Sombra Antigua Winery

Living full time on the road in our RV as we do, it is very easy to race from campground to campground and miss the back roads, the small businesses, the flavor of an area. We have discovered the antidote to this is Harvest Hosts. On Thursday we left Fort Stockton, TX to head west towards Arizona, and needed a place to stop for the night. We located a Harvest Host winery in Anthony, NM called Sombra Antigua, and decided to stop there on our way through the area.

We turned off Rte 10 after El Paso and a few minutes later found ourselves in another world. We passed vineyards and cotton fields on our rural road, with lovely mountains in the distance. I can only imagine how beautiful this area must look in the springtime.

Sombra Antigua Winery is the oldest vineyard in New Mexico, with vines that date to the 1800s. Quick--what state do you think of when you hear American wineries? Probably not NM! But out of 4000 wineries in the US, 2000 of them are outside of California and more than 60 are in New Mexico, according to our host, Dave. While the winery name was sold to another winery down the road, the original vineyards belong to Sombra Antigua.

We parked in the winery parking lot and went inside to greet the owners, Dave and Theresa. Bob and I sat at their lovely bar and tasted a variety of wines whose grapes were grown here, while Dave entertained us with stories of the winery's history and how the grapes become wine. We then sat on the porch in the afternoon sun and enjoyed the view of the mountains and vineyards around us. What a way to while away the afternoon.

We chose two bottles of Sombra Antigua wine to take with us as a way to remember our time here.

Our view from the front window of the motorhome.

Local cotton fields. 

The patio with a view of the mountains.

The mountains glowed at dusk. We will return!