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Wine Fest Uncorked
The Colorado Mountain Wine Fest is an annual event 
in its 16th consecutive edition. This is where 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.
Wine Fest activities actually start on Thursday, September 13th with Winemaker dinners. A Winemaker dinner is a wine and food event featuring at least one winemaker who made one or more of the wines served. He or she speaks about various topics making it an interesting, entertaining way to spend an evening. There are 13 winemaker dinners on the schedule, with nine participating chefs.
The main event of course is the actual Wine Festival on Saturday, September 15th. Festivities will start at 10:30 and go until 5:30 pm. You can get tickets online for $35.00 or they will go up to $40.00 at the gate. Come prepared to stock up on wine. You can store your wine in the storage tent near the entrance. So instead of lugging your wine bottles around with you all day, you can put your purchased wine in the storage area until you're ready to go at the end of the day. ID's will be checked at the gate and attendees will wear wristbands .
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 want to make use of your discoveries. There are way too many wines to keep track of mentally.
Strolling Tapas
As mentioned above, there are several winemaker dinners associated with Wine Fest. The one we're most excited about, of course, is our own! It is called Strolling Tapas, and DMT Catering will be preparing the food. Diana Tarasawiecz will be there to talk about the food, which will consist of 15 distinctive Spanish appetizers to broaden our horizons. This will be a very social affair. You'll help yourself to the tapas, and we'll help you with the wines, which will be placed according to their best match. This is a standup meal, for standup people. Definitely come hungry. Diana did this with us on August 24th as well, and it turned out beautifully - an awesome display of Culinary savvy. Here's the menu. With the Tapas will be paired wines from all over the state. Winemakers at this event will include Glenn Foster, winemaker for Talon Winery here at the Colorado Wine Room, as well as Rainer Thoma, winemaker for Garfield Estates Winery in Palisade. This special and memorable evening costs $95 per person, and takes place here at the Colorado Wine Room on Thursday, September 13, 2007, from 6:30 to 9:30 pm. To make reservations, call DMT Catering at 970-241-1865.
Full Bodied and Peppery
Local author and wine enthusiast Christine Feller will be here at the Colorado Wine Room Sunday September 16th from 10 to 3 to sign copies of her new book, Full-bodied and Peppery - Chronicles of a Western Colorado Wine Wench. This special appearance by Christine, one of our treasured Wine Club members and a highly coveted wine judge, is our way of sending travellers home with some entertaining reading about local characters back in the pioneering days of Colorado winemaking. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but these are real-life tales, spun with Christine's unique take on life. This is a great, quick read, so come in and get to know Christine a little. Laugh, smile, and pick up a signed copy of Christine's book on Sunday.
Heavy with Fruit
Harvest is upon us! Clear out the tanks, clean up the crush equipment, and make ready for grapes! This time of year is the most exciting, difficult and important part of a winery's annual cycle. Most all the fruit comes in September and October. Usually white grapes come first, and reds later on. The grapes must be harvested, destemmed and/or crushed, pressed, adjusted and fermented before the bad guys get their hands on our precious fruit of the vine. The bad guys are the bad micro-organisms that make grape juice into bad flavors, odors and vinegar. It is the winemaker's job to make sure that fermentation goes well and makes flavorful, wonderful wine. In the absence of a winemaker acting as steward for the wine, you don't usually end up with a desireable product, and since the vines only produce one crop per year, you've got to do all this in the span of just two or three months.
Fruita Fall Festival
Fairly fun, for friendly 
folks, the Fruita Fall Fest fetches four family fun phenomena: boredom, loneliness, hunger, and thirst. If you haven't been to the Fruita Fall Festival, it's quite the event. There is food, merchandise of all sorts, and lots of faithful attendees. This is one of the oldest festivals in Colorado, and it seems to get better every year. This will be our third year participating. We'll have wine tasting and wine by the glass in our famous "Wine Cage". Don't miss this grand people-watching opportunity. You'll probably run in to some old friends, or maybe you'll make some new ones. If the weather is cool, we'll have our Wassail, or Hot spiced wine available to warm you up. Either way it will be a good time. Hope to see you there!
Cheers!
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