We froze last night in our casita. There was a heater but it sounded like a 747 taking off when it was operating and so we could choose to stay awake because of noise or cold. We chose cold, reasoning that we could keep each other warm, but it wasn't to be. Hopi tried his best to keep us warm but his bony little body just got in the way!

After packing up again (we are getting good at this particular feat) we headed to Dead Horse Point National Park, the only one in the area that is pet-friendly, as it looked interesting in the brochures. It is about 30 miles from Moab and even the drive is dramatic. The sun was shining and the blue of the sky created an amazing backdrop for the red sandstone cliffs, canyons and mesas that surround the region. We've been to Arizona before and seen similar canyon structures, but these are different and in many ways I find them even more awe-inspiring in a different way that is hard to explain. When we drove to the Dead Horse Point itself and hiked around the rim of this narrow peninsula in the sky, we both felt that somehow we needed to speak in whispers; the 360 degree vistas really took our breath away. Photographs can never do justice to places like this. I have a very hard time trying to convey a sense of depth and height in photos but we tried nonetheless, knowing that we were shooting in the midday sun, the very worst kind of light. 

Hopi was in his element. He is named after the Hopi native American tribe who inhabit the Arizona mesas, and somehow he feels right at home clambering over the rocks. The sun shone but it was still only 48 degrees. Definitely the high, cool desert, but one in which it is still easy to get sunburned, as I realize now. fortunately it is just the back of my neck that got caught - I was wearing a hat, more for warmth than sun protection, but it stopped my balding pate from turning lobster-colored!

Returning to Moab we had two wineries to visit. Actually these are the ONLY two wineries in the state and they are about 20 miles apart. Wine making in Utah has an interesting history. The federal government at one time had provided grants for people to start growing grapes as part of an economic development venture. The enterprising people who did so soon found themselves embroiled in a battle with the State of Utah who would not let them sell the wine because of the predominant religion in Utah, Mormonism. The Church of Latter Day Saints is opposed to alcohol consumption and so there followed a number of years of lobbying and changes in administration until finally in the late 90s, winemaking could be licensed. Although there are about 8 licenses in the State, there are only two producing wineries, Spanish Valley Vineyards, just South of Moab, and Castle Creek Winery about 14 miles east.

I met with Will, the winemaker at Castle Creek where we are staying and he was kind enough to show me around. They are making about 14,000 gallons of wine per year mostly from fruit that they purchase from growers in Utah and Colorado (actually from around the Palisade area where we were yesterday). They have a small vineyard on site also but this is relatively insignificant in the scheme of things. About half of his wine is sold from the winery (which is attached to a very nice lodge where we are staying tonight) and the rest is sold to the State of Utah who control the sale in what is effectively a "one-tier" system. It seems that Utah still has a lot of power over who makes, sells and consumes any type of alcohol. 

Of the wines i tasted, I enjoyed the straightforward, off-dry Lily Rose white. This is an easy drinking blend which seems to change each year based on what is available. The wines are not vintage labeled (because of the cost or creating new labels each year) but those that I tasted were all 2009. The previous year had been a disaster for Utah and Colorado wineries who suffered from a lot of storm damage. The 2009 was well balanced with a good amount of acidic backbone and floral bouquet that came from the Orange Muscat in the blend. It has won a number of medals in national competitions and at just $9.95 a bottle, this was a good quaffing wine.

The reds are also good. The Outlaw Red is well made and is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah from the vineyards on property. This had structure and length and deserves a wider audience. 

Castle Creek is the first and oldest of the two wineries and since 2002 have produced over 30 medal winning wines. Will is thrilled to have just bought a very expensive bottling machine from Italy that will make their production process much easier.

