can they buy that online and have it delivered depending on the state?

Or most definitely. So, um, we deliver in a couple different options. Within Arizona, we use Wine to You, who does a flat rate shipping anywhere within Arizona. And then outside of the state, we utilize VinoShipper, which is a third-party shipping company that allows us to ship to many states outside of Arizona. There are the select few that we can't ship to for the different legal reasons within each state, but for the most part, we can distribute all throughout, um, the United States.

Could someone do, uh, so someone lives in California, could they do a variety pack and say, just can I get a, a box of 6 different ones and try them out and get—

Yes, yes, in California we most definitely can.

Um, yeah, so I would recommend Mood Swing and Joyrider. And you have a new one, Mother Trucker. Yes, but that's running there, you're running through that pretty fast.

So, well, we're running through it fast. Yeah, no, the Mother Trucker is one of my favorite wines. I've ever produced. It's a Tannat and Petit-Sérat blend, so it's a big, bold, deep tannic wine, but it's a very soft tannin to it, so it's very approachable to most anybody. I've had beginner wine drinkers to, um, you know, some of the top-level sommeliers try it and really enjoy it. So yeah, it is something that definitely has been selling Really good, really quick.

And then, um, and I'm calling them all by the wrong names, but you have the, you have the greatest labels on these wines. They're really cute. So I call them by— so you all— I'm not a white wine drinker.

Yeah.

But there's one that has a— I call it Bumblebee because it's got a cute bumblebee. That's a really good white wine.

Yes.

It's got, to me, it has this, the slightest little kiss of the bee on it, like into it.

Yeah.

And, uh, so one of the rare white wines that I will drink.

So yeah, congrats on that. Yeah, thanks.

Thank you. Yeah. So thanks for having us. We're super excited. We're going to go back and finish another pallet, right? We're bottling over 2,000 bottles today.

I guess we are. Yeah. So doing probably our— well, no, most definitely our largest red wine production today of the Joyrider. This is our third vintage. It's been something that people have followed and really, you know, seek to add to their wine collection. So I'm trying to increase the volume of that to be able to allow other people other than Tony and Darren to have it since they like to buy multiple cases.

Hey, let's not tell everybody online.

No, I'll tell them.

Cheers to Stratis. Let's get back to work. Taylor's sitting there, he should be working. Thanks.

Cool.

Thank you.

Cheers.