Wine with a side of yoga? How Western Slope vineyards are pivoting to survive a consumption slump.

PALISADE

The fat, purple, just-picked grape clusters filling a bin on the loading dock at Sauvage Spectrum Estate Winery were full of juicy promise. They had just come from the vineyards that unfurl in every direction from Sauvage, and they were headed to a crusher and fermentation tank.

These particular Mourvèdre grapes have avoided the fate of many acres of Grand Valley wine grapes that are being left to drop from the vines this fall. There is no market for them.

Wine sales have dropped 19% in Colorado since 2020 when pandemic isolation drove up the appeal of a relaxing glass of vino. So far this year, Colorado wine consumption has sagged 6.2%. 

It’s not just a problem in Colorado and in the state’s prime wine country, a valley that produces the majority of the state’s wine grapes. It’s a global dilemma that is hurting wineries and grape growers from Bordeaux to Paso Robles.

“The whole industry is wobbling,” said Kyle Schlachter, executive director of the Colorado Wine Board.

There is blame to go around.

The wine industry’s once reliable baby boomer consumers, whose old-age medications might not mix well with alcohol, are drinking less. The younger cocktail-in-a-can set is failing to universally embrace the whirl-and-sniff world of wine appreciation. And those GLP-1s, the so-called “fat drugs,” play a part. They shut off cravings for that cold glass of chardonnay as well as for what’s on the charcuterie tray.

Some in the wine industry also throw out the term “neo-Prohibitionism.” It refers to some health authorities declaring alcohol unhealthy in any amount. That follows a time when red wine, in particular, was lauded as good for the heart. 

Whatever the blend of reasons, last year in the Grand Valley’s designated American Viticulture Area there were no buyers for a third of the 500 or so acres of grapes. About 20% of grapes didn’t end up in fermentation tanks the previous year.

For the past three years, more Grand Valley grape vines have been pulled up than planted.

Some vintners say the problem hinges not on too many grapes, but on too few of the varieties vintners want. 

“We’re all kind of looking for answers,” said Kaibab Sauvage, who has been growing grapes and pioneering new varietals in the valley for nearly a quarter century. 

Sauvage said he is pivoting this year by discarding three to four bins of Mourvèdre grapes that have no buyers. He is planning to rip out one of 5 acres of his once-prized Malbec grapes. 

That predicament ripples across the Grand Valley’s 30 wineries. A few are not making any wine this year. Some are cutting back on what they produce. Some are using their vineyards as landscaping rather than productive crops as visitors to wineries expect to see picturesque vines hugging tasting rooms. 

“We’re being strategic. We’re not making more wine than we need,” said Onyx Cly-Peek, assistant manager at Grande River Vineyards, one of the oldest wineries in the state. Grande River has grown grapes since 1987, but it has sold off most of its vineyards and is down to 13 acres of grapes, Cly-Peek said.

Some vintners are quietly bringing in cheaper out-of-state grapes to cut costs. It is more expensive to grow grapes around Palisade, in North America’s highest-altitude American Viticulture Area. The terroir — the unique character that a place imprints on wine — can be tricky in western Colorado with wide temperature fluctuations and damaging storms.

And bears.

“Colorado has a lot of challenges every year, and we have to deal with them,” said Kevin Webber, the CEO and cofounder of Carboy Winery, Colorado’s largest wine operation. This year bears gobbled up a chardonnay vineyard and Carboy, a company that has bought 850 tons of Colorado grapes over the past five years, was forced to bring in some out-of-state grapes to make up for the loss.

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Finding innovation in and out of the bottle

Alexandra “Ali” Mize, the new executive director of the Palisade-based Colorado Association for Viticulture & Enology, is tackling the current wine hurdles on many fronts. 

“We have an adventurous attitude towards these things,” said Mize, who dealt with a bourbon slump in her previous job in Kentucky’s bourbon country.

Mize’s organization is promoting a program called Colorado Cru, which invites Colorado wineries to craft wines that will highlight certain grape varieties that best represent the state’s wine history and unique terroir.  