At Spanish Valley Winery, I met with Stacy Dezelsky, the winemaker. She and her husband, Cory produce some fine wines that are almost all made with Utah grown grapes, including Gewurtztraminer, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon from their own vineyards. Stacy learned her winemaking skills in St. Helena, California and Hawks Bay, New Zealand and she really knows what she is doing. Her wines are serious beverages that are made with as little intervention as possible from the winemaker. Stacy says that she grows wine, she doesn't make them. This is the philosophy of the greatest domaines and wineries in the world, where the quality of the wine begins in the vineyard which is ultimately where the character of the wine originates. Terroir.

I unhesitatingly bought a bottle of Stacy's Cabernet Sauvignon which she admits is her "baby". At  $16.95 it is still remarkable value for the quality but was the most expensive wine in the portfolio that includes Chardonnay (not from local grapes), Gewurtztraminer and Syrah. Stacy only sells her wines out of the tiny winery and admits she doesn't do a great job of marketing her products. I urge you to visit her, however, if you are ever in the Moab area. The wines are stellar.

Tomorrow we head to who knows where. It will be the first night without a reservation or planned destination. We'll see how that goes!

Leadville, Colorado, can be VERY cold! This morning we awoke to a good 3 inches of fresh snow. I had contemplated taking the car snow brush/scraper with us but rejected it at the last moment thinking that I had had enough snow for one season. This morning I regretted it as I attempted to clear snow off the car with the house’s snow shovel!

With the car packed, we headed off towards Palisade, CO, which is in Grand Valley, one of the two designated Colorado AVAs (American Viticultural Areas).

The drive from Leadville back to I70 was slow and arduous as the snow was falling hard and the plows were struggling to keep up. From Vail onwards, however, the skies cleared and it was plain sailing to Palisade.

First stop was at Grande River Vineyards, just off the highway. Grande River bottled their first wine in 1990, three years after planting their first vines. From 1990 until 2006, it was the largest grape producing winery in Colorado but in 2006, the owners, Steve and Naomi Smith decided to downsize and sold off all but ten acres to concentrate on winery operations.

These wines are serious players. We tasted six: Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, White Meritage (Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon), Syrah, Red Meritage and Petite Verdot.  All are well made and the 2009 whites were excellent. I particularly enjoyed the Viognier, a favorite grape that is at its best in the Rhone Valley but also does very well in Virginia. The floral nose was followed by a rich textured, well-balanced flavor, bursting with fruit and tempered with just the right amount of acidity. The finish was much longer than I expected and was a real star. The Sauvignon Blanc was OK but a tad too acidic for my taste. The 2008 Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon white Meritage had been oaked in new barrels and the oak was evident but not too prominent. As this ages a little longer, the oak will likely integrate more and be more pleasing than at present but it is a fine wine nonetheless.

Of the reds, I enjoyed the 2008 Syrah but really found the red Meritage (2004) to be a wine to watch. This is definitely made in Bordeaux style and the tannins are still quite prominent. There is plenty of fruit still and it will likely age for a good 3-5 years with no problem. The 2007 Reserve Petite Verdot, an unusual wine, is a spicy, earthy yet elegantly-made wine that deserves to be served with red meat or game; a truly exceptional product. All of their wines are estate produced and bottled. They only distribute them within the state of Colorado (they produce between 5,000 and 7,000 cases a year) and you can find their wines in some of the best restaurants.  Oh and doggies are welcome in the tasting room which is big plus for us, and Hopi!

After Grande River, we wanted to see a different style of winery. So from what was the largest producer we went to Colorado Cellars, the first and oldest in Colorado, slated as the state’s “original winery” and when added to the brands of Rocky Mountain Vineyards and the Orchard Mesa Wine Company, today’s largest producer. Bear in mind however, that their production figures include a high number of fruit wines – Cherry, Peach, Plum, Blackberry, Raspberry, Elderberry, Blueberry, Pomegranite, as well as a couple of meads (honey “wines”).

