Oh, bachelorette parties. A time when it is acceptable for full grown, adult women to wear matching pajamas and have a Spice Girls dance party.
Thanks to a couple of my best friends deciding to marry each other (congrats to Mr. and Mrs. Pinter!), I was given the perfect opportunity to engage in such debauchery.
I can assure you that we kept the wine drinking part of this weekend classy, thanks to the great selection that the Northern Arizona wine region has to offer. Bachelorette party or not, this is a great trip for learning about Arizona wines. I will show you how it was done.
Sedona Wine Tours
I cannot emphasize enough how happy I was to learn about Sedona Wine Tours. Not only does booking through Sedona Wine Tours save you from the worry of having a designated driver, but they provide excellent service, are incredibly accommodating, and make your experience enjoyable and stress-free.
Our group was lucky enough to be upgraded to a limo, which may have been because we were a bachelorette group. This was the perfect opportunity for us to hook up the Bluetooth and continue our Spice Girls dance party on the road.
Our limo picked us up at the resort we stayed at, Las Posadas of Sedona (which was a great selection).
Jorge was our driver, and later our best friend. I will say, this easy-going bride tribe was not hard to please. But Jorge was kind, accommodating, patient, and took the time to educate us about what he knows about each winery and give recommendations. I highly suggest asking for Jorge if you book a Sedona Wine Tour.
Stop 1: Alcantara Vineyards
Alcantara is the furthest distance from the other three wineries, so it makes sense to start your trip here. The outdoor deck and lawn area is the perfect hang-out spot, with lots of seating, cornhole and other games. They also often have a live musician on the deck.
The Viognier was my personal favorite, which was on the VIP tasting list that we were given at a discount for being a Sedona Wine Tour group.
Keep in mind that Alcantara is a popular spot on weekends, which can sometimes mean it takes some time to get through your five pours. If you have nowhere to be, there is no problem. We finished ours just in time for Jorge to take us on our next adventure.
Stop 2: Javelina Leap
We arrived at Javelina Leap and filed out of the limo, politely thanking Jorge with smiles on our faces, as if we hadn’t just spent the last 30 minutes aggressively rapping along to songs about robbing banks and selling drugs in the back of his limo (these were not Spice Girls songs).
Javelina Leap has an inviting, stand-up tasting room that boasts many San Francisco Chronicle wine competition ribbons and medals. Their wine is definitely medal-worthy and surprisingly, their biggest hit is their sangria. I, along with the rest of this bride squad, recommend having one while there.
After our tasting, we took our sangrias out to the picnic tables under the trees and had the most delightful lunch, packed by our dearest Jorge. Salami, cheese, bread and olive oil, grapes and fine dark chocolate truffles were exactly what we needed to forget about the Cheetos Puffs we demolished on the way there. (Wine and cheese… don’t judge.)
Stop 3: Page Springs Cellars, Cornville, AZ
Page Springs is my personal favorite Arizona winery and it tends to be a popular spot. It is a large and gorgeous property, with its vineyards open for walking through and tons of great photo opportunities.
Page Springs has a large wine selection, giving you a full menu of unique tasting flights to choose from. My personal favorite from the Combo Flight was the 2016 Cochise Syrah, which was very easy on the palette.
Once you decide on your favorite wine, get yourself a glass, or your group a bottle, and take it to the picnic tables sitting right along the Oak Creek. Combine the unbeatable view, the trickling water, the perfect early spring in Sedona weather, good company, and of course, the wine, and life doesn’t get much better.
Stop 4: Oak Creek
Our final stop was Oak Creek, where we realized we were having too much fun to remember to buy any bottles the whole time. So we stocked up on our favorites here.
Oak Creek’s Chardonnay is absolutely wonderful. It is oaky, but mellow and light at the same time. It’s now a personal mission to buy more bottles of it the next time I find myself there. They also have a delightful rosé that isn’t too sweet.
It was a delightfully exhausting few hours, which made collapsing on a hotel bed and ordering pizza feel like heaven. Our wine tour was the perfect precursor to what ended up being a beautiful wedding.
You may not be doing your Verde Valley wine trip with a group as cool as ours, but you should still do it.
