Pillsbury Wine: From Movie-Making to Award-Winning Wines
CrushBrew Editorial · Wine · Arizona Winemakers
Sam Pillsbury, owner and winegrower at Pillsbury Wine Company, comes from a background in filmmaking and screenplay writing in New Zealand — about as far from the Arizona wine country as you can get. We sat down with Sam to find out how he made the leap into award-winning winemaking and what drives the Pillsbury Wine Company philosophy.
You have a pretty unique background in the entertainment industry. Can you tell our readers a bit about it?
Sam Pillsbury: I fell in love with movies in high school and college in New Zealand, largely through Film Society screenings — Fellini, Truffaut, Buñuel. I loved the wit and lyricism of Truffaut, and I think Fellini’s La Strada is probably the greatest film ever made.
In college I started writing film reviews for the student newspaper and ran the college film club, where I raised funds to buy a 16mm Bolex and started shooting black and white film. It suddenly became obvious that was what I wanted to do. The day after I got my MA, I flew to Wellington and talked the NZ National Film Unit — one of the only film producing entities in the country — into hiring me. I worked there for five years, then started my own film company in a place with virtually no film industry.
I was fortunate — the first documentary I made was a significant hit, and the first feature I wrote and directed became the first New Zealand feature to screen at Cannes.
How did you get involved in the wine industry, and did your background help when setting up Pillsbury Wine Company?
SP: I have always loved wine, and for many years I tried to figure out how to get started. Interestingly, the same teacher who sparked my love of film also sparked my love of wine. I actually bought vineyard land in New Zealand in the 1980s — on Waiheke Island, which turned out to be a brilliant location and is now hugely expensive — but my work took me to Los Angeles and I had to leave that project behind.
How did Pillsbury Wine get its start, and why Arizona?
SP: A film project brought me to Phoenix, where I met my wife. I started exploring Arizona for land possibilities. I stumbled on a wine from remote Cochise County — made from a small vineyard in an unlikely place — and it was the most extraordinary Chardonnay I had ever tasted. I drove down the next day, bought 40 acres next to that vineyard, and went into partnership with Al Buhl, the owner.
People thought I was out of my mind. We planted 20 acres of Rhône varieties there in 2000 — the same year Saturday Night Live listed “plant a vineyard in Arizona” among the best ways to lose money. That cultural skepticism is actually how I managed to buy 40 acres for $400 an acre. The land is now worth around $7,000 an acre, and more than 70% of Arizona wine grapes come from that region.
In 2006, Al and I sold the vineyard to AZ Stronghold, and I started Pillsbury Wine Company across the road on 100 acres I had purchased separately. We now have 14,000 vines on 32 acres and built our own winery on the property in 2014. [Figures as of 2017]
Your wines have won some impressive awards. Any particular recognition you’re proud of?
SP: I’m delighted with the awards — but I always joke that the two careers turned out to be more similar than I expected. Both are long, expensive processes. Critics tend to love your least impressive work and overlook your best. My personal favorite wine has never won a medal — it’s medium-bodied and gets buried by the big reds. Just like film reviews, it doesn’t bother me at all. I use the good ones to help market the wines. It’s a badge of legitimacy. It’s hard enough to sell a wine from Arizona already.
What varieties do you produce, and if you had to pick a favorite, what would it be?
SP: I’m a Rhône man. After growing up drinking Australian Shirazes and Cabernets, I was completely blown away by the first Châteauneuf-du-Pape I tasted in the south of France. So in 2000 we planted Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvèdre, and Petite Sirah.
My first two reds were a Côtes du Rhône I call Roan Red and a Châteauneuf-style wine I call Diva. Roan Red is my personal favorite — the one that never wins medals — and Diva is the bigger, showier wine that earns a lot of recognition. We also make a Petite Sirah that has been a consistent gold medal winner.
My favorite white is a dry aromatic blend called Wildchild White — my attempt to recreate a stunning dry Gewürztraminer I came across in Gisborne in the 1980s. The current blend is Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Viognier, and Symphony. It’s our most affordable white and genuinely special. We also grow Chardonnay, Roussanne, Sangiovese, Pinot Gris, Malvasia Bianca, and Symphony across the property.
What’s next for Pillsbury Wine Company?
SP: We make food wines. I avoid new oak, high alcohol, and jammy fruit. I want elegance and nuance — not the big extracted style I call “Hummer wines.” I just think they’re absurd.
We have a lot of fun innovating. I own the company, so I can do whatever I want — and since almost no one had done this here before, everything we do is still something of an experiment. We’re passionate about terroir, so we don’t bring in outside fruit. We only purchase from one neighboring vineyard. We ferment primarily with wild yeasts — though we run parallel ferments with commercial yeasts as controls — and we work with neutral oak and stainless steel, hand harvest, and use no chemical sprays or fertilizers.
We’ve been doing a lot of work with co-ferments — Côte-Rôtie-style Syrah with Symphony, Malvasia, Roussanne, and Viognier, and experimenting with Grenache co-ferments as well. We’re also air-drying Symphony and Malvasia to make dessert wines that have turned out beautifully.
I work with winemaker James Callaghan of Callaghan Vineyards, who also produces Rune Wines here with us.
Beyond wine, I grow apples, peaches, and pecans, and maintain a large organic vegetable garden — at the time supplying some Phoenix restaurants, including the Breadfruit & Rum Bar, which has since closed (2023).
If I can attract the right investor, I’d love to build a collection of passive solar casitas and a restaurant serving only food grown on the property. We’re also planting olive trees and agave. [Plans as of 2017]