To reach this little tasting room, we drove 6.5 miles through some stunning mesa scenery, passing more orchards than vineyards. We were reminded that many vineyards were ripped out during prohibition and fruit trees planted in their place. It is the most dramatic area for growing any kind of fruit, with a backdrop of flat-topped mesas that today were sprinkled with snow that looked like powdered sugar.

The owners of Colorado Cellars are a husband and wife team, Richard and Pattie Turley. Pattie makes the wines and Richard acts as their lone salesman. Apparently he clocks 90,000 miles a year just traveling around the state of Colorado. This makes our little cross-country adventure look like child’s play! They grow some Gewürztraminer right in front of the winery and they make it in a semi-sweet style, which is more commercial. In fact, their wines are all made in a more commercial style than Grande River; they are best known for their semi-sweet light red, called Road Kill. Whereas Grande River is making some serious wines for serious drinkers, I think the Road Kill says it all about Colorado Cellars!

We continued on to Moab, Utah, passing incredible scenes of red rock and white peaks. Our accommodation here is pretty basic and the wind is howling around the little casita we rented. Tomorrow we will be splurging at a much nicer place, but this evening we are watching the Vancouver Canucks play in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and drinking Corona!

Tomorrow is another day….

Today was to be a more relaxed day, half as much driving as yesterday and a chance to take in more of the surrounding landscapes as we continued west across Nebraska.

This was this first time in the Prairies for all three of us (Ginnie and Me and a Dog Named Hopi), and although we are told that we shouldn’t judge Nebraska by the vistas from Interstate 80, it is mostly a flat and characterless canvas that is at the same time quite fascinating.

Pulling off I80 and onto a regular highway, the speed limit, which is a generous 75 on the Interstate, went down to 60. Although this road was only two lanes, there was not another car in sight, and Ginnie and I were reveling in this fact, when out of nowhere, red flashing lights appeared in my rear view mirror. I pulled over and a very nice policeman asked if I knew the speed limit. For a split second I considered feigning ignorance but fessed up that I knew it was 60. He had clocked me at 78 but wrote me a ticket for only 75 to keep me below the next fine threshold! He wished us a safe and happy continuation to our journey and we motored on, ensuring to slow to the requisite 35 MPH going through each little town en route!

We crossed into the Mountain Time Zone and instantly gained an hour, which meant we arrived at the Sage Hill Vineyard and Winery a little after 3:00pm. Locating the winery was not without some drama. The address is Parks, Nebraska and GPS Woman brought us there without further incident. However the town of Parks is something to behold. Main Street, which houses the Post Office, is actually a dirt road. If 25 people live here I’d be surprised. The Community Building has even less paint on it than our house, and the few residents appear to live in ramshackle trailers with myriad abandoned cars and trucks in their yards.

We wondered what kind of place this winery, where we would be staying the night, would be like.  A sign in the town pointed to the winery so we steeled ourselves and headed off in search of adventure and blog fodder.

The scenery began to change to something quite amazing. Rolling hills, covered in sagebrush, remote and almost surreal in places spread before us, as we climbed until we saw a sign directing us into the winery. We crossed a cattle grid and drove the winding dirt road down and then back up to the winery. As we grew closer we were astonished. What a find!

Hopi bounded out as if unshackled from years of solitary confinement and we headed into the winery to be greeted by owner, Carol Walker. Her ebullient personality instantly made us feel at home and Hopi was encouraged to go free and explore inside and out. He was in his element especially as he had the owners’ springer spaniel to play with too!

Carol called her husband, Hal, in to the tasting room. He was in the vineyard pruning but needed little encouragement to take a break and come to talk to us about his wines and his winemaking exploits.

