Today I’m joined by Richard McDonald. Richard and his wife, Aly McDonald, own Colorado Vintners and Cliff Dweller Wine, where they make a couple of my favorite wines in the valley. Their newest venture, Grand Valley Enology, is an on-site wine lab that provides juice and wine chemistry analysis to grape growers and winemakers in the Grand Valley. Richard’s goal is to provide lab services for everyone, from commercial wineries to home winemakers, to improve the overall quality of wine coming out of the Grand Valley and to save everyone some money along the way.
Richard has had an expansive career in the wine industry, working all over the world in some of the top wineries and vineyards. We chat about his experiences working in Australia, Napa, New Zealand, Europe, and back again, why he and Aly decided to open a winery and lab in Palisade after all that, and the best things about owning a winery in a relatively young wine region. Richard also expands on why he wanted to start a wine lab, why it’s important to have a local lab resource, and what he and Aly are getting into next.
More about Richard and Aly’s projects at coloradovintners.com
Email them at lab@vincollect.com
Theme Music: Riverbend by Geoff Roper.
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Transcript:
Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.
Today I’m joined by Richard McDonald. Richard and his wife, Aly McDonald, own Colorado Vintners and Cliff Dweller Wine, where they make a couple of my favorite wines in the valley. Their newest venture, Grand Valley Enology, is an on-site wine lab that provides juice and wine chemistry analysis to grape growers and winemakers in the Grand Valley. Richard’s goal is to provide lab services for everyone, from commercial wineries to home winemakers, to improve the overall quality of wine coming out of the Grand Valley and to save everyone some money along the way.
Richard has had an expansive career in the wine industry, working all over the world in some of the top wineries and vineyards. We chat about his experiences working in Australia, Napa, New Zealand, Europe, and back again, why he and Aly decided to open a winery and lab in Palisade after all that, and the best things about owning a winery in a relatively young wine region. Richard also expands on why he wanted to start a wine lab, why it’s important to have a local lab resource, and what he and Aly are getting into next.
All that and more, on today’s Postcard from Palisade.
RM: My name’s Richard McDonald. We had a great idea at the end of 2019 to start our own winery in Palisade in 2020. And we moved here the 1st of March, and then we all know how that kind of went down. but it gave us a lot of opportunity to kind of think, about what we wanted to do. So prior to harvest 2022, we started where we are right now, which is, Grand Valley Enology. So we’re a. We are what, I like to call crush pad to finished wine focused, wine analysis. So we kind of focus more on the winery side of once you press your grapes to tank, we can do juice analysis, we do juice panels.
I moved to Colorado and started working with Bookcliff in 2018, and I was just like, how do you do? You know, we did very basic, just wet chemistry, ph, sulfur, and that was about it. And I was like, hey, how can we do checking, you know, potassium levels and tartaric and malic and, you know, everybody. And even still right now, a, lot of people send to ETS labs, which is like, kind of a gold standard lab in California, and you have to pay the overnight shipping charges plus the sample, you know, you’re looking at almost $200 a sample. It’s, like, quite, quite expensive. along with it gets lost in the mail. So you pay for overnight, and it takes three or four days. And by that time, your juice is fermenting, like today is 100 degrees. So if your samples are warm and then they sit in the mail truck and. Yes, and it’s hot in California as well. It goes across Nevada desert. Yeah. So it’s not. Not ideal, you know, especially when you spend big money and you don’t get the accuracy that you want.
my background, you know, I mean, this year is, like 20, 22 years in wine. So I started, my first harvest was in 2003, just like straight out of high school. Just worked in a cellar, just got a job. I’m from Australia, obviously, and, the area I grew up in, Griffith, that’s got. There’s a big winery there. Yellowtail is kind of like a really big international claim to fame, but there’s a lot of other wineries, big scale wineries there
LM: I’ve had some of that in my day.
