BookCliff Vineyards

About

BookCliff Vineyards, a Boulder Colorado winery, makes wine from 100% Colorado grown grapes in its vineyards in Palisade, CO.

Description

Neither John nor Ulla has any background in farming, wine making or business. John is a civil engineer by profession having worked in the construction industry building large office buildings. Ulla has a Ph.D. in computer science having worked in the high-tech industry developing software systems.

How did we end up in the wine business? By enjoying a bottle of wine. We always enjoyed and appreciated wine. We attended many wine tastings in the late 70s and early 80s and organized wine tastings with friends. We even grew grapes in our backyard near Baseline and 22nd Street in Boulder and made wine ourselves.

We discovered Palisade on one of our backpacking trips driving to Moab in the spring of 1994. Palisade is a picturesque, quaint farming town and back in 1994 peaches were the dominant crop. 1994 was the year we also attended the Colorado Mountain Winefest where we participated in a seminar on grape growing in Colorado presented by the state viticulturist.

One thing led to another and we connected with a real estate agent looking for suitable vineyard land. In 1995 we found what we were looking for and purchased a ten acre peach orchard.

It is important to us to grow our own grapes so we can control the quality from source to finished product. We are also proud that all our wines are made from 100% Colorado grown grapes.