He put Arizona's wine scene on the map. Now, he's stepping away from the vines

• Sam Pillsbury, the 78-year-old owner of Pillsbury Wine Company, is seeking to sell his 80-acre vineyard in Willcox, Arizona, for $1.45 million.
• Pillsbury, a former filmmaker, helped pioneer the Arizona wine industry and earned national recognition for his wines.
• He wants to sell the vineyard to someone who can continue its legacy and expand its operations.

Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this article gave an incorrect age for Sam Pillsbury.

On a cold winter morning in southern Arizona, the 78-year-old owner of Pillsbury Wine Company is already hard at work.

Sam Pillsbury's got things to do: He needs to run irrigation, make repairs, and mow with his tractors, among many other laborious tasks.

“My staff always said that I run around three times faster than they do. And this is hard work,” said Pillsbury.

He's spent decades working on the vineyard in Willcox, a city of just over 3,000 nestled in the Sulphur Springs Valley in the southeastern corner of the state. He's won accolade after accolade: With 11 Double Golds, 2 Best of Class, 14 Golds, 66 Silvers, and 120 medals total since 2016, Pillsbury Wine has helped thrust Arizona wines into the national spotlight.

But now, the former filmmaker is ready to sell and looking to phase out his tasting rooms.

"The last two years, I've had a diminishment in my energy and my ability to do everything," Pillsbury said about why he wants to sell. With his family in Phoenix and his vineyard in Willcox, Pillsbury wants to be able to spend more time with them.

He is ready to sell his 80-acre vineyard for $1.45 million. The sale includes 13,000 vines of 11 grape varieties, a 1,600-square-foot house, a winery building and other structures on the parcel. He also has equipment for sale. His Cottonwood tasting room is closing on April 13, but the tasting room at his Willcox vineyard is open.

“Nothing would make me happier than to hand this on to somebody … who has enough money to maybe build a nicer tasting room, a more modern, well-equipped winery and plant some more vines,” he said.

Pillsbury reflected on his many paths through life in an interview with The Arizona Republic. He spoke about his decades-long career as a filmmaker in New Zealand and Los Angeles, to his winemaking career, which he began in his 50s.

“I've always felt that there's too much generic food and wine in the world. And so I wanted to make wine that came from a place and was made by a person,” he said, noting many wines feature a blend of fruit from numerous different places.

How did Pillsbury Wine Company get its start?

Pillsbury has always loved wine, from the moment he had his first sip at 13 to many years later when he bought land in New Zealand to build a vineyard.

Although the New Zealand vineyard never came to fruition, he eventually found himself at Smitty’s grocery store in Phoenix buying a bottle that changed the course of his life.

It was 1999, and he bought a Dos Cabezas chardonnay while visiting his wife’s parents. The wine tasted “bright and clean and floral and complex and fascinating and delicious,” he recalled.

“When I tasted that wine, that chardonnay that was grown across the road and made by Kent Callaghan, I just knew there was a miracle here,” Pillsbury said.

In 2000, Pillsbury partnered with Dos Cabezas WineWorks founder Al Buhl to expand the vineyard.

Five years later, they sold the vineyard and Pillsbury bought 100 acres across the road to begin his own winery. He has since planted 13,000 vines.

When he began, there were only two vineyards in southern Arizona. Now, there are more than 40 in the Willcox American Viticultural Area.  

Pillsbury said he spent much of his time marketing and promoting Arizona wine to a skeptical public. He even hand-sold his wine at Costco.

“Those first years I was very, very active in promoting it because I had done that with movies in a way, so I was used to it,” Pillsbury said.

Pillsbury helped put Arizona wines on the map

In addition to making award-winning wine, some in the southern Arizona wine community highlighted Pillsbury's talent in promoting and telling the story of the local industry that helped put the state's wine on the map.

Rod Keeling, of Keeling Schaefer Vineyards in Willcox, said winemakers like Buhl and Pillsbury proved wine could be grown and made in Arizona.

“They proved that it could be done, and it could be world-class wine from the fruit we were growing,” Keeling said. Keeling highlighted Pillsbury’s marketing and promotion skills, which helped all of Arizona’s wine industry.

“He’s a talented storyteller, and he told his story very well and made it more interesting than most of us are capable of doing,” Keeling said, noting how Pillsbury was able to attract national media. “And of course that spilled over to other wineries in the Willcox area.”

Eric Glomski, the founder of Page Spring Cellars in Cornville and Pillsbury’s longtime friend, said Pillsbury was “larger than life.”

He always wanted to make wine that went well with food, Glomski said.

“He wanted to be a purist,” Glomski said. “He wanted these wines to taste like the grapes that he grew. He wanted them to taste like the soils and the climate, the place where he grew those grapes.”

Glomski said Pillsbury was a “tireless” promoter of Arizona wines. Glomski would travel to the Phoenix “valley” and see Pillsbury wines everywhere.

“Sam brought just an insane amount of infectious enthusiasm and passion about Arizona wine,” he said.

Despite Pillsbury being about 20 years older than Glomski, Pillsbury was “running circles” around Glomski as recently as five years ago. Glomski described his friend as someone who could talk nonstop, joke, laugh and entertain groups of people.

But winemaking is hard work, a labor of love, Glomski said. And Pillsbury told The Republic: “I’m ready to take it easy.”

Keeling said other Arizona winery owners are facing similar issues.

“We are just too old,” Keeling said. “We’ve tried to establish our credibility as a great wine region and hopefully we can attract the investment.”

Ann Marie Stephens, a long-time champion of Arizona wine, recently donated $6 million to start a viticulture program at Cochise College. Keeling hopes it will help attract and retain the workforce for Willcox’s wine industry.

Pillsbury remains excited and positive about the future and resilience of Arizona’s wine industry.

“The wine industry has grown and evolved here in Arizona, with its increase in vineyards and wines, and some exquisite offerings,” he said in a statement. “I am happy to say I feel that I was able to make a small difference in making it grow and helping many of the other vineyards to flourish.”

Reach the reporter at sarah.lapidus@gannett.com. The Republic’s coverage of southern Arizona is funded, in part, with a grant from Report for America. Support Arizona news coverage with a tax-deductible donation at supportjournalism.azcentral.com.