RM: Yeah. So it’s, you know, it’s just well known. That’s everywhere. literally everywhere. so it’s a big ag area. in general, it’s very similar to Palisade in that it’s irrigated desert. So we have a large, river that runs close by, and then it’s irrigated ag land. so there’s some big wineries there. Yeah. The winery I worked in was considered smaller. And, you know, we did 25,000 tons, like seven days a week, 12 hours a day. And then I kind of enjoyed it. And then that was also met. There’s a lot of international people, French and German guys working in the cellar. And they were, at that time, they were like, oh, yeah, you know, we travel, we do this Australia back to Germany or back to the northern hemisphere, and you can do this, what they call the endless harvest.
And, I had a good friend from high school, and her brother was actually the winemaker at that. Ah, he’s like, oh, yeah, you should, like, you know, you could go to. There’s a college 2 hours away, Charles Sturt university. They got a great program. And he’s like, yeah, it’s a great job. And I was like, okay, cool. And I applied. I took a gap year in that year. Just worked a lot of that. Worked that for six months. And then odd jobs out of season. And, yeah, planned for University, got in, and then kind of the rest is, you know, history, so to speak. Did a lot of Australia, and then I did the endless harvest for about six years. So between Australia, New Zealand, yeah, to Europe, back to Australia, the US, back to Australia. And then, met my wife, Aly. And we were both, just working in wineries in Napa, California. it was before smartphones, so, yeah, we just met at a bar the old way.
LM: the old fashioned way.
RM: Yeah and we got married in Australia. So I was working there again, back in my hometown. But then the opportunity came back up to come back to Napa. And, so we lived in Napa for six years, where I was very lucky enough to work in some very higher end. Kind of is probably a good way to describe it, where, you know, quality was the number one priority at all times. which is the basis that Grand Valley Enology is focused on. Because once, you know, you start a wine brand and anyone can start a winery, and then. But once you start going out into retail or restaurants, you, know, it’s perfect timing, but it’s like that’s the Olympics every day, like, you come up against the best wines in the world every single day, once you step outside of your tasting room. And the best wineries in the world are, doing this sort of stuff, like all the time, checking their lots, checking their wine. you know, that’s kind of the goal here, too, is, we have our, winery cliffdweller wine company and our tasting room, Colorado vintners. And it’s just building the brand of Colorado wine, improving consistency, improving quality, because also in the general market, Colorado wine is a little bit on the expensive side. Just when you talk about a lot of wine, consumers are very kind of conscious. They want good value and they want really good quality. That’s what we’re here for, to help build that quality that consistency. And I’m a big believer in all ships rise with the tide. you know, whoever it is makes a great wine, gets good write up, helps everybody out.
LM: Yeah, that was one of the questions I had, which was, you also kind of represented the same, attitude through vintners. You know, when you were starting up, you’re bringing in other wines from around the grand valley and around the, around Colorado, from west elks, and kind of pouring them side by side with your wines. So I can see this being really tied into that same concept where you’re not just kind of focusing on, like, this is all we do. It’s only us. It’s more about the community and the wine community in general.
RM: Yeah. And, you know, it’s a pretty exciting time right now in Colorado wine. you know, I have, some vendor friends that come out, you know, selling barrels and whatnot. and it’s always, it’s pretty funny. They’re like, man, I feel old out here because there’s a lot of, you know, you want to say young blood, but there’s a kind of, a little bit of a younger vibe. There’s definitely, you know, a lot of the founders are still around when. And it’s crazy to hear where. You know, it was only 20 years ago and there’s only six wineries in Colorado, and now it’s close to 200. but they’re great resource. They’ve seen it from a tiny thing all the way up to what it is now. but it is, you know, there’s lots of youth and enthusiasm there, I think is probably a good way to put it.
Well, I just grew up and that’s how I shop, too. You know, I want good quality stuff. And I do like to support local and the Colorado vintners idea for our tasting room. when I first started with bookcliff, so that’s. The winery is based out of the front range near Boulder. And so I was living on the front range and we’d come out. They own vineyards out here. They farm 50 acres out here. so we’d come out quite regularly to vineyards. get caught up doing vineyard work all day. And then you finish about 4:30, 5. And you’re like okay, I’ll try to do some tasting rooms. And everything was already closed. And there was a few less back then, too. But it’s very spread out, too, you know, where if you try to catch some places, you know, kind of ten, five to ten minutes away from everybody. and then Aly has an extensive background in restaurants. At the time, there wasn’t really a Colorado wine bar. there was the cafe. They had a whole bunch of Colorado wines, but it was a little, you know, they would kind of had weird hours.
