First stop was the westernmost located Two Rivers Winery.
It is a beautiful winery, with a French chateau look, very popular for weddings.
We chatted with the son of the owner/founder of the winery. He was very engaging and full of information about the growing of grapes in the valley. He said this winery was very much a family affair, with everyone pitching in to do what needed to be done (he was washing windows when we arrived).
The wine grapes grown in the area are "Old World" grapes - Chardonnay, Bordeaux (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Cabernet Blanc), Rhone (Syrah, Shiraz, Viognier) and German (Riesling, Gewurtzraminer, Pinot Gris, Lemberger). We found the Two Rivers wines quite good, and enjoyed a glass on their beautiful patio!
Most of the wineries are located east of Grand Junction. Many of them in the town of Palisade. The Colorado River winds through the town. That, in combination with the canyon winds blowing the upper level warm air onto the vineyards and orchards, make it ideal for grapes, peaches, cherries and lavender. The first three wineries were located right at the I-70 exit to Palisade!
Grande River Winery
Very good, mostly French-style wines including one that incorporated Lavender!
St. Kathryn Cellars specializes in fruit wines. They were delicious-not the sweet fruit wines you usually think of, but drier and full bodied.
Talon Winery shares the building with St. Kathryn's. They are a small, family owned winery, who learned wine making in the Sonoma valley. They also have a passion for falconry - thus the name and raptor on the label! (you can see how close I-70 is in this picture)
Varaison Vineyards is located in an old house with this great old truck parked outside as its sign. The tasting was quite different. Instead of a list of wines with descriptions, we tasted "blind" (couldn't see labels). The pourer gave us a mini lesson on how to smell, taste and describe the wines. The wine maker was also there to answer questions. Despite the fact that we have taken several tasting seminars, we learned a lot of new information!
Red Fox Cellars is the newest winery in Palisade. They had some unique wines that were aged in used bourbon barrels! They also had a menu of wine cocktails.
DeBeque Canyon Winery is a smaller operation, that has been in operation for many years. The owners are a "retired" couple who were wonderful to talk to. She was an RN for 45 years and was working the tasting room. He was outside scrubbing buckets! He said they usually try to get down to Arizona for spring training each winter, but this year was too warm and the grapes got growing sooner.
Next door was Peach Street Distillery and around the corner was Palisade Brewing Company. We'll have to come back to partake in those tastings!
The Meadery of the Rockies is owned by the same people who own St. Kathryn's. They specialize in honey wine or Mead. Honey is combined with fruits from the area to make wines that are, again surprisingly, not all super sweet! The fudge is though - yum!
Plum Creek Cellars has some of my favorite wines. Its owners have been growing grapes since 1980! They also have these great metal sculptures - the rooster made out of old farm tools
and the horse made out of horse shoes and scrap metal.
Colorado Cellars is the oldest and largest family-operated winery with 450 acres of grapes and four brand labels. They had the most unusual tasting bar I have ever seen. The bottles were "tapped" and there was a spigot for each wine. You were handed a glass, told the best order to taste in, and you just poured your own and tasted what you wanted to taste! The employees were there to answer questions, but there was no pressure or limit on how many you could taste (or retaste)!
Carlson Vineyards is another winery that has been around for a long time - first grapes in 1981 and the winery opening in 1988. The tasting room mascot is a calico cat, who greets you as you come in. Many of the wines have a smiling, juggling cat on the label. These wines were another of our favorites.
Mesa Park Winery specializes in red wines.
Their tasting room is this very cute red barn.
We arrived at Hermosa Vineyards just as the owner, Kenn Dunn and his apprentice, Stacy, were bottling some wine. It is a very small operation, but Kenn & Stacy were wonderful and a wealth of information about wine making & grape growing. He has been making wine in the Grand Valley for many years, but has stayed very small. The bottling machine they were using was designed and built by Kenn (he has an engineering background).
Canyon Wind Cellars is a family owned, estate winery established in 1991.
It is called an estate winery because they grow all of the grapes in their wines. I thought it was the most beautiful winery - the Colorado River wraps around it and there are lovely views up the canyon. The server in the tasting room told us that this winery seldom has any freezes because of its unique location even though a neighbor less than 1/2 mile away might.
Graystone Winery, established in 2000, specializes in ports, which are wonderful.
They feature a horse on their labels and this great sculpture out front to honor the wild horse herds that live nearby.
Whitewater Hill Vineyards was our last winery. Again, the staff was knowledgeable and so friendly and happy to answer all of our questions.
I hope you enjoyed our tour of Colorado Wine Country! We had a great time, didn't have time to try all of them (believe it or not), so we will have to come back. We were charmed by the people all over the Grand Valley, and awed by how hard the vineyard and orchard owners/staff work.
The wines were great and, as you can see, we bought a few bottles to enjoy - but the question is: where do we store it?
