Our Wines

Rod and Jan’s Winemaking Notes, Ratings and Recognition

Keeling-Schaefer wines come from fruit grown on our own estate vineyards. We farm 25 acres of ENTAV, Davis FPS and Tablas Creek French clones on our Home Place Vineyard and our Rock Creek Vineyard. One thing that sets us apart from many wineries is we grow our own fruit and make all of the wine in the winery located on the vineyard. It is a terrific advantage to control all aspects of winemaking, including all of the growing decisions.

In 2004, Herrick Grapevines, of St. Helena, California, supplied us with 7200 ENTAV dormant benchgrafts for our April 2004 planting. These plants are Syrah clones; 174, 383 and 877; and Grenache Noir clones, 513 and 362. In 2007-2009, we planted an additional 10,500 vines, on 12 acres, of Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Viognier and Picpoul Blanc on our Rock Creek Vineyard. On the Rock Creek Vineyard, we also planted a UC Davis Syrah #2 clone, an Estrella River Shiraz clone from Australia and a Rockpile Petite Sirah clone from Sonoma County and a Picpoul Blanc clone from Tablas Creek.

In 2023, we started a multi-year vineyard expansion that will add 23 new acres to our vineyard! We planted 4000 FPS and Tablas Creek clones from NovaVine  in May, 2023, of Viognier and Petite Sirah to comprise the first 4.6 acre block of the expansion. In 2024, we will plant more Picpoul Blanc and Roussanne, another Rhone white. In 2025, Grenache Blanc is on the list. Hopefully, we will fill out the rest of the expansion with Mourvedre and other reds by 2026.

Our wines are now available at the Willcox Tasting Room, through our wine club shipments and several of our wines are sold by leading wine retailers, like Total Wine, Albertsons, Cost Plus World Markets and Safeway, and restaurants and smaller retailers in Arizona.

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Ratings and Recognition

Best Friends Viognier
2007-89 Points Wine Spectator
2018-92 Points Tastings.com
2019-86 Points Tastings.com

Three Sisters Syrah
2006-Presidential Taste-Off Winner, Wall Street Journal
2007-89 Points Wine Spectator
2009-89 Points Wine Spectator
2014-88 Points Tastings.com

Partners Rhone Blend
2007-88 Points Wine Spectator
2008-84 Points Wine Spectator
2010-84 Points Wine Spectator
2014-90 Points Tastings.com

Two Reds Grenache
2007-86 Points Wine Spectator
2016-84 Points Tastings.com

Farmers Mourvedre
2015-85 Points Tastings.com

Home Place Reserve Syrah
2006-86 Points Wine Spectator
2007-87 Points Wine Spectator

Keeling Brothers Shiraz
2007-87 Points Wine Spectator
2009-88 Points Wine Spectator
2010-86 Points Wine Spectator

In addition to all these ratings we have received over the years, Our wine has been recognized in countless articles and award programs we have not listed here. Jan and I also take satisfaction in the fact that some of these wines have been enjoyed and  become permanent fixtures in the cellars of our over 1000 wine club members and many other friends and customers across the country.  RK

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