First time finalist nabs Colorado Governor’s Cup for best wine
The winery is actually a division of one of Colorado’s most well-known craft breweries.
Dennis Huspeni dennis.huspeni@gazette.com Nov 2, 2024 | Updated Nov 4, 2024
The winner of the 2024 Governor’s Cup for best wine is actually a well-known Colorado craft beer brewery.
Well, a division of it at least.
The OBC Wine Project in Fort Collins, with winemaker Travis Green and assistant Genevieve Swartz, took the cup with its 2023 Colorado Red. It’s a division of Odell Brewing, and the wine bar is right next to the brewery.
“We started making wine at Odell five years ago,” Green said Friday during the Colorado Uncorked event at History Colorado. “When we first started, people were like ‘what the hell does this brewery know about making wine?’ And when I came on as a winemaker, I asked the same question. But five years later, it’s been super and such an honor to be accepted into this community.”
Hundreds of wine lovers got to sniff, swirl and sip Colorado’s best wines from 14 double gold winners of the 2024 Governor’s Cup Collection. More than 300 entries were judged by sommeliers, winemakers and wine writers.
“Fourteen winners is an all-time high,” said Kyle Schlachter, executive director of the Colorado Wine Industry Development Board. “Usually we try to keep it to 12, but the quality of the wines in the competition was so high that the judges couldn’t decide on those last two.”
There’s 160 wineries in Colorado and several of the participants Friday commented on the overall quality of the wines making great strides in the past 20 years.
“When Colorado’s industry first started, it was the cabernet sauvignons and the chardonnay, the typical varieties,” said Schlachter, who’s also the mayor of Littleton. “But now our grape growers are blending new varieties, and our winemakers are really making the grapes expressive wines that really showcase the diversity that we have here in Colorado.”
The 14 double gold winners included: Alfred Eames Cellars, Carboy Winery, Fox Fire Farms, OBC Wine Project, Sauvage Spectrum, Snowy Peaks Winery, Restoration Vineyards, Whitewater Hill Vineyards, Storm Cellar, Peachfork, St. Kathryn Cellars.
Paige Dadmun, assistant winemaker and enologist at Carboy Winery, with Tyzok Wharton, director of winemaking, passed out samples of its 2021 Chambourcin to eager drinkers.
“There are so many cool things about Colorado Uncorked. We get to taste all the different top wineries in the state, see how others are making wines with the same grapes we are, but it’s different,” Dadmun said. “So it’s different, but fun to see all the techniques that make great wines so unique for each winery.”
The obvious challenge to making wine in Colorado are the vastly different regions to grow grapes at altitude, or with shorter seasons, our outside “The Valley” surrounding Palisade.
“You get rougher conditions here with wild cold, early frost, snow storms and that’s rough around the grapes. But the wines will usually turn out pretty well,” she said. “Then you’ve got your lower-altitude vineyards and it gives such a variety to the wines you’re making. … The science here is just way different than any other state.”
Carboy is the biggest Colorado Winery, with locations in Denver, Breckenridge, the flagship winery in Littleton, Palisade (where all the grapes are grown at its Mt. Garfield Estate).
Fox Fire Farms’ Owner Richard Parry, who was joined by his daughter-in-law and Assistant Winemaker Emily Parry and wife Linda – a level-one sommelier, know all about growing in rough conditions.
“I’m basically a sheep rancher that got into growing grape vines and becoming a wine maker,” Parry said. “It’s my second occupation.”
It was the second year Fox Fire Farms, near Durango, nabbed a double gold with its Fox Fire Red.
“The first challenge we had was growing grapes because we’re at 6,500 feet,” he said. “Most don’t grow at our elevation because it’s too cold. So we discovered the cold-climate hybrids and now that’s all we grow. They’ve been really successful.”
The Whitewater Hill Vineyards 2023 Moscato drew lines of wine enthusiasts.
“We make Colorado wine with Colorado grapes,” said Chloe Nicoson, winemaker for the Grand Junction vineyard. “Everything we make comes from grapes within a 10-mile radius of our winery. … We really like to show off what Colorado has to offer. We do everything from dry whites, dry reds, semi-sweets, desserts – you name it.”
Whitewater has been around for 20 years and watched the Colorado industry grow with it.
“It’s just one of the most welcoming communities I’ve ever been a part of,” she said. “Some of my best friends are wine makers and tasting managers and staff and owners and we all really coordinate well together. We all love what we do and I think that really shows in all of what we put out.”
Colorado’s Commissioner of Agriculture Kate Greenberg summed it up well.
“We are privileged to be able to celebrate Colorado wine and the incredible growth we are seeing in our wine industry across the state,” she said. “Wine is part of agriculture. So if you are drinking wine tonight, if you are eating the food we have prepared by our amazing chefs — that all started in the soil from across Colorado. Whether it’s west slope, east slope, southern Colorado, northern Colorado, you are drinking what comes out of the Earth. So we are always thinking about the farmers, ranchers, the workers out in the field.”