LM: It was more food focused, too.
RM: And it was a cafe.
LM: Yeah.
RM: And so that was the original concept behind Colorado Vintners is. Anybody that came to visit Palisade, Grand Valley, we just wanted a spot where you could taste four or five or a handful of wines and be like, dang, man, Colorado wine is awesome. You know, just blow people away. because that is kind of a small problem in Colorado wine. you know, you can have two, three great wines and there’s kind of not a great wine and then just that consistency factor. And so, you know, you always remember the bad stuff and then you forget the good stuff.
and then it was also, you know, we were right in Covid probably in 2020, and it was kind of just helping to promote a few, like, we’re very lucky. We’re in a great location, kind of right on highway six here. And there’s a lot of great wineries, but it’s a drive, you know, so Mesa park is a good, you know, it’s not around anymore, but it’s 20 minutes drive from Palisade out to there. and then we had, chill switch and cedar edge is roughly an hour away. And a lot of people never heard of it. They didn’t even know that exists over there. So it’s, you know, you can take kind of that back, way back to Denver and go through Cedaredge, then go through Hotchkiss Paonia. Yeah. And then, So we, you know, we have always kind of have some storm cellar around, really great friends with Steve and Jamie. They’re doing an amazing job out there. I don’t know how they do it. And crazy. And then, yeah, along with Alfred Eames and, Qutori, when they have stock available. So. Yeah. And it’s just focusing on a little bit of, hey, you know, it’s just along that same theme of, hey, you know, it’s worth exploring. you know, everyone kind of knows the big wineries right off the highway. But there’s a lot of other cool stuff going on too.
LM: Yeah, absolutely. Well, so coming back to Grand Valley Enology, this is, like you said, this is really unique. So.
RM: Yes.
LM: there isn’t necessarily anything like what you’re doing here. Right. for any of the wineries around town who want to do this sort of testing on their samples, they’d either have to invest in all this equipment themselves, or they’d have to ship things to California, which you already kind of talked about the pitfalls of that.
RM: Yeah. So that’s exactly nothing like this really exists. for the winery side. that’s true. You know, it gets expensive very quickly. You can do some very basic stuff, very cost effective, but then once you get outside of the basic stuff, it gets expensive very quickly.
LM: So what sort of, services do you offer? Here, like, what kind of testing do you do and how often do people, like, how often would winemakers need to do these things?
RM: Yeah, so we, you know, it started out with, basic, just juice analysis. So, you know, for your juice panel, you want to check like the gluc fruc, which is glucose, fructose, two main sugars in grape juice, along with like your malic acid, tartaric acid, potassium, and your yam, like your yeast assimilable nitrogen. So that’s kind of the nitrogen available for your yeast fermentation. So that’s where you do, supplement to have a healthy ferment because you can’t otherwise the yeast don’t get happy. And then there’s a lot of off aromas or you’ll get stuck ferment. And that can lead to. Once you have anything with sugar in it, everything else likes to grow in it too, you know. So the yeast are quite great at kind of out competing all that stuff. But then once they’re not happy, everything else kind of moves in. It’s like guerrilla warfare going on in your ferment. And it’s a fine balance. you know, eliminating those problems early on is 95% of the way there to making a great wine. Like, you just, you have, you have a great ferment, you make a great wine. and then it all comes down to not ruining it later on. Yes. Yeah.
LM: Yeah And you need to know what you have to work with to know what you need to do. Right.
RM: Yeah. So, like, yeah. And that’s, that’s how it started out. I just asked around a lot of the wineries here. What are you currently doing? hey, if we were to invest to get this going, would you support it? Like supporting local and. Yeah. Very lucky that a lot of people jumped on right away, like, yes, because that’s, we work around the. We try to have people drop samples off in the morning. We try to same day turnaround, if not turnarounds done by noon. And just with my experience in the winery, it’s like, okay, I press the tank, I get my juice, get my samples in analysis, and then I can rack the tank that evening, get the yeast in, get my additions in, and then like, in the same day. So it’s like trying to help. Yeah. Otherwise you would ship it out and waiting three, four days, and then by that point you’re like, okay, I’ll just shoot from the hip and do a couple things.
