An award-winning Sonoita winery/distillery is partnering with a longtime family-owned Tucson restaurant in what may be the first collaboration of its kind in Southern Arizona.
After a year of flirting about the possibilities of joining forces, Flying Leap Vineyards & Distillery and JAM Culinary Concepts (Vero Amore, Noble Hops) announced the partnership this week.
Beginning April 1, customers will start seeing Flying Leap spirits and wines on the menu at the Oro Valley gastropub, 1335 W. Lambert Lane. No timeline has been announced for Flying Leap going into Vero Amore and The Still, a popular speakeasy tucked into the Plaza Palomino Italian restaurant at 2920 N. Swan Road.
Vero Amore in Dove Mountain, meanwhile, is not part of the partnership. JAM in March sold the 17-year-old restaurant at 12130 N. Dove Mountain Blvd. in Marana to Jimmy Aujla, who owns Indian Twist on East Camp Lowell Drive.
JAM’s Suzanne Kaiser said the Flying Leap partnership will allow her to enhance the guest experience at the restaurants that she owns with sons Aric and Josh Mussman.
“It’s a premium brand like we are,” she said. “They look at alcohol and spirits and wine the way we look at food: put in really good ingredients, take your time and make it special.”
Bartender Sarah Guerrero tends to customers at Noble Hops in Oro Valley. The restaurant is partnering with an award-winning Sonoita winery/distillery.
“Craft beer and wine. We figure we could merge these opportunities together and create something truly original in Tucson,” added Mark Beres, who owns Flying Leap with partners Marc Moeller and Thomas Kitchens.
The 50-50 collaboration might be the first time an established Tucson restaurant has fully partnered with a winery or distillery, although several Southern Arizona wineries operate restaurants in their tasting rooms.
Flying Leap will handle the alcohol side of the business, incorporating its expansive portfolio of award-winning wines and spirits into the cocktail menu, including its nationally feted Nachbrenner Spiced Brandy that recently won a gold medal and best in class designation in the American Craft Spirits Association’s Craft Spirits Awards.
Flying Leap also took home silver medals for its blue corn finished sourmash bourbon and VSOP Brandy, and a bronze medal for its blue corn straight sourmash bourbon whiskey.
Beres said the recognition was a first for the state’s spirits industry, which has never had an Arizona-crafted brandy place first.
Beres and his partners started Flying Leap in 2010 and have 60 acres under vine between its estate vineyard in Elgin and its vineyard in Willcox. They use some of those grapes for spirits that are aged at the distillery, built in 2016.
Flying Leap’s goal with the JAM partnership is to create “an upgrade to a night out, and we’re going to be bringing that to the market,” Beres said.
“Suzanne Kaiser has a winning formula. She’s a very, very smart woman who has really built a beautiful business,” he said. “Our goal is to incorporate wine and spirits that enhance the customer experience.”
Kaiser and her sons opened their first Vero Amore restaurant down the street from the Plaza Palomino restaurant in 2006. They launched the Dove Mountain location two years later, followed in 2011 with Noble Hops.
She said that while the partnership will benefit her bottom line with lower alcohol costs, it also will improve the experience for diners.
“We are able to give our guests what we think are some really great (cocktail and wine) options,” she said.