This effort is creating a clearinghouse that will help link grape growers with buyers who are looking for particular varietals. 

A new High Elevation Wine Program under the auspices of the Colorado Wine Board will recognize and celebrate restaurants and bars that serve and champion Colorado wines. 

Mize’s association is recruiting wine enthusiasts to become Colorado wine ambassadors. The idea is that they will learn about, talk up and promote Colorado wines. 

Mize is also excited about a Littleton business called Horizon Verjus Company that is turning unripe grapes into a juice used to enhance flavor in cooking. The company uses Colorado grapes that might otherwise go to waste. 

Mize’s ultimate goal with all these efforts is to grow Colorado wine consumption well beyond its tiny 2% market share of all wines sold in the state.

“We have huge room to grow and that feels challenging but very exciting,” Mize said.

The wineries are doing their part with innovation — in and out of the bottle.

Nearly all the Grand Valley wineries have added entertainment to draw more visitors to their tasting rooms. Concerts, yoga, knitting circles, dementia classes, book clubs, sound-healing sessions, clothing swaps, line dancing, comedy nights, farm-to-table meals. You name it, and it is probably happening in a winery. 

“We have made this a gathering place. We think of this as a venue with a winery,” said Barbie Barnwell, the sales and hospitality manager for Carboy Winery’s Palisade location. “People know there is always going to be something happening here.”

Restoration Winery has become a well-known concert venue in the valley with its Band in the Barrel series. Sauvage holds regular comedy nights and “bubble brunches.” Mafia Princess Wines invites a knitting group to craft socks and hats in the tasting room when it’s not a day for an Italian dinner. Peachfork Orchards and Vineyard has become as well known for bluegrass concerts as for u-pick fruit.

Less wine, but higher in quality

The wineries have also upped their game on the wines they are producing, including a lot more sparkling wines which are growing in popularity. In this time of tanking consumption, it’s ironic that Colorado wines are now some of the best ever produced.

“Colorado is making some really, really fine wines,” said Horst Caspari, a professor of viticulture at Colorado State University’s Western Colorado Research Station. 

Caspari said there is increasing respect outside the state for the quality of Colorado wines, which once upon a time were ignored by the rest of the wine world. They were dissed as being too fruity or poorly crafted by inexperienced vintners.

In a recent Forbes magazine article titled “Colorado Wines Hitting High Points,” renowned wine critic James Suckling rated 36 Colorado wines at 90 points or more. The Wine Enthusiast magazine listed 31 Colorado wines at 90 or more points. The San Francisco Chronicle wine competition awarded double golds to two Colorado wines.

In the Colorado Governor’s Cup competition awards announced Oct. 17, 10 of 12 of the top wines chosen in a blind tasting by wine experts were crafted from grapes grown in the Grand Valley. Storm Cellar, the big winner in the Governor’s Cup, is located in the West Elk area near Paonia, but most of its winning wines were made with Grand Valley grapes. Carboy Winery brought home five Governor’s Cup awards.

The excitement of that annual event is tempered somewhat this year by the realities in the vineyards.

Schlachter said his board is trying to do more for the wine industry with less as the excise taxes on grapes that fund the wine board drop. In 2020, the tax raised $833,000. Last year, the tax brought in $750,000.

“It is contracting. It is not where I would like it to be, but I don’t think it (the state’s wine industry) is in danger of completely going away,” Schlacter said.

Bruce Talbott, who grows about a quarter of the state’s wine grapes at Talbott Farms near Palisade, has the same take. He called the vineyard situation “concerning but not catastrophic.”

“We are operating in damage control, not ecstatic expansion,” Talbott said. “I would say we have two more years of getting our butts kicked.”

Talbott, whose sixth-generation farm enterprise has survived on more than a century of predicting agricultural markets, expects in another four years the wine industry will have bounced back. In the meantime, he is viewing the overstock of grapes as a chance to prepare for that time.

“We’re using the opportunity to remove old vineyards and replace them with better rootstock,” Talbott said. “It’s not a negative. It’s retrenching. It’s rebuilding.”