LM: It might have changed along the way. So. Yeah, that’s. Wow. Yeah, that’s a huge benefit to the community.
RM: Yes. And then it’s also, we try to do it as cost effective as possible. Cause we’re a small business. A lot of everyone here is a very small business. So, You know, this is a very crucial step, I believe. So if we try to make it as cost effective. so the savings alone, You know, if you’re sending 10, 15 samples out, you know, hopefully we can almost save you like a couple thousand dollars there. that hopefully you are able to reinvest into, you know, maybe a new barrel or a cellar some help, you know, because everybody’s like, labor is very lean, you know, and it’s the hours are long, and then sometimes you’re like, oh, well, I’ve already worked 15 hours. I’ll wait till tomorrow. And then tomorrow can be too late. So it’s hopefully everybody’s able to reinvest in the quality, you know, so very quality driven.
LM: Yeah. Yeah. So you do the testing on the front end. And then you were mentioning you also had some equipment now to kind of do the final analysis to determine the alcohol content.
RM: Yeah.
LM: At the finished product end.
RM: Yeah. So yeah, we can You know, we’re very lucky. We were awarded a grant for the farm to market. So we were able to invest in a couple of new pieces of equipment now. So we can now do the majority of your wine analysis. here in house. We can do all of the juice plus then monthly, monitoring. So you know, your monthly. If you have a barrel program, like, like your monthly cos sulfur, monitoring, along with va. So you can kind of find problems very early. It’s probably the one big difference. Like I worked at, you know, working in Napa, we had 90 different lots of Cabernet sauvignon. Right. So if you had one or two that went great. It’s okay. We still got a whole bunch more to like make a great blend where here you may have one lot and it’s in two barrels, so you can’t really afford anything to go wrong. Or it’s like one lot in one tank. And this is all I got. So it’s a little bit more important to. And it’s. It’s also much harder. It’s smaller lots because smaller lots go bad quicker. So we can do all your monthly monitoring for sulfur and va. And then also like post ferment in red wines if you’re doing secondary malolactic fermentation. We can monitor your malic so you know, when it’s finished. so you can get your sulfur in preservative or you can, you know, there’s a lot of bio controls now so you know where you’re at. And, and then we can do your pre bottling analysis which is kind of your sulfur and any kind of chemistry you’re looking to touch up at the end. and then we can also do alcohol now. So. Which is for your labels. Yeah, it kind of gets important with your labels. Labels and federal regulations and stuff. So we can, we can now run alcohol analysis.
LM: So it’s a full life cycle of anything that you would need to do during winemaking process you all can do.
RM: Yeah. And then you know, we’re also here like if, if you are, we have a couple clients where, you know, we can kind of see their analysis and we do a little like some very basic tracking for you where if we see the results and we can kind of say, hey look, I’m not sure if this is the same lot, but you had one with the same name and we could say, hey look, you know, this is your va’s creeping or something’s going on.
LM: Yeah, very cool. And so you do all the same things, I’m sure, with your wines too. So it’s just a nice benefit.
RM: Yes. Yeah. And that’s, that’s comes out of just working. just where we went, where I worked in Napa, it was like every month we would do this. And it’s, you know, because obviously you’re dealing with a lot more, you know, great expenses. You know, it’s much bigger, kind of operation. We can’t afford to have anything go wrong. So it’s like your monthly checking and. Yeah, no, so it’s a big, it’s a small investment in your product, but then it does make a better product at the end. And then there’s consumers like yourself and everyone coming in every day and they appreciate, I believe, you know, they can really tell when people are caring about the product.
LM: I’m sure you can’t talk about who uses the lab, right?
RM: no, we can’t. But you know, it’s a large majority now, like probably more than half the wineries in this area now.