Hal is a fish farmer by trade but in 2001 he started to experiment with fruit wines, blackcurrant, rhubarb etc. He enjoyed that experience, progressed to “kit wines” and then wanted to jump on the booming Nebraska wine business bandwagon and try making real wine from real grapes. The acquisition of the 16 acres that he now owns above Parks, Nebraska, came about because of a chance meeting with a friend in the local Wal-Mart. He said he was looking for land that would be suitable for grape growing and his friend (another Hal) eventually sold him the land. Water was going to be a problem and Hal knows a little bit about streams and creeks from his other life as a fish farmer. The creek that goes through the land would not produce sufficient water for the 2.5 acres of vines that he wanted to grow. So he dug for water and drilled a well. He found water 70 feet down but needed to pump it to the vineyard. The answer was a very green solution; Hal installed a pump that is powered by solar energy. Now he had land and water. He just needed vines.

Hal is a self-taught winemaker and would be the first to admit that he lacks skills and experience in many respects. He also has very basic equipment currently. He has applied for a grant to purchase two temperature-controlled jacket fermenters, which will help him enormously. Right now, he relies on a simple air conditioner to do what he can to control the fermentation. And he only has a mechanical press. No fancy (and expensive) bladder press for him – at least not yet.

What Hal lacks in experience and equipment, he makes up with boundless energy, enthusiasm and a genuine love for what he is doing. His wines, if we’re being brutally honest, are not that great yet, but they certainly have potential. His wines are all varietals (no blends) and the varieties are French hybrids. Vitis Vinifera have not found a place in his 2.5 acres of vineyards yet, but he is making a valiant effort with the varieties he does have and also makes wines with juice bought from other growers in Nebraska and Colorado. Of the wines we tasted, the Edelweiss was pretty good, although the juice was bought from eastern Nebraska where his friend grows the grapes and yields a very high 10 tons per acre!

Of Hal’s own grown grapes, we enjoyed the Traminette (a hybrid that is related to the Gewürztraminer grape that has actually been chosen as Indiana’s signature state wine) the most of his whites.  The Cayuga was very funky and something weird was going on there. Hal knows there is a problem with that wine. It has elevated ethyl acetate  (the smell you get from nail polish remover) and is throwing some crystals. Temperature instability was probably the cause. I didn’t care for the LaCrosse much either but others rave about the cidery style.

Of the reds, Hal makes Marechal Foch from bought-in juice that is OK. The Leon Millot is interesting and I swear it has a sage-like nose perhaps picked up from the sagebrush that inhabits the surrounding land. The best of the reds is what they describe as their Big Dog, the Chambourcin. This is a much bigger wine than the others and more extracted, although it still needs more color and brightness to be totally successful.  Hal also makes an interesting Rhubarb wine that is colored with some Chambourcin and works as a dessert wine, and an even more interesting mead, a beverage (not really a wine) with ancient origins made from local honey.

The most expensive wine is only $16 per bottle (for the Chambourcin). We enjoyed a bottle of Traminette ($14.00) with dinner in the delightful loft above the winery. This is a gem of a find; spotlessly clean, with a full kitchen, bedroom, living room with dining area and nice bathroom – all for just $90 per night including a bottle of Hal’s wine. And doggies are welcome which was the original reason for staying here for us! The only negative – no cell phone service or Internet. While that is very liberating in many ways, it means that this blog will not get posted until tomorrow.

I would love to spend more time exploring the Nebraska Wine Trail. They are a very young industry but growing rapidly, producing ten times as much wine in 2009 as they did in 2000 when they started. Over 30 varieties are grown here and in 2009 they made 69,140 gallons of wine. Hal made about 1000.  About two-dozen winegrowers make wine in over 50 counties in Nebraska and so the state really does have a Wine Country. Our hope during this trip, is to unearth some winemakers who are adding to the rich American wine culture in small but exciting ways. These wines are not Napa, or Bordeaux or Burgundy or Chianti. In most cases the winemakers are still “garagistes” making small quantities for the local market. But just as some states like New York and Virginia have excelled in recent years, people like Hal are to be congratulated for their pioneering spirit. Our lives are richer because of them and the Great American Wine Industry is alive and kicking all over the country. Go Hal!

