By Marj Charlier

Nearly three dozen snowshoe-clad adventurers tread up to a trailhead near Kenosha Pass, ready for an athletic adventure. Their guides give them a choice: take the gentle boardwalk trail along the creek, hike a moderate climb up the mountainside, or go all in, and shoe up to the top of the 9,400-foot summit. Whichever route they choose, they and their guides will toast themselves with a glass of Gluhwein — a German concoction of hot, mulled wine — halfway through their two-hour trip.

“It is gorgeous, gorgeous scenery up there,” said Barb Halverson, a frequent participant in events sponsored by Aspen Peak Cellars, a winery and bistro in Bailey, who took the trip with her son. “It’s a spectacular event.”

What does snowshoeing have to do with wineries? In this case: everything. Finishing the snowy hike, the adventurers drive back down Highway 285 to Bailey for a tasting of six wines with matched appetizers, and then a lunch with authentic Swiss fondue, music and more wine.

The Snowshoe & Fondue outings, which take place every Friday, Saturday and Sunday for three winter months, are among the dozens of ways Aspen Peak’s owners, Julie and Marcel Flukiger, keep their winery thriving. “Our market is small,” Marcel said, estimating that only about 10,000 people live in the county on the east side of Kenosha Pass. The bistro and the special events they orchestrate widen their reach. “We have a local following, but also day-trippers from Denver,” said Marcel. “It makes us kind of a destination.”

Besides weekend snowshoeing outings – all sold out this year – the winery hosts a Rockin’ Rapids live music event every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, year-round, pairing the weekly music choice with food: jazz with corvina, French onion soup and lamb belly. There’s also Flies and Flights, which pairs fly-fishing lessons on the adjacent North Fork of the South Platte River, lunch and wine tasting during the summer; occasional yoga lessons that come with a lunch credit, and quarterly wine club dinners.

According to John Barbier, a wine tourism expert and owner of Bistro 317 in Grand Junction, wine enthusiasts these days expect more than a wine-tasting flight when they travel to wineries. To him, Aspen Peak’s every-weekend snowshoe outings are a perfect draw. “What better place than a winery to be outside enjoying nature?” he asked.

As with any tourism venture, it isn’t always easy. A trip to Palisade for wine enthusiasts last fall – with food, lodging and wine tasting – was nearly spoiled when the bus driver didn’t show. Some of the participants drove their cars over to the Wine Country Inn anyway, but “it isn’t the same when you have to drive that far,” Halverson said.

But compared with some of the Flukigers’ challenges, a missing bus driver could be considered a trivial matter. They have had ample opportunity to prove their mettle in much tougher situations.

A native of Switzerland, Marcel met Julie, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, while he was working as a chef for the Brown Palace. They went to Switzerland to get married in 1995, and returned to Colorado in 1996 to work at various restaurants around Denver before starting a catering company called Chocolate Moose. Marcel gave Julie a home wine-making kit for Christmas in 2005, and “that’s how our wine career started,” she said. “It started out as a hobby that got out of control.”

They started attending wine equipment shows and wine festivals, put a business plan together and leased the Clifton House Inn in Conifer. “We pulled the (business plan) numbers out of our ass,” Julie said. “But we met our targets right off the bat.” They served café food – sandwiches, salads, homemade soups – and kept making wine. All went well until lightning struck the barn on the property, eliminating the adjacent wedding venue, which “killed the business,” Julie said. They continued to make wine and serve food, but were outgrowing the inn’s capacity. In 2012, they leased and rebuilt a service garage on the river at the bottom of Crow Hill, and restarted their wine club and the snowshoe and fondue events. Everything was going well until 2016 when disaster struck again in the form of a loaded 18-wheeler.

Missing the curve at the bottom of the gulch, the truck plowed into the winery, leaving little but a pile of debris. “We managed to rescue some wine out of the rubble,” Marcel recalled. “We called it wine mining.”

They had some insurance to cover some of the