Lauded Winemaker’s University of Arizona Connection

In the early 2000s, Dave Phinney took the wine industry by storm with the launch of Prisoner. After selling the label in 2008, a non-compete kept him from making a new zinfandel for eight years.

Now back at it, his Orin Swift Cellars (named for his father’s middle name and mom’s maiden name) has triumphantly released 8 Years in the Desert. A success several times over, one might not guess where he got his start: at UArizona. Phinney was a Wildcat in the mid-1990s. He even planted his first experimental grapes in Tucson with the help of an agriculture professor.

– The Arizona 100 reports