LM: wow
RM: So we’re like. And we’re gaining a couple more. I got a couple of new ones, just in the last few months doing like some pre bottling stuff. And then. And Yeah, so it’s slowly growing. and then we are Just because we’re just being really light staffed is a good way to put it. We do a lot of stuff here. So we’re now slowly opening up to potentially where front range people could ship it and ship samples in. Because that’s one beauty in Colorado is like, you just have to do ground freight overnight. Like from, especially from Denver to Palisade, it’s overnight just paying the, you know, $12 ground shipping.
LM: Yeah. And you’re just crossing the Rockies, so it’s not like you’re going across the Nevada desert. Or anything like that.
RM: Yeah. Hopefully not too hot. Yeah. You just need like an ice pack in there. You know, the ice packs wear out, after, like two days in the desert. Yeah.
LM: Yeah. Well, that’s so cool. So, I mean, that’s a lot to keep up with because you. It’s probably the busy times are also when you are busy with vintners and cliff dweller.
RM: Yes. Yeah. So that’s, You know, I’ve been very lucky. you know, Hillary Eales with Mafia princess. she’s kind of been here from the day one. And she really helped us get off the ground because they were like really small. She had some extra time. And, then, now it’s getting to the point where I’m able to, collaborate with the CMU tech and Ryan. And, about to a hire an intern from their program, there. And it’s, it’s also because, you know, I did enology at university and you learned like, all these manual ways to do stuff. And I can say I’ve never done half of that stuff ever. You know, you do the test and that’s the last time I touched any of that equipment. But this equipment that we have here now is you could, gain experience here and you could go to pretty much any winery, any wine lab almost in the world. And it’s very similar. Yeah.
LM: That’s so cool. That’s such an exciting thing to have here. And it just, it’s awesome to hear that. It’s been really well received and people are
RM: yeah And we do, you know, if there’s any new wineries out there, and if you’re currently sending your stuff out or if you’re doing it in house, we do offer, you know, we’ll do one or two samples for you, like where you do it your way, we run it here. you know, we just ask to share the results so we can double check. And, you know, we want everyone to be happy with the results. So that’s the worst thing is like you pay money for results and then you’re like, man, I don’t even know if I can trust this stuff. Yeah. So, you know, and I get that too. You know, I have vendors and you’re like, okay, well I’ve, you know, I’ve been doing this the same way for five years. Why would I change? And it’s like, okay, so you know, and that’s hopefully the benefits of being able to drop stuff off and you know, do your vineyard sampling. You know, I did some grapes this morning and you know, vineyard sampling in the morning. get the results back today and they’ll pick tomorrow maybe, or they updated their irrigation for tomorrow, they want to pick next week. Or just that benefits of being in, in the area.
LM: Yeah, absolutely.
RM: It’s like you can drop it off and then you know, go to the brewery or Fidel’s or whatever for a beer or something and then we’ll have the results back to you and then you can go back to work in the evening and yeah, do your racking and get your stuff done. Yeah. Kind of how it works in harvest time.
LM: It works, yeah. Have a little date night, go out for dinner and then go home and keep working. I love it.
RM: Yeah.
LM: so you mentioned that when you, where you grew up and where you first started working in a winery is a similar climate to here. And then you’ve definitely got a similar situation where it’s a desert, irrigated type situation.
RM: Yes, yeah yeah.
LM: so does it feel familiar at all to you now working here, working in New Mexico, to where you first started off or are there big differences?
RM: It’s a little different, yes. My immediate family, my cousins and uncle, you know, they own vineyards still. it’s kind of good to talk to them because I’m like, oh yeah, you know, look, I’m pruning this little one acre lot, you know, for free grapes. Like I do a little work and they’re like, man, you know, cause it’s obviously at one point they had, you know, little over a thousand acres they were farming themselves. And it’s very mechanized though. So, you know, big tractors, everything’s mechanized machine picking, that kind of thing. So it’s very different and it’s great to chat with them about that. here. Yeah, I love the climate here because it, you know, I love snowboarding and it’s great because we do get a winter time here and it’s. But actually the winter time here is like quite mild, like living in the front range. And you get that two, three weeks where it’s single digits. It’s or the snow will hang around for a few weeks. Yeah. Here it’s great. Like, you get the snow. Okay, back to sun. And that’s kind of weird because then you just go 20 minutes up to powderhorn and it’s like blizzarding. Yeah.
