Allie McDonald, owner of
Colorado Vintners Collective,
welcome on the business bridge.
And it's a pleasure to be here.
Great to have you.
Ali Colorado's wine country is making
a name for itself across the region.
You all entered the market in late
2020 during the pandemic, no less.
Can you give us a sense of
the industry in Colorado?
So grape growing has been around
in Colorado for 100 years.
Prohibition kind of took it over in the 20s,
so Peaches Peaches became the new crop.
But there's new grape growers coming
in and about in the early 80s.
They planted quite a few vineyards here,
and yeah, it's starting to take off again.
So we came in in 2020 and opened our winery,
and here we are, so we're excited
to be a part of a little bit more about your
winery, which is located in the.
Grand Valley on the western slope of
Colorado. How's business going?
So yeah, we're located
in Palisade in the Grand Valley.
Business is going great.
We we are seeing a lot of tourism.
There's a lot of music festivals,
mountain biking that bring people to
the area, and so wine is another big
focus for people to come over here.
And yeah, so Colorado vintners collective.
Our business model is we're a winery.
We make our own wine,
but we also showcase other
wines from around Colorado,
so it's kind of a collective showcasing.
Tasting room so you can come in and get a
good idea of what Colorado wine industry
is making. Let's talk
about that for a few more seconds.
Ali, you know most of us aren't Colorado.
Aren't our wine connoisseurs,
rather Colorado wine connoisseurs are no
less what makes Colorado wines say different?
We'll call it a wine. First off,
the environment that the grapes are
grown in here are very special.
We have the Colorado River.
We have the book cliffs here in palisade.
We have the debate Canyon.
We also have the desert over to our
West and the mountain to our east,
so it just creates a very unique growing
environment for the grapes and in
turn we could get some amazing wines.
No reason to try it now.
You've talked about there being
a new generation of winemakers
moving into the industry and
reviving interest in Colorado wine,
and they're bringing expertise
from all over the world.
How is that changing the game
in Colorado wine country?
Yeah, so that's very exciting part.
My husband and I have been in the
wine industry for about 10-15 years.
Him a little bit longer.
He's originally from Australia and that
has worked around the world in France,
New Zealand, Napa Valley.
So not only his expertise
and his wine making,
but there's a few other wine makers that
have also come from different areas,
different growing regions and
together they're bringing up the
Colorado level of wine making, so it's
like. A lot of momentum, a lot of energy,
lot of you know fresh blood, so to speak.
Coming in and bringing new ideas
or different ways of doing things
which you know oftentimes helps.
Just about every business
or industry for that matter,
kind of be better when you bring diverse
perspectives and experiences together, right?
So now you mentioned your
business is is is growing.
In fact, on background you provided me
some information that said you were seeing
about double digit growth this year,
which sounds very promising
ally many love good wine,
but what's behind the growth for you all?
Well, we opened in 2020 so it was a
little bit of a weird time to open,
but surprisingly we were very
excited with how busy we were.
A lot of people were
traveling on the highway.
They were coming to the national parks
out here, so we were strategically
placed here right off the I-70 corridor.
So our first year we were very busy.
Not only that though, but in Palisade itself.
It's becoming a tourist destination,
so we have more motels, more hotels,
restaurants coming in and.
There's a lot to do out here,
so all of that together is just
creating the perfect little place for
the Front Range people and people in
Utah and other places that want to
come over and try to Colorado wine.
So what I'm hearing is great location.
You got more tourism coming into the palisade
area all that's helping to feed more people.
And we know with more people
there's more desire for for wine,
especially good wine, so that's good to hear.
Now it wouldn't be a discussion of
the business brief if you didn't
give us some examples of your best
sellers as we head into late spring.
And into summer, what do you got?
What's coming up?
What should customers be on the lookout for
all right? Well, I just happen to
have one of our biggest sellers,
which is our go stance rose.
This is a dry rose,
a province inspired rose.
We obviously have the book cliffs back here,
which is a location here in Palisade
on our label, and this one is.
One that we're very proud of.
We also have our Escalante Red Blend
and this one we just released and
we're very excited to have this
available for people to try and we
like to give each of our wines a
label of their own and a sense of
place to where the wine comes from,
so we definitely being in the
southwestern Colorado region
have a lot to go off of,
so we have some beautiful labels.
And yeah, we just really.
We want to support our Colorado
wine country and those in
the business like yourself,
Ali to you and your husband
and the entire business.
We wish you the very best
and all the success.
Allie McDonald with Colorado
Ventures collective.
Thank you for joining us.