Big Doings in Small Wine Country Town

Renewed Town Plaza to premiere in pocket-size Palisade, the unofficial capital of Grand River wine country

In Europe and in the longer established wine regions of North America, vineyards surround charming towns boasting a few lovely little inns and a handful of terrific local restaurants, cafes and bakeries. Rather than centuries or even decades old, Colorado's wine industry has mushroomed from virtually nothing to significance in just over 20 years. Of the state's two American Viticultural Areas, the Grand River AVA centers around the Town of Palisade.

Palisade is stunningly set between the signature Book Cliffs and the soaring Grand Mesa and with the Colorado River (originally called the Grand River) flowing by its doorstep. Surrounded on three sides by orchards and vineyards, it is working hard to retain its agricultural ambiance and also boosting the appeal of the town itself with much-needed visitor-pleasing amenities. The centerpiece is the renewed Town Plaza at Third and Main Streets. The dedication, which is open to the public, will be on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 5:00 p.m. and will include live music, food and refreshments.

Town-center improvements include more parking, landscaping, railroad buffering and most importantly, an inviting public gathering place for festivals, events, markets, or just meeting friends. The one-acre Plaza features new trees, shrubs, 15 planting beds, a two-tiered seating wall with a sandstone veneer and improved lighting and electrical service. The Plaza also is the venue for local artist Lyle Nichols's sculpture “Harley,” to be unveiled May 10, 2009. Eventually, a town clock will be located nearby, thanks to the generosity of the Palisade Lions Club.

Palisade has several appealing bed-and-breakfast inns (A DiVine Thyme, Dreamcatcher, Palisade Wine Valley Inn, The Orchard House and Vistas & Vineyards), an unremarkable motel (the Mesa View) and since last summer, a sizable inn set in the middle of vineyards. The 80-room Colorado Wine Country Inn has more rooms than all the B&B's combined and provides in-town lodging for visitors attending the town's myriad special events (see below) or creating their own special events (weddings being a specialty).

Among the upcoming events on the Palisade calendar are the Peach Blossom Art Show (next weekend, April 17-19), the Grand Valley Winery Association's Spring Barrel Tastings (April 25-26 and Mary 16-17), the Palisade Bike Festival (bicycles, not motorcycles, May 8-10), Palisade Bluegrass & Roots Music Festival (June 23-13), Parade of Roses (May 30-31), the 41st annual Palisade Peach Festival (August 13-16), Ravenshire Renissance & Pirate Faire (August 21-23) and the Colorado Mountain Winefest (September 17-20). For Coloradans and visitors alike, Palisade is easy to reach. It's right off I-70 and railroad tracks run right through town. Amtrak trains, of course, do not stop in Palisade (the old depot now houses the Peach Street Distillers, which makes vodka and Colorado's first bourbon in the middle of wine country), but the California Zephyr does serve Grand Junction, just a dozen miles away.

Palisade has scenery that won't quit, vineyards and wineries, orchards and fruit stands, a handful of neat shops, galleries and eateries, places to stay, easy access and terrific festivials other special events. All it needs now, IMO, is a few more really good restaurants -- and locals and visitors to patronize them.

News Flash: NY Times Travels to Colorado Wine Country

Colorado wine country in prestigious newspaper -- including some factual slippage

In a New York Times travel feature called "Biking Colorado's Wine Country," New York-based wine writer Stefani Jackenthal explores the Palisade region on two wheels. She and a friend spent three days cycling, sipping, dining and B&Bing. I love it when the the prestigious Times focuses attention on Colorado, but why, oh, why does the self-proclaimed "newspaper of record" always get something wrong? The last time was the misleading "36 Hours in Denver" feature with so many off-the-mark facts and suggestions that I blogged it and, more importantly, the Times' mailbox was loaded with objections and corrections from indignant Coloradans.

The wine country piece, which will appear in Sunday's Travel Section but is already available online and in Friday papers, is also somewhat off the mark. Jackenthal wrote, "The first contemporary Colorado winery opened in 1968, but it was slow growing; by 1990, there were only four wineries. Eventually, however, the industry took root. Today there are 72 recognized Colorado wineries, according to the Colorado Wines trade group, with more on the way." Ivancie Winery indeed opened 1968 using non-Colorado grapes but was fairly short-lived. Wineries and vineyards hiccuped into being, and it was two decades before Colorado wineries really were producing wines from Colorado grapes. The trade group is called the Colorado Wine Industry Development Board, more of a mouthful than Colorado Wines but it's the correct name.

The town of Palisade is described as being "surrounded by the Book Cliffs mountain range and Grand Mesa." Palisade isn't surrounded by those two geological features. The Grand Mesa is to the southeast. The Book Cliffs are on the other side of the Colorado River to the north. That leaves the south and west, which are drier than the Mesa and flatter than both. The Book Cliffs are not a mountain range but rather a 60-mile-long escarpment of exposed, eroded sedimentary rock. Wikipedia currently calls them a "mountain range," which is probably where she found the inaccurate description.

Halka Chronic's geologically definitive Roadside Geology of Colorado desribes the Book Cliffs as "towering palisades of Mancos shale. This gray shale, yellow where it is leached, contains types of clay that swell when wet and shrink when dry. Such action brings about a loose soil that is so constantly eroding that it won't support much in the way of vegetation. Where it is not protected by the Mesaverde caprock, the Mancos shale erodes into hump-backed gray and yellow badlands."

But then again, Jackenthal visited several Colorado wineries, compared their wines to European ones and generally enthused about what she found. So who am I to worry that she's weak on Colorado geology and that she implies a non-existent continuum between Ivancie's winery, the real start of the modern Colorado wine industry two decades later and its increasing maturation 20 years after that.