LM: Yeah it’s great, I love it.
RM: So here, obviously, the one main difference is the elevation. where I grew up is only, was 250 meters. So it’s like 1200ft above sea level, like, much. So we don’t get the, the extremes. definitely late spring frost is a. But, you know, it doesn’t get. We don’t get the extreme cold die back. They can grow any kind of grape variety. Where here. There’s some grape varieties. Don’t work great because come January, if we get single digits, they don’t. They don’t like it.
LM: Right, right.
RM: You get the winter. Kill. Yeah. But, Palisade itself reminds me of where I grew up. Where I grew up is a little bigger. It’s like 20,000. But the community here in Palisade is awesome. you know, now we’re part of the business community, just along with all the other. The old part of the community, if you want to call it that. I think that’s the. It’s a crazy thing in Palisade. there’s just a great community vibe going on here, which I think it’s crazy. someone else explained it and then I was like, oh, yeah, it’s like very relatable in, you know, my in laws come visit sister in law, brother in law. And it’s like, all right, let’s go to the farmers market. And as anybody probably knows, you only get about like 50ft into the farmers market and you’re like, oh, hey, hey, hey. You know, like chit chatting and it’s like an hour’s already gone and you haven’t gotten anywhere. And they’re always like, man, like, do you know this whole town? And it’s like, well it’s a small town and it’s like. But it’s just that community, you know, they come from a community where they probably. They don’t really know their neighbors. Yeah. So that’s. That’s like a really cool thing here in Palisade. I love living here in Palisade. our kids go to school in Palisade, three blocks away. It’s great. Yeah.
LM: So just in terms of Winemaking though, was there anything about this area anything about this area that surprised you that you didn’t know coming into it or grape growing or winemaking that was different than anywhere else that you’ve worked? Because you worked basically everywhere.
RM: Yeah. So what’s really unique here is you know, we have a very unique climate here. It is kind of on the verge of like Palisade is very unique in. It’s on the edge for grape growing. And you know we have a very unique microclimate here in the Grand valley. Obviously guys in West Elks at 6000ft and you know, down south in Cortez at high elevation are much more on the edge than we are. They’re a little closer to the edge. We’re kind of behind the safety rail a little bit here. And it’s also really great in I don’t know how to put it but you know, like a lot of more established regions have. And it always comes up sort of here and there. But you know like Napa has Napa cab, right? So it’s like kind of like. That’s the thing. Right?
LM: a defining thing.
RM: And then like Willamette has pinot. So it’s like very defining where here much broader scope on varieties that can grow. It also has sort of a much shorter history. So a large part of people here are still like trying to figure it out. You know, like what does grow really well here? Because it’s like, okay, is Cab Franc great? And Cab Franc is great. But then you have a. We had a. You know, the winner kill year in 2020 and those didn’t survive too well. And so a few other things came up. You know, there’s teroldego goes makes a great one. Chenin Blanc is like really great. So it’s like there’s just like this opportunity here to make great wines with a number of different varieties, that are kind of all in the mix and they’re all great. And without being like, hey, I’m just here for the big. The big guy, if that makes sense.
LM: Yeah. So there’s no. It’s like there’s nothing that There’s no kind of legacy that you’re forced to follow. I guess you can be a lot more creative and try to do things and still learn.
RM: Yeah, exactly. You can be creative and I And it’s also. Ah, people. There’s you know, Colorado has like a bit of a stigma with the natives if you want to call that like it’s, you know, people tried it 20 years ago and you know, admittedly it wasn’t great. I know the first time I came to Colorado, man, it was like twelve years ago and there was a Colorado wine tasting on the front range in a liquor store. And look, it wasn’t great, you know, and there was a couple great ones, but it was like very hit and miss. And you know, we do some markets on the front range and everyone kind of thinks that all Colorado wine is like, all they do is like sweet wine or just this one style of wine or it’s fruit wine or you know, the mindset is there and so, but there’s kind of a lot of younger people, if you want to put it that way, or new people to the state a little more, adventurous, you know. And we’re able to do that here and it’s, you know, there’s, and that’s also cool, like if you, from a wine agritourism point of view because, it’s not like you can go to five different, five wineries here and it’s like, like here’s the same wines. You know, you go around and it’s like different at every place. you know, sparkling wines gaining traction here and there’s some people making some awesome sparkling wine and so, you know, even that’s unique as far as like if you came out for a weekend and traveling around.
