What is Passion Cellars?
The Bronze Horse Fountain at Fifth Avenue and Marshall Way is the meeting point of Scottsdale’s shopping district, the place where people say “meet me at the horses.” Across the roundabout, at 7064 E 5th Ave, is one of the smallest and friendliest tasting rooms in Old Town.
Passion Cellars is one of three labels made by the Domanico family, whose wines come from southeastern Arizona. The winery was founded in 2013 on Fort Grant Road in Willcox, at Salvatore Vineyards, and it now makes wine at facilities in Willcox and Elgin. The labels split the work: Salvatore Vineyards is the reserve line, made to age; Passion Cellars is the line made to drink now; and Cabal Cellars is a collaboration between the two teams. The family runs tasting rooms in Elgin, Jerome, Tombstone, Willcox and Scottsdale.
The Fifth Avenue room has been listed under both names over the years, and for a long time visitors knew it as the Salvatore tasting room. Today the winery lists it as Passion Cellars, and Salvatore has its own room on Stetson Drive. The space itself is the same: a long bar with comfortable seats, a few tables, sofas in the front windows, chandeliers and art on the walls, and shelves of the family’s olive oils and balsamic vinegars.
The list leans Italian and southern European, which sets it apart from the rhone-heavy rooms on Marshall Way and Main Street. It is a good place to learn that Arizona does more than syrah.
How to spend an hour here
Take the window. The sofas at the front look straight out at the bronze horses, and on a weekday afternoon they are the best seats on Fifth Avenue. The room is small, so a party of more than six should call ahead.
Order across the labels. A flight is the way in. Ask the staff to mix Passion Cellars and Salvatore wines and to tell you which is which; the difference between a wine made for tonight and one made for five years from now is the most useful thing you will learn here. Past lists have included malvasia bianca, viognier and fumé blanc among the whites and nebbiolo, malbec, sangiovese and aglianico among the reds. Buying a bottle usually takes care of the tasting fee at Arizona rooms; ask.
Shop the shelf. The olive oils and balsamic vinegars are made under the family’s name and are easy gifts that travel better than wine.
Use the street. This is the Fifth Avenue shopping district, so the room fits between boutiques; Cartel Roasting Co. is the coffee stop a block east and Citizen Public House is the dinner reservation down the street. Carlson Creek and Los Milics are a short walk south on Marshall Way, and ArtWalk Thursdays bring the gallery crowd past the door.
A tasting room at the horses
Fifth Avenue has been Scottsdale’s shopping street since craftsmen graded it through farmland in 1950, and the roundabout at Marshall Way has been its landmark since 1989, when Bob Parks’ bronze horses went in. For most of that time the street sold crafts, art, Western goods and souvenirs. Wine was what you drank at dinner, and it came from California.
The change came in the 2010s, when Arizona’s wineries, almost all of them two to four hours away in Cochise County, Santa Cruz County or the Verde Valley, decided to bring their wine to the people instead of waiting for the people to drive. Salvatore Vineyards and Passion Cellars were among the early rooms in Old Town, and by 2017 this one was a regular stop on what was being sold as the Scottsdale Wine Trail, alongside Carlson Creek, Aridus, LDV and others. The Fifth Avenue location gave it something the others lacked: shopping traffic all day, not just gallery traffic on Thursdays.
The family has kept growing since. The Domanico wines now come from two production sites, the labels have multiplied to three, and the tasting rooms have spread to Jerome, Tombstone, Elgin and Willcox. In Old Town, that growth means two rooms: Salvatore pours at its own address on Stetson Drive, and this room carries the Passion Cellars name.
The honest assessment: Passion Cellars is not the fanciest room on the trail, and the drink-now wines are made to be friendly rather than profound. But it is relaxed, well placed, and a good introduction to the Italian side of Arizona wine. Sit on the sofa, watch the horses, and order the malvasia.