Ultrapremium Wine & Distilled Spirits - Grown, Produced & Bottled in the American Southwest

     Flying Leap Vineyards was founded in 2010 by three lifelong best friends: Mark Beres, Marc Moeller and Tom Kitchens, who met as freshmen in their late teen years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado in the late 1980s. Following graduation & commissioning, Mark, Marc and Tom served their country as Air Force pilots in multiple theaters of war and in a number of different roles and aircraft. A native of Walla Walla, Washington, Mark flew as a special operations pilot in the MH-53M Pavelow IV and later graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School, serving as a developmental test pilot for many years. Marc – a native of San Diego, California flew Boeing 757s, serving several US Vice Presidents, First Ladies and Secretaries of State as a distinguished pilot of Air Force Two for many years. Tom “Kitch” Kitchens – a native of Costa Mesa, California flew global airlift missions, flying the Lockheed C-17 for many years in both active duty and in the Air Force Reserve. Our founders performed a tactical rejoin in Arizona following their years of service to found Flying Leap Vineyards, which was incorporated in Vail, Arizona in the Fall of 2010.

     Initially envisioned as a collaborative small business venture, primarily as a small-scale wine grape farming operation, the Company began in earnest developing what would later become its Block 1 vineyard in a small, rural agricultural growing area south of Willcox, Arizona known as the “Kansas Settlement”. These initial vines were planted in April 2011, and developed & trellised over three full growing seasons.

     During these years and as serendipity would have it, a very young, unknown and somewhat disorganized Flying Leap would purchase a small farm winery called “Canelo Hills” located in the heart of Arizona’s most scenic wine country south of Tucson. The purchase of this property in Elgin in February 2013 launched Flying Leap’s wine retail operations. With a new portfolio of ultra premium wines and a place to market and sell them, Flying Leap’s sales soared. The growing demand for the Company’s wines required more planting, more expansion and the creation of more jobs. Flying Leap’s Block 2 vineyard was planted in 2012 and the estate vineyard was restored and expanded from 2013-2016. In 2016, the Company planted its Block 3 vineyard to provide Flying Leap with fruit for the distillery, bringing the Company’s Arizona-plantings to nearly 60 acres.

     In 2019, Flying Leap entered into a collaborative partnership with the Hoffmann family in California to acquire prized Malbec wines from their Lujan de Cuyo vineyard in Mendoza, Argentina. The partnership was expanded in 2020 to include additional sourcing of Cabernet Sauvignon from a separate, century-old vineyard – The Medrano, owned by Jose & Carolina Girotti of Bodega Tamascal. Thus launched Flying Leap’s second wine brand, Downrange, which expanded the Company’s offerings to its customers and dramatically increased Flying Leap’s wine production.

     Compared to other wine growing regions, Arizona’s fruit sales market is reversed – dramatically favoring producers over growers and making bulk fruit sales unprofitable. Thus and in 2013, Flying Leap envisioned and set to work designing a distillery so that surplus fruit could be distilled rather than sold. The Company broke ground 2 years later on a large expansion of its production facilities and issued purchase orders to CARL GmbH, a German stillmaker to procure a 650-liter kettle still and two distillation columns for converting fruit into brandy, eau-de-vie, grappa and vodka.

     The Company began distilling in the Fall of 2016 and opened its distilled spirits tasting room at the winery estate in April 2017. Flying Leap enhanced the distillery in 2018 with the addition of a fourth and much larger 1,500-liter kettle still and a vast water recycling & cooling system.

     Today, Flying Leap produces between 8,000 and 12,000 cases of wine annually depending on market demand and fruit allocations to the winery and distillery, which share the Company’s annual harvest. Flying Leap operates five wine tasting rooms and one distilled spirits tasting room in the Arizona market. Our products are grown, produced and bottled by Flying Leap – our wines and brandy-based spirits, including vodka are made from wine grapes harvested by-hand at our southern & southeastern Arizona vineyards. They genuinely express the distinctive terroir of Arizona’s unique growing sites and our microclimate, as well as the skill and patience of our production staff.

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