LM: Yeah, no, I totally get your point though. It’s like, so I grew up near the finger Lakes region in New York.
RM: Oh yeah.
LM: I worked there for a season. I think I worked in the wineries and it’s like, you know, Riesling. Riesling is the girl there. But there’s tons of other great wines. But you would go, you could spend a whole day just drinking Riesling and comparing Rieslings. Yeah, I mean you can’t or wouldn’t want to do that same kind of idea here. You won’t want to just go taste a rose everywhere, right?
RM: Yes.
LM: Everywhere has a full portfolio of wines that they can make.
RM: Yeah. And that’s you know, and then it kind of helps a little bit too, because it’s like, hey, go here. They make like a great, you know, this variety and then this place makes this really great and it, you know, and yeah, so it’s, I say it’s great for the consumer along with like, hey, you can go rafting in the morning and then wine tasting afternoon.
LM: Right.
RM: mountain bike for a day and then wine taste the next day while you’re recovering and that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Then this is like a super unique little, wine area that, you know, that’s very different. And, you know, there’s obviously a lot of outside aspects, kind of, you know, you’re asking on this uniqueness here, and it’s, you know, I love the outdoors. I don’t get a lot of opportunity to go to the outdoors, but it’s all like, right here on outdoor step, you know, with summit county is only 2 hours away, or if you want to head further south, like Durango or Moab’s only 2 hours away. you know, so much. It’s very unique out here, and I do feel it was very, like, almost unknown. And that is amazing. You know, I do work in our tasting room. People like, man, I drive past here, here for, like, 15 years and didn’t even know this whole thing was here. I didn’t even know this was happening here. You know, they’d heard of palsy peaches, right? Obviously. But they’re like, man, you guys have got breweries here and a distillery and wine, and, you know, no one. You know, man, we gotta stop over now. So there’s, like, a lot of people. It’s. It’s getting words getting out.
LM: Is there anything I missed that I just didn’t know to ask about?
RM: I think probably one big thing is, like, don’t be scared. Like, come in, get in touch with myself. or, yeah, like, through email or my cell, send me a text. also, if you do buy your own equipment, come and chat to us and, you know, we’ll help you. if you want to run a sample, we run a sample, we’ll help you do a couple of those things, get it dialed in. You know, I just want, ultimately, everyone to be making great wine. So, you know, I get it. Maybe you can’t do everything through us and you want to do some stuff in house, but we’ll help you make sure that what you’re doing is correct, you know, and if you have questions, you know, we’re here, too, for questions. Wine making questions. and that’s all from basic stuff all the way up to, like. Yeah, if you want to, you know, we could do some consulting as well. So it’s. We offer the full gamut. Yeah.
LM: Do you have a website or anything like that? I can put the link in there.
RM: right now it’s just through our website. Colorado vintners. no, that’s, like, the next step. We need to get our website up. right now. It’s like, just local. Yeah.
LM: So just word of mouth right now.
RM: Email is probably the best way. I just have a really bad habit with texts. you know, my phone will read them to me while I’m driving, but then I forget about it because then there’s like ten other texts and then you get buried in the texts inbox and I forget about it. But if email is like, great, because I, have my email set up to give me reminders on anybody I haven’t replied to. So I get that, like two days later. Yeah.
or just stop by the tasting room too. So come in. We’re open a little bit later in that, whole concept. And that’s, because, there’s a lot of people coming into the area and they don’t get here till 06:00 in the evening. And so we’re open a little bit later. We’re up until about 08:00 or, you know, sometimes nine on the weekend if there’s a lot of people having a good time. so just stop by the tasting room and, our tasting room ladies in there more than happy to help you and get you in contact with us here. That’s if we’re not here in the lab. So it’s. Yeah, we’re not always, you know, we have a lot of other stuff. We’re not always just sitting around in here.
LM: You don’t just live here.
