Don and Carol

Don still remembers being a six-year-old boy and making his first batch of wine with his grandpa. “We didn’t have the same equipment as we did back then, we used a basket press,” recalled Don. This is when Don has his first experience as being a wine maker when he asked his Grandpa as a little boy, “How am I doing,” and his Grandpa looked on in encouragement and told him not so bad. Don’s mother was the 2nd generation winemaker in America from the Minchella family. “We don’t know how many generations we have back in Italy except for the fact that there are one too many to count,” Don said.

When Carol and Don made the move to Arizona to start the winery he was fulfilling a great promise that he made to his mother that one day he would grow her a vineyard and that is just what he did. “My mother was an amazing grower and her recipes for the different wines were great as well,” said Don. Which who wouldn’t believe him especially if you are one of our Sweet Lucy lover’s that was his mother’s recipe.

Carol enjoyed every minute of the growth of the winery. “The hardest part was being so far away from people, but that is when we great people come into our lives like the Lescome’s family and of course having Don’s mom and dad with us,” said Carol. Carol said that her favorite part about the winery had been being the wine taster which Don laughed at. Carol would help with the hand pained bottles personalizing them for guests. “All the people we’ve met we’ve developed some really strong friendships. They were customers, but became primarily family because they were there for everything,” Carol stated.

The experience of having the winery was everything Don and Carol thought it would be and have had great satisfaction in this great and unique company they created. “It was my dream to build something so great that my children would be able to take over and that is exactly would Dennis has done and we could not be more impressed with his own accomplishments through the winery,” stated Don.