DD Ranch Wines

Colorado Rocky Mountain Wine Festival

Wine Fest 2011 was fabulous. We poured wine for the Bonacquisti winery again this year. The live music in the park was Dottsero and at the Wine Country Inn with Miss Emily was a treat - she is one talented singer.

Sunday morning we attended the Amateur Wine Maker Awards party. We took a Silver Medal for our 2009 Cab Franc.

We met a very nice couple there and found out they too were planning to get Cab Franc from Mesa Park Vineyards. They were kind enough to bring it back with theres as we just got home from the cattle show in Billings, MT. So, as I type - we will be crushing tomorrow morning. We also crushed Zin a couple weeks earlier and got it pressed in time to leave for said cattle show. Fall is very busy on the ranch!

Wine Bottling Party

We had a little get together with some friends and did a lot of work, had a lot of fun and oh - drank a lot of wine. We got all set up outside in the gorgeous sun under the shade of the trees and bottled between 15 & 17 cases of wine. We all took turns at various stations, filling bottles, corking bottles, putting on foil caps and Marleen did labels!

We had a visitor - Paul Bonacquisti and family made it up for the day. The kids & the dogs had a great time. The Bonacquisti winery is in Denver at I-70 & Pecos. We pour wine for Paul during the Rocky Mountain Wine Festival. Paul has a wine he named "D" red. I hounded him for months about changing it to "DD" red (after our place). Well on bottling day Dene decided he wanted to make a blend of our wines. So he and Paul did different percentage blends and we all got to try them. So DD Red was born and we laughed again about the D or DD Red wines.

We ended the day with a Galloway Beef Dinner on our front porch. There are lots of pictures on the Facebook page - search DD Ranch Galloway Cattle - and we will be there! Check it out, say hi!

DD Ranch Wines:

While we started making wine with "kits" - last fall we started from the begining. We choose to expand our education and crushed, fermented and pressed our first grapes into wine.We purchased roughly 100 lbs of 5 varieties of grapes from Paul Bonaquisti. His winery is in Denver just off I-70 & Pecos (go south about 500ft and you are there). We bought Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot (which we did as a white merlot), Shiraz, Cab Franc and Zin.

We had read countless books and magazine articles on "procedures" but until you just get in there and do it... Paul was great, he put up with our amateur questions and we worked thru the chemistry tests. He even provided commercial yeast product. Much to my surprise you can not buy the same yeast strains that commercial wineries use!

Our first crush is being tasted now! The Sauvignon Blanc and White Merlot were part of the wine tasting we did during our Annual Picnic. It was fun for all of us to taste the differences of wines made from the same grape and had a totally different flavor. I keep telling you it's like cooking; ever had the same spaghetti sauce or green chili twice? No! We all know what one is but each cook is different. Same with wine!

Ok, what is a "White Merlot?" As you know Merlot is a red grape. Red wines are fermented on the grape skins. White wines are not. So the Merlot grape was crushed, set over night and then pressed, then fermented. It is more a ruby red than a blush, which is controled by how long you leave the crushed grape on the skins. "Skin contact time" - more time more color & flavor.

We will be "oaking" our red wines and they should be ready about July or August. Of course they should age for a while, but the next crush is right around the corner! And so it will go- year to year, crush to crush.

Wine Maker Magazine:

We are Excited to Announce that we are Featured in the April May 2008 issue of Wine Maker Magazine! The story is a full page article inside the back cover. This magazine is for mostly home wine makers. It is distributed Nationwide and in Canada. Look for a copy near you!

We hope to have a link to the article soon. Please stop check back!

HERE'S THE LINK: hppt://winemakermag.com/deparatments/794.html

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12535 CR 23
Fort Lupton, CO 80621
(970)785-6033