Sunday, June 05, 2005
Manitou Springs Festival Wrapup
I don't plan on a comprehensive wrapup of the festival until later in the week, but here are some thoughts right now. You missed an excellent tasting if you didn't make this one. It was well worth the $15. If you can make this event next year, do it! By the way, there is an event at Total Beverage in Thornton this Friday and Saturday. It's free, go there if you can, I am going to try to drive a van up there, so if you know me (Powers regulars), let's ride/drive together.
Back to Manitou. It was great fun. I tasted probably around 30 wines and got bloggable notes on 25 of them. There was some really good stuff, and some decent stuff, what you would expect from almost anywhere. What's really fascinating is the number of small wineries. Barton Creek Cellars/Breckenridge Winery for instance. That whole operation is James Davis. He's making some excellent wine and doing the marketing and probably a whole bunch of stuff by himself. You must try his Pinot Noir if you can get your hands on it, I don't know where to get it, but I will have to talk to Will about getting it into Powers.
Other highlights include talking to John Garlich of Bookcliff, where hopefully we are going to go to Boulder Thursday to help them bottle their two dessert wines. I will try my best to make that happen and to get some sort of interview with John if I can. The highlight for my wife was Riesling, Riesling, and Riesling. She learned that she liked Riesling, and why not, it's the best white grape out there (and it never ever sees oak). She also learned that she likes Gewurztraminer and some meads.
I had fun tasting the Pinots and Syrahs and Rieslings. Colorado has some nice Syrahs right now, and some unique wines overall. One thing I liked to see was winemakers selling out on some of their wines. Fantastic! It was great to see so many people carrying the special Colorado Wines bags full of bottles. I'm glad when there is this much buzz and excitement about our own wines. It was nice to see a prominence of $10 wines as well. Colorado Wines are definitely fun and exciting! Reviews coming soon...
Some last additions. There were 18 wineries on hand for the Manitou Springs Festival of Colorado Wines out of 44 total wineries in Colorado. Over at Fermentations there has been a discussion of "other states" wines. Specifically national wine writers write about California, Oregon and Washington wines, so the debate is why don't they write about other states' wines, like New York and Texas or Colorado for that matter. Another reason for the gap in wine press is the amount of wineries represented by each state. Previously I stated that Colorado has 44 wineries now, well St. Helena in Napa Valley California has 48 wineries! St. Helena is just one of 14 Napa Valley Appellations! If wine writers were to just cover Napa Valley, there would be several times the total amount of wines coming out of there than Colorado. It's no wonder we don't get noticed nationally.
Back to Manitou. It was great fun. I tasted probably around 30 wines and got bloggable notes on 25 of them. There was some really good stuff, and some decent stuff, what you would expect from almost anywhere. What's really fascinating is the number of small wineries. Barton Creek Cellars/Breckenridge Winery for instance. That whole operation is James Davis. He's making some excellent wine and doing the marketing and probably a whole bunch of stuff by himself. You must try his Pinot Noir if you can get your hands on it, I don't know where to get it, but I will have to talk to Will about getting it into Powers.
Other highlights include talking to John Garlich of Bookcliff, where hopefully we are going to go to Boulder Thursday to help them bottle their two dessert wines. I will try my best to make that happen and to get some sort of interview with John if I can. The highlight for my wife was Riesling, Riesling, and Riesling. She learned that she liked Riesling, and why not, it's the best white grape out there (and it never ever sees oak). She also learned that she likes Gewurztraminer and some meads.
I had fun tasting the Pinots and Syrahs and Rieslings. Colorado has some nice Syrahs right now, and some unique wines overall. One thing I liked to see was winemakers selling out on some of their wines. Fantastic! It was great to see so many people carrying the special Colorado Wines bags full of bottles. I'm glad when there is this much buzz and excitement about our own wines. It was nice to see a prominence of $10 wines as well. Colorado Wines are definitely fun and exciting! Reviews coming soon...
Some last additions. There were 18 wineries on hand for the Manitou Springs Festival of Colorado Wines out of 44 total wineries in Colorado. Over at Fermentations there has been a discussion of "other states" wines. Specifically national wine writers write about California, Oregon and Washington wines, so the debate is why don't they write about other states' wines, like New York and Texas or Colorado for that matter. Another reason for the gap in wine press is the amount of wineries represented by each state. Previously I stated that Colorado has 44 wineries now, well St. Helena in Napa Valley California has 48 wineries! St. Helena is just one of 14 Napa Valley Appellations! If wine writers were to just cover Napa Valley, there would be several times the total amount of wines coming out of there than Colorado. It's no wonder we don't get noticed nationally.
