Dear Colorado Wine Club Member,

Budbreak, as you may have read in this month’s E-News, is about complete in the Grand Valley.  Buds are extremely important to winemaking.  What’s in a bud?  Shoots, leaves, flowers, nodes –it’s got pretty much everything it needs to ripen grapes for your wine.  It’s all compressed in microscopic detail, just waiting for the soil to warm enough to stimulate the vine to start pushing.  However, if the bud or young shoot experiences a freeze and dies, there are two more buds buried in the node that will grow in its place.  The secondary bud has about half the amount of fruit as the primary bud.  The tertiary bud, in most cases, has no fruit, but the buds formed during the growing season will contain next years crop.  You can see that the grapevine is very determined to ripen grapes, and has numerous contingency plans to help it do just that.

This month’s wines for the Dry Colorado Wine Club are:

Verso Cellars 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon

This Cab won a gold medal at the 2005 Commercial Best of Fest competition at the Colorado Mountain Winefest in Palisade.  It’s a spectacular wine with layers of dark cherry, blackberry and currant.  Serve with beef, lamb, hard cheese and dark chocolate.  This wine is great now if you like a young, powerful Cab, but will continue to develop over the next decade or two.

Garfield Estates 2005 S Squared

This vintage of the S Squared is a blend of Semillon and Viognier.  It’s perfect chilled on a hot afternoon like we’re bound to start seeing here in the Grand Valley on a regular basis.  The wine is light, crisp and refreshing with great flavor.  Enjoy it with mild cheeses and fruit or olives before dinner, or enjoy all by itself while visiting with friends or family.

As always, enjoy the wines in good health!

Sincerely,

Glenn & Natalie Foster