RM: Yeah. Although it’s great on a day like today is like air conditioning and stuff. because we have a couple, you know, obviously we have, our other, like, Cliff dweller wine company. And that’s like, a bigger project. We’re almost, it’s kind of two years in the making there where, like, we. We just expanded our production. that was supposed to be ready before harvest last year, and it wasn’t ready till November, like, right after harvest, which is always fun. and then we are also moving into custom crush there. So we. Some grant money for production capacity there. And then it’s kind of building a small, little ecosystem here where it’s like, you can custom crush and then the lab analysis and the tasting room. Yeah. And it’s like, kind of to help, if you want to start your own winery, it gets very expensive very quickly. Yeah, there’s a lot of toys. So we can, help with some custom crush in that project to help save you startup costs. You can get going well, before you go, or, you know, before you invest in building your own place, or you may just get a couple years in and you’re like, man, I don’t do this anymore. That’s the worst thing is, like, then. Then you just have to liquidate. And, you know, that’s the. Because stuff is expensive, and especially if you’re leasing space, and then you have nowhere to store it, it gets. Yeah. So.
LM: Right. So you can help out. I mean, you’re here to support people who just want to give it a try and, like, see, hey, is wine making for me. I have this idea. I want to try it out. I have these grapes and.
RM: yeah a little bit yeah
LM: That’s really cool.
RM: Yeah. So, you know, like a, really good example of that. is like, say you have an Airbnb or a B and B, like a bed and bed and breakfast. And then you have a small little half acre vineyard. And. And, you can come to us and we can actually make the wine for you. that’s, commercially viable and all that sort of stuff. We can do all the compliance and it’s legit, that you can then with the right permitting. Obviously, I don’t want people to get the wrong idea, but you have the right, you know, it’s all legal, above board. you know, you can then sell it to your guests, and it’s like, hey, it comes from the vineyard right here. Or you can pour it in the. In your dining room and whatnot. Yeah.
LM: Very cool. That’s another really cool angle that, wow, I didn’t know that y’all were doing all of this stuff.
RM: it’s getting there. Getting there. We’re trying. Yeah, there’s a lot going on right now. Yeah. So it’s like kind of a whole another story, basically. Another podcast of what’s. Yeah, yeah, we can. Once, once we get that dialed in, we’ll be able to go over all that.
LM: Cool. That’s exciting.
RM: no, yeah, it’s just, get in touch with us, like, we’re here. everything’s like, confidential as well. So I, Actually, I deal with a handful of, home winemakers, too. So, you know, even if you’re in much smaller yet, like, you’re still in the, in your garage and you just have some problems, you know, you can come in and we’ll chat to you and help you out a little bit. Yeah. So it’s. Yeah, we. We’re here for kind of everything wine related.
LM: Awesome.
RM: And, yeah, we’re usually around and, yeah, you can feel free to bring beer by if you want. That’s always good. Yeah. So it’s, But, you know, it takes a lot of good beer to make good wine, so it’s. Yeah.
LM: Any particular type of beer?
RM: Yeah, I prefer like, like a lager or pilsner, that kind of stuff. More refreshing. Yeah.
LM: Okay. Don’t want anybody showing up, with a double ipa or anything like that.
RM: Yeah. so, you know, that’s why we were super lucky. We got Palisade brewing here. They make great beer, so we’re very lucky here. It’s like a little local ecosystem.
LM: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me.
RM: Thanks for reaching out. And, yeah, I know it’s taking a little while to kind of get together, but it’s been great. And I enjoy this part. I listen to this podcast a lot, so I like hearing, you know, and it’s, just hearing on. All the unique things going on.
LM: Thanks so much. I’m glad we could add your story, too, the list of unique things going on.
RM: You’re welcome. Yeah. Thanks for coming by.
LM: Even if you can’t make use of the wine lab’s services, I think you’ll still appreciate what Grand Valley Enology will bring to the Grand Valley wine scene. It’s exciting to see the valley’s wine industry grow with those who are part of it and I’m looking forward to seeing what Richard and Aly do next! They’re just not allowed to ever stop making Ghostdance and Escalante, OK?
The podcast’s theme music is Riverbend by Geoff Roper.
Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.