Hi All!
Glad to be a part of this lovely forum and I figured I may as well share my journey with you all. It's been a long winter of preparation and (finally!) we found a location for our new little winery in Northern CO. To make a long story short, we're a fruit/cider/mead/flower & vegetable winery using only local ingredients sourced out here in the front range. That said, we're proud of our local area and heritage and have heard over and over again from older folks and through our research that, back in the days before a lot of great grapes were grown in Palisade and wine was cheaply brought in from other locals, fruit wine was ubiquitous in across CO.
Although it seems to have been largely abandoned as we became able to purchase quality grape wine from the liquor store down the road following the prohibition, we've found that you can make some pretty exceptional wines with fruit ingredients on hand. We've been experimenting for years using classic methods and techniques backed by modern science of fermentation and think we've come up with something pretty special. All of our batches are going to be made on a small scale so that we can have a large variety of fruits/other products available to make wine from. It's our belief that if we're able to harvest 30 lbs of cactus fruit, we should be dynamic enough to make a small 5 gallon batch of it! (It's delicious by the way!)
Anyway, in the past two weeks we've submitted all the paperwork, drawings, plans, etc. to our local, federal, and state entities in charge of wine and (figers crossed!) we hope to be bonded in the next few months. Reading through the forums and looking at other people's pratfalls has really prepped us and we're hoping to make this process go quickly, although I know it probably wont!
Please feel free to chime in and say "hey!" we'd love to connect with other wine makers.
Ryan
Forgotten Roots Winery
Glad to be a part of this lovely forum and I figured I may as well share my journey with you all. It's been a long winter of preparation and (finally!) we found a location for our new little winery in Northern CO. To make a long story short, we're a fruit/cider/mead/flower & vegetable winery using only local ingredients sourced out here in the front range. That said, we're proud of our local area and heritage and have heard over and over again from older folks and through our research that, back in the days before a lot of great grapes were grown in Palisade and wine was cheaply brought in from other locals, fruit wine was ubiquitous in across CO.
Although it seems to have been largely abandoned as we became able to purchase quality grape wine from the liquor store down the road following the prohibition, we've found that you can make some pretty exceptional wines with fruit ingredients on hand. We've been experimenting for years using classic methods and techniques backed by modern science of fermentation and think we've come up with something pretty special. All of our batches are going to be made on a small scale so that we can have a large variety of fruits/other products available to make wine from. It's our belief that if we're able to harvest 30 lbs of cactus fruit, we should be dynamic enough to make a small 5 gallon batch of it! (It's delicious by the way!)
Anyway, in the past two weeks we've submitted all the paperwork, drawings, plans, etc. to our local, federal, and state entities in charge of wine and (figers crossed!) we hope to be bonded in the next few months. Reading through the forums and looking at other people's pratfalls has really prepped us and we're hoping to make this process go quickly, although I know it probably wont!
Please feel free to chime in and say "hey!" we'd love to connect with other wine makers.
Ryan
Forgotten Roots Winery
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