Four Tails Vineyard

Coming from Tucson on Highway 83, the Four Tails tasting room stands on the right, one block before the Sonoita stop sign, in the group of buildings called Sonoita Crossroads. Its large patio faces the Santa Rita Mountains, and there is indoor seating as well. Dogs, by the house’s own notice, are “welcome and encouraged.” Jan Moyer, who manages the room and owns part of it, describes the approach: “If you are not from around here, the view coming through the breezeway takes your breath away.”

The room pours flights and sells bottles. The kitchen serves appetizers, bread bowls, and flatbreads. According to the Patagonia Regional Times, some of the dishes are cooked with Four Tails wine. “I showcase local breads that are made here and work with other tasting rooms in the area,” Moyer told the paper. Live music plays on select weekend days. On October 10, 2026, from noon to 8 p.m., the room holds Harvest Hounds, a single day of fall wine features, harvest-inspired food, live music, and the sunset over Arizona wine country.

A dog on every label

At its opening in 2025 the room offered seven wines, the Times reported. All were single varietals except the rosé. Each label carries a picture of a dog, and each of those dogs is an actual rescue. The vineyard’s site names some of its “Four Tails,” past and present: Dash, Barley and Abe, and Leelou. “We’re all about not only the wine but the well-being of these animals that need homes,” Moyer said.

PHOENIX magazine wrote up the 2016 Double Trouble Estate Cabernet Sauvignon in 2018. It noted that Arizona-grown Cabernets are rare and a wholly estate-grown one rarer still. The magazine found raspberry jam, black currants, and cassis in the wine, with hints of roasted eggplant and green pepper.

The next year Pavle Milic of the same magazine tasted the 2018 Pete Rose Rosé. It is a saignée, made by drawing off juice from red grapes that have sat on their skins for a few hours, or up to a day or two, right after harvest. He also tasted the 2017 Short Temper Tempranillo, aged 17 months in neutral French oak, and found ripe cherries, dill, and a faint tobacco aroma. He wagered that “most self-assured somms would peg it as a Rioja in a blind tasting.”

A cattle ranch below the Stronghold

The grapes come from 10 acres in Pearce, at the base of the Cochise Stronghold. PHOENIX magazine placed Pearce as a farming town about an hour east of Tucson. Tastings and tours at the vineyard are by appointment.

By the winery’s account, the land was a hobby cattle ranch that belonged to Cale Coons’s grandfather. PHOENIX called it the Winged Foot Ranch and said it belonged to his grandparents, whose place Cale visited as a boy. When the grandparents died, Cale and his wife Barb resolved to keep it. The winery says the land had long carried a dream of growing grapes in the high desert, and that the Coonses acquired it in 2013 to make that dream real.

The couple first talked with winemakers in the Sonoita and Willcox regions, among them the people behind LDV Winery, Zarpara Vineyard, and Rune Wines. The accounts of the planting differ:

• PHOENIX magazine (2019): In May 2013, with help from James Callahan of Rune, the Coonses planted five acres in Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, and Tempranillo. They engaged Gary Kurtz of Greater Than Wines as head winemaker.
• The winery’s own history: The vineyard began with 300 vines. The Main Block was planted in 2014 and the New Block in 2020, and the list of varieties includes Viognier. The winery says the varieties were chosen to suit Pearce and to stand apart from other local wineries.

The fruit is grown, hand-picked, and bottled entirely within Southern Arizona. The Coonses kept four rescue dogs at home, so when it came time to name the place, “Four Tails” was, in the winery’s words, the natural choice. The couple lives in Phoenix and spends part of the year in Pearce.

Pretty Girl at a corner market

The Sonoita room traces to a shopping trip. In 2018 Jan and Greg Moyer, then of the Bay Area, were visiting Jan’s mother’s property in Pearce. At a corner market they came across Four Tails bottles, and one of the wines was called Pretty Girl, the nickname of one of the Moyers’ five dogs. “That was a sign,” Jan said. “Wine and dogs. That is so our schtick!”

Later the two couples met at a Willcox wine festival and became friends. Jan retired from the tech industry, and in 2022 the Moyers moved to Elgin. There they bought ten acres with 375 olive trees, intending to make olive oil.

Cale Coons proposed a tasting room in Sonoita that would pour Four Tails wine and also sell the Moyers’ olive oil. The two couples formed an LLC called Doghouse Leisures, settled on Sonoita Crossroads, and opened on Feb. 27. When the Times wrote the room up in May 2025, it had five employees. The couples kept the vineyard’s name because, Jan said, it already had “name familiarity from wine festivals and events.” She described herself to the paper in one line: “I save dogs from shelters and wine from bottles.”