The daffodils were just beginning to poke up through the late season snow as we drove away from our house this morning commencing what we hope will be an epic journey of discovery and adventure. The house, which we love, is not looking its best right now, as it is in the throes of being repainted and is currently in that messy stage after the power washing, when the loose paint has all come off and there are bare patches all over. Actually it looks awful, but by the time we return it will be all spruced up in its new coat of paint, ready to woo buyers if for an reason our contingent purchasers have to pull out.

Almost as soon as we started, an argument ensued. Not between Ginnie and me (we rarely argue) but between the GPS woman and us. We had plotted our route on Yahoo Maps and were planning to head west through Fond du Lac and Madison. GPS Woman had other ideas and was hellbent on taking us to Chicago. I ignored her and headed to Fond du Lac anyway, knowing that she would recalculate in time and toe the line. But this time she was stubborn, insisting that I should make "a legal U-turn" at the next opportunity. I ignored her as long as I could then finally stopped for gas and reprogrammed her. Eleven hours later, after driving through fog, rain and mist, we arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

While following one of GPS Woman's suggested detours, we came across a sign to a vineyard. Botham Vineyards, 30 miles west of Madison. I braked hard and headed down a country road until we saw the vineyard entrance. The winery is a converted barn and home to a winery that grows red wine grapes adjacent to it on 10 acres, and also makes some surprisingly good whites from grapes bought in from other states including the Finger Lakes in New York. Today was Good Friday so it was very quiet, but the tasting room manager, Gina, gave me a quick synopsis of the wines and the winemaker, Peter Botham, who started the winery in the early 90s. 

I bought a bottle of their semi-dry Riesling and we just enjoyed it in our modest Lincoln hotel room with a take-out meal from a local restaurant. Both were surprisingly good! The Riesling is definitely on the the sweeter side of semi-dry, but there is enough acidity to keep it from cloying and has distinct green apple overtones. It is non-vintage of course and made from Finger Lakes juice that is trucked in to Wisconsin. It would make a great accompaniment to spicy food and was good, even when drunk out of plastic cups. That's the thing about wine - it should just be enjoyed and shouldn't be taken too seriously. At $9.50 a bottle, this wine is not meant to be revered. It is not a great wine, but it is fun, well made, balanced and MADE IN WISCONSIN! 

This was a great start to our trip. The weather was not good and the road surfaces in Wisconsin and Iowa leave much to be desired (budget cuts I guess are to blame), but now we are in Lincoln and have 600 miles between us and our naked house. Our stomachs are full and I am still sipping the last drops of Botham Riesling. 

Day One = Success!

If you read a recent article I wrote for Wisconsin Golfer, you will know that I am a lover of Beaujolais. Made from the Gamay grape in a region south of Burgundy, Beaujolais is light, fruity, easy drinking and unpretentious; a perfect transitional red for people who think they only like white wines.

I have been extolling the virtues of the 2009 vintage which has been heralded as "the vintage of a lifetime" and even the most modest examples are delicious. But at the weekend I opened a bottle of 2009 Fleurie from a single vineyard, Domaine des Quatre Vents, made by the King of Beaujolais, Georges Duboeuf. Occasionally you drink a wine that has an amazing effect on you - what I refer to as being "moreish" - you just want to drink more and more of it! Well this wine is EXTREMELY moreish and Ginnie and finished the bottle with no effort at all! It has all the characteristics of Beaujolais, but somehow manages to balance that simplicity and straightforwardness with elements of complexity. There is depth, layering and yes, real character to this wine.

Recognizing that we want more, I just went online and was thrilled to find that Wine.com has this very wine on sale, reduced from an already good price of $17.49 to $13.99 a bottle. Check it here. I know it may seem imprudent to be buying wine when I don't have a job, but there is no doubt in my mind that great wine can be as beneficia as counselling and therapy. So I am going to order some therapy in the shape of this Fleurie, assuming there is any left!