Wine Peeps

It all began on April 8th of this year; a road trip through 23 states covering 12,360 miles. Since then, I’ve posted 16 times from the road as we visited almost too many wineries to count in search of that next great bottle. Obviously, I hope that you have read all of my posts from the road and that they have helped you find some new wines to try. But in case you haven’t read all of them yet, you will find links at the end of this post.

Along the way, we made some discoveries I’d like to recap.

Best new type of wine for us:
Port. We found good Ports in California, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, but our favorite was the NV Mount Pleasant Tawny Library Port from Missouri of all places.

Most promising of the newer wine states:
Texas, Kentucky, Missouri, Colorado, and Idaho.

Best of the wine regions we were visiting for the first time:
Central Coast of California and Lake Chelan County in Washington State.

Top Winery Discoveries (wineries we didn’t know before this trip):
Lincourt Vineyards—Solvang, CA
Mount Pleasant Winery—Augusta, MO
Watermill Winery—Milton-Freewater, OR
Stephenson Cellars—Walla Walla, WA

Honorable Mention Winery Discoveries (wineries we didn’t know before this trip):
Siduri/Novy Wines—Santa Rosa, CA
Andrew Murray Vineyards—Los Olivos, CA
Williamson Vineyard—Caldwell, ID
Nefarious Cellars—Chelan, WA

I hope you have enjoyed traveling with us by reading our posts during our road trip. If you are curious about any of the sights we saw in addition to our wine stops, leave a comment and I would be happy to share those highlights with you as well.

Previous Road Trip posts:
Sonoma and Napa (April 14)
Central Coast, California (April 18)
Arizona (April 25)
New Mexico (May 2)
Texas (May 9)
Tennessee and Kentucky (May 16)
Mid-America (May 23)
Ballpark Wine (May 30)
South Dakota (June 6)
Colorado (June 13)
Idaho (June 20)
Eastern Oregon (June 27)
Walla Walla, Day 1 (July 4)
Walla Walla, Day 2 (July 11)
Spokane (July 18)
Chelan (July 25)

As we traveled through Colorado, we made several stops at wineries near Palisade, Colorado. We were impressed that each of the wineries we visited sold only Colorado grown grapes, offered complimentary tastings, had nice professional tasting rooms, and their wines were pretty good.

Our first stop was at Grande River Vineyards, Colorado’s oldest winery. Their production is about 8,000 cases per year, almost all sold in Colorado, although they can ship to Washington State. We tasted seven different wines with our favorite being the 2005 Grande River Syrah.

Our next stop was at Plum Creek Winery, a winery started in 1983 with production of about 15,000 cases per year, all sold in Colorado. Plum Creek will no longer even ship outside of Colorado, a shame since they have some good wines. We tasted five Plum Creek wines, our favorites being their 2006 Plum Creek Sauvignon Blanc, the 2006 Plum Creek Sangiovese, and the 2006 Plum Creek Cabernet Sauvignon.

Our final stop was at Graystone Winery, a Port house where we tasted three different ports. Our favorite was their Graystone Port III (2003 Cab/Merlot Ruby Port), a port that we believe will be even better with more time in the bottle.

In my opinion, Colorado is an emerging wine area that has good potential. They seem to be able to grow the popular international varietals and have a tourist base that is generally wine savvy. I’d like to come back in five years and see the progress they have made.

Since we tasted fifteen different wines, I have broken down the list into Quality rating categories. Under each Quality heading, the wine name will be listed along with price and QPR rating. Wines in bold type received a QPR rating of 5 bangs for your buck (out of 5).

Quality: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
2005 Grande River Syrah, $17, QPR: 5
2005 Grande River Late Harvest Viognier, $20, QPR: 5
2006 Plum Creek Sangiovese, $17, QPR: 5
2006 Plum Creek Cabernet Sauvignon, $17, QPR: 5
Graystone Port III (2003 Cab/Merlot Ruby Port), $23, QPR: 5
2006 Plum Creek Sauvignon Blanc, $11, QPR: 4

Quality: 3 stars (out of 5)
Graystone Port II (2002 Cab/Merlot Port), $23, QPR: 5
2003 Plum Creek Cabernet Franc, $12, QPR: 4
2001 Grande River Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, $35, QPR: 3
2005 Grande River Viognier, $17, QPR: 2

Quality: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
2002 Grande River Merlot, $13, QPR: NR
2004 Grande River Cabernet Sauvignon, $15, QPR: NR
2006 Plum Creek Merlot, $12, QPR: NR
Graystone Lipizzan White Port (2002 Pinot Gris Port), $22, QPR: NR

Quality: 2 stars (out of 5)
2006 Grande River Sauvignon Blanc, $10, QPR: NR

Have you ever had Colorado wine? If so, how did you like it? What was your favorite?