During the pandemic when many were picking up a sourdough hobby or home improvement projects, Nick Brouwer opted for experimenting with homemade wine, particularly from various fruits rather than traditionally used grapes. After landing on a delightful strawberry-infused recipe, a newfound passion was born.
“Nick is a curious person who wants to know how everything works. Once he becomes interested in a topic, he fixates on it until he knows a lot about it,” his wife, Bree Brouwer, explains. “When he got into winemaking during COVID, he dove in and learned everything about the science behind fermentation and making wine. He already had a huge interest in baking and cooking, specifically at the molecular level, and why things are made the way they are and how to make them better by understanding the chemistry, so it was a natural extension of that curiosity.”
The couple had a longstanding interest in wine as casual drinkers, and took a wine-tasting course on a cruise in 2010. When they lived in the Midwest in the mid-2000s, they explored local wineries and tried mead at Renaissance festivals.
In 2023, Nick’s nearly decade-long career at GoDaddy came to an abrupt end during a round of layoffs. This, coupled with his winemaking hobby, was the impetus for him to dive into entrepreneurship full-time and “not be tied to the whims of corporate shareholders,” Bree says.
The duo, who reside on three acres in the San Tan Valley and Queen Creek area, built a winery on their property and went all in on bringing their vision to life. Bree, who’s the majority business owner, works full-time as a marketer for a solar company, leading the winery's marketing and event outreach in the evenings and on the weekends.
“Fruit wines are considered ‘inferior’ to many wine professionals, but we don't think it should be,” Bree says. “The reality is that anyone's ancestors made alcoholic drinks out of the local fruit growing around them; for Japanese, plum wine became popular, and pineapple wine is popular in Hawaii."
The couple behind Sunbeat Cellars are also turning to local fruits for their recipes, and have created a unique prickly pear wine.
"Over time, we actually hope this becomes our staple product, the one that we're known for more so than our traditional grape wines," Bree says.
As evident by the company’s name and tagline, “Tenacious Wines for Arid Times”, Sunbeat Cellars doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of running a beverage business in the heart of the desert. Their website explains that they’re committed to making smart water management choices and focusing on conservation wherever possible.
“In addition to the desert's natural beauty, we wanted to lean into the ruggedness of the American Southwest, and the ruggedness citizens in this area will have to embrace in the future. This is because our desert is becoming more arid as we see hotter weather patterns, and as we struggle to save and use our water appropriately,” Bree says. “As such, we needed a name that paid homage to our beloved desert despite its difficulties, and the idea of the sun beating down on you came to mind.”
While the wines are produced in Arizona, the bottles say California as that's where the grapes are currently sourced. Given the growing popularity of local wines, the duo hasn’t been able to get their hands on Arizona grapes just yet.
“Until that time, we're relying on our Paso Robles connections,” Bree says. “What our process currently looks like is ordering grapes from Paso Robles vineyards around the springtime, and then we bottle last year's batch of wine around September. Grapes are harvested in Paso Robles anywhere from October to November depending on the weather, and we ship them overnight in a refrigerated truck to our winery.”
The resulting wines are natural and low-intervention, meaning they contain no artificial coloring, unnecessary additives, added sugar, fining agents or artificial flavorings.
“Your average big-box red wine will have over 200 parts per million in sulfites, for example, while ours are well below 100 ppm for 2023,” she says.
Wine offerings that are currently available online include a cabernet sauvignon, merlot and wild-fermented cabernet sauvignon.
