Vintner Views – September 2007

Winefest: A Harvest Celebration

   The Colorado Mountain Wine Festival, coming up this weekend, is an annual event in its 16th consecutive edition.  This is when thousands of locals and tourists alike come to celebrate and enjoy the outlandish fact that Colorado has a wonderful, growing wine industry, with some truly world-class wines.  The festival is a non-profit fundraiser for RMAVV, aka Rocky Mountain Association of Vintners and Viticulturists.  If you’ve never been, it’s one of the biggest events in the valley, and is a whole “bunch” of fun.

   One of the reasons RMAVV holds the festival in September is because it is harvest season, often called “Crush”.  It’s called crush for two reasons – first, we’re crushing grapes to make wine.  It’s also the most exhausting and exhilarating part of the year, since all that fruit has to be processed and fermented into wine in just a few months’ time.  If you’re not mentally and physically prepared, it will crush you.

   Wine Fest activities begin on Thursday, September 13th with Winemaker dinners.  A Winemaker dinner is a wine and food event featuring at least one winemaker who made or represents one or more of the wines served.  He or she speaks about various topics, making it an entertaining evening.  There are 13 winemaker dinners on the schedule, with nine participating chefs.  If you’d like to find out more about the seminars, activities, competitions and events offered at Wine Fest, go to www.coloradowinefest.com.

   The main event, of course, is the actual Wine Festival on Saturday, September 15th.  The gates open at 10:30 and the festival goes until 5:30 pm.  You can get tickets online for $35.00 or they will go up to $40.00 at the gate.  You will receive a wine glass and most of the wines are offered to taste for free.  You can also buy glasses and bottles.  Don’t forget to bring your ID, as it will be checked at the gate and attendees will wear wristbands indicating eligibility to receive tastings.

Come prepared to stock up on wine.  Many of the wines will sell out during the day since they are made in small quantities.  Wine Fest provides a storage tent near the entrance, so instead of lugging your wine bottles around with you all day, you can put your new wines in the storage area until you're ready to leave.

   The best way to take advantage of this incredible opportunity to taste a vast majority of wines produced in Colorado is to take it slow and steady.  Eat a good breakfast and taste small amounts.  Take your time and ask questions.  Learn about the different wines and wineries, and what they're all about.  If you really want to be systematic and sequential, go around and taste all the dry whites first, then move on to the dry reds, following all that with the sweet wines.  Take notes if you really want to make use of your discoveries.

   Sunday is “Tour the Wineries” day.  A good portion of Wine Fest attendees tour the wineries the day after Wine Fest to get to know them and their products a little better.  Locals of course can do this anytime.  If you’ve never seen grapes being processed, interesting, and you might get to see it if you drop by at the right time.  Most of the grapes come in during September and October.  If you’re really interested in watching this process, call ahead and see if anything is happening.

   Winefest is a great way to celebrate the harvest season.  You’ll find high culinary arts, dueling chefs, a wine luge made of ice, live music, amateur and commercial wine competitions, a grape stomping contest, and a large number of Colorado wines and wineries among many other sights and activities.  Just remember to take it slow and steady.  Eat, drink and be merry, but do so in moderation.

This article appeared in the September 14, 2007 edition of the Grand Junction Free Press.

Click here to return to Vintner Views