Colorado Wine, worth the trip?

Hi all, I’ll be in CO this winter for a little bit and (for a first) not planning on skiing at all. I’ll have a few days to kill possibly in the Denver area, and noticed that a quick search for ‘Colorado winery’ turned up quite a few results. I’d be interested in trying a few but honestly have no idea where to start. Would primarily be interested in tasting grapes that were grown IN Colorado, if at all possible.

If this is not possible, I’ll take recommendations on your favorite wine bar as back up.

No skiing?! They are getting dumped on in the early season. My RECO would be to pour your favorite bottle into a canister and head for the mountains. Nothing like taking swigs of some vino whilst on the gondola…

Hey Matt. I can recommend a visit to Creekside Cellars Winery and Cafe in Evergreen if it fits into your schedule. Nice people, wines and food. Also a nice ride up to Evergreen from Denver. (can detour to Red Rocks weather permitting). I believe most if not all grapes are from Colorado. Look at their website and contact them to learn more about it. -Jim

+1. Best winery in the metro area and maybe the state.

Bookcliff in Boulder is also worth a trip.

I’ve had Colorado wines twice now, both made from Colorado grapes, and both were quite good. Of course, I don’t remember what they were. They were both tasted blind by enthusiastic folks, so they were undoubtedly of the better quality. I mean, after all, when someone bags a mystery wine and says, “Hey, taste this and guess what it is…,” it’s unlikely to be bad. They’re most likely trying to make a point and, in my experience, they did. Colorado can grow some great grapes and make great wine. I know one was a Cab Franc. In other words, I’d definitely think it would be worth visiting a few.

Why not? I would do it. And get in touch with Kyle Schachter, who posts here from time to time.

Creekside and Bookcliff are both solid recommendations

I actually have a friend who lives in Evergreen, this might make an excellent way to spend an afternoon. Thank you!

This is generally my go to. We will probably make it out later in the season (maybe early March) to get a few turns. We had a 55 degree day at A basin last year in March that was phenomenal. But hey, if there’s a foot of powder over night and a bluebird day in the morning…

If that’s the case then you know what to do

Matt, Bookcliff and Creekside are both great recommendations. If you get up to Boulder to visit Bookcliff, there are two other wineries (one produces only wine-based cocktail concentrate) and a brewery in the same complex. I’d also recommend Infinite Monkey Theorem north of downtown. Lots of top restaurants in the RiNo (River North) neighborhood. I’d also recommend Carbon Winery at Angelo’s Taverna in Littleton (though they haven’t released any of their CO-grown wines). They started as 100% non-CO wine, but were so impressed in the fruit, they’ve reduced their out-of-state production to only 25% (Matt Nagy of Matthiasson and Benevolent Neglect in CA is one of their winemakers (they have two in CA and two in CO)). The two wine regions are on the western slope about four hours west of Denver. Both have their pros/cons to visit. Crested Butte has a new winery, Buckel Family Wine, from the winemaker at Sutcliffe Vineyards (Cortez) and formerly of Flowers and BR Cohn. If you’re up at Vail, stop in at Monkshood Cellars in Minturn. Nathan was assistant winemaker at Mayacamas before settling in CO.

Lots of options depending on your schedule.

How long and when are you in town? Depending on my schedule, I could be convinced to host an offline with some other berserkers and open some older CO wines…

Slight correction, the winery in Littleton is Carboy not Carbon. Sorry, Kyle had to do it.
http://www.carboywinery.com/littleton/

I’ll blame autocorrect on that…

I just got back from a day of tastings around Palisade. Some quick highlights/lowlights:
Sauvage Spectrum: Interesting pet nats, somewhat dull and closed still wines (I tried their gruner veltliner and red blend).

Bookcliff Vineyards: Beautiful views! But across the board on my red flight I found the wines flabby, over-extracted, and over-manipulated.

Red Fox: An interesting and tasty lineup of Italian grapes was a great change of pace. Worse views compared to Bookcliff but much better wine.

Colorado Vinter’s Collective: Maybe the most solid tasting flight of the day - well-made wines, some in-house and some from other producers. One of the advantages of getting the pick of the litter I suppose.

Plum Creek: Similar to Bookcliff - over-extracted over-handled wines. The reserve chard was like chewing on a block of wood, and the reds were heavy and flabby.

Ordinary Fellow: I only had their pinot - they’re one of the few producers who grows the grape in the area. A really nice, well-balanced wine, though tough to stomach the sticker price at over $65.

I think the value to quality has been the hardest part for me with Colorado wine. Even the better producers (I should say, the ones I enjoy like Storm Cellar and Aquila) are just too expensive to justify regular purchases on a limited budget.

That said, I love visiting Palisades. Hope you had a chance to eat at Peche!

Yeah, the experience was very pleasant but I didn’t come home with any cases.
Peche was on my list but they’re closed Sundays. Next time!

Also worth a stop is Tacoparty in Grand Junction for something more casual. Thought Bin 707 was enjoyable as well, but for a similar price point as Peche we head to Peche every day of the week…

I find it strange how often this is true in the lower-tier type wine states. I guess there’s enough customers with a state pride / support the state kind of mindset who are willing to greatly overpay for the relatively best of the state’s wines.

Or maybe it’s like we were discussing in the other thread, and charging $50 makes some people perceive they’re getting a $50 quality wine, whereas charging what it’s really worth in a global wine market sense (like what you could get away with charging for a wine of that quality if it were from California, France, Italy, Oregon etc.) would cause buyers to perceive that it’s crappy wine.

I think, as with all wineries, it definitely depends. I think Aquila in Colorado does an incredibly good job with their wines. I do think they can reasonably charge $50 for a bottle. Storm Cellar I think does a good job too, but they’re hamstrung by the alternatives. When I’m spending $25-30 for a riesling, I almost always go to Germany. Colorado wine can’t touch the quality at the price point, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a good price - or the price they need to cover their costs.

A winery like Colterris that’s trying to be a Napa winery in Colorado on the other hand, I think gets a little ridiculous. Their under $30 offerings aren’t great, and their decent wine is $60. It really just doesn’t cut it for me.

I’m sure land and production costs also impact baseline prices. Old world vineyards that have been running for hundreds of years don’t have to price in land costs or much in the way of “buildout” costs.