:: details about the best of Colorado wines and unique vintage characteristics through the perspective of our McElmo Canyon terroir.

Superior Wines from Colorado

There are a growing number of superior wines from Colorado, many of which are now being grown, pressed, blended and aged at Sutcliffe Wines near Cortez in the Four Corners region,

This is a relatively new terroir for fine Colorado wines. With just three vineyards jostling rock cliffs in McElmo canyon, these wines are rooted in soils that provided much of the fresh produce for the miners in the San Juan mountains to the north east in the 1880s through the 1950s. Several vintners alighted on this area in the 1990s They saw and felt the soil and weather to be superior to grow and make Colorado’s superior wines and vintages.

This is good news for wine connoisseurs, who gladly compare these superior Colorado wines to those better ones of California and Oregon.

Wines of Colorado

From the settlement of Colorado in the 1880s, there were Colorado wines developed by the farmers and miners for home consumption. The vineyards flourished but were turned over to orchards when Prohibition became the law. Now Colorado wines have re-rooted in the wine growing regions of Western Slope Hotchkiss region, Winter Park and the Front Range. The new coming region is the Four Corners with its demanding weather patterns and well mineralized soils. Here the Four Corners vineyards have grapes that have to work for their living. With similar growing patterns to the Rhone Valley, the varietals grown there are also thriving in the Four Corners at Sutcliffe Vineyards. Joe Buckel is the winemaker at the vineyard and he is now aging prized vintages of the wines of Colorado.

Vines have come back to McElmo Canyon.

Pioneering Winemakers in the US

John Sutcliffe is a pioneering winemaker in the USA, with the founding of his boutique vineyard in McElmo Canyon and hand crafting his wines there in the Four Corners with vintner Joe Buckle. This was pioneer territory for the farmers and miners crowding for the pockets of rich land whether with rock or soil. It is in Sutcliffe’s McElmo canyon vineyard that farmers grew produce for the mining camps of the San Juans. Now he is crafting hand hewn wine – a USA pioneer winemaker.

Wines from the Four Corners Region

In annotating the best wines from the Four Corners region of Colorado, we see that McElmo Canyon is at the front of wine production for the Four Corners. This is pioneering area of Colorado vineyards, growing grape varietals of the Rhone valley. The irrigation is spare, the vineyards lovingly tended by devoted farmers In the case of one Four Corners vineyard, Sutcliffe Vineyard, Jesus and the owner, John Sutcliffe, are tending each row of grapes. This is farming - grape farming for Four Corners region wines.

Jesus has been tending the soil, the rocks, and the drainage since the 1990s. This is his land, his wines, even though Joe Buckel, the winemaker does his all to make them his own wines.

The Best Wines from Colorado

Many wine lovers believe that the best wines from Colorado originate on the Western Slopes in the Hotchkiss valley. The wines are definitely getting better form this region but we ask you to look down to the Four Corners region to a pioneering vineyard there – Sutcliffe Vineyard near Cortez in McElmo Canyon. There the terroir is producing a series of exceptional vintages of Colorado\s best wines, wines that are hand crafted by wine maker Joe Buckel.

There were grapes in this canyon at the start of the 1900s and they have returned with the love of vintner John Sutcliffe helping to make this “Living Wine”. Between the farmers, John and Jesus and the wine maker Joe, they are growing, pressing, and blending exceptional wines – the best wines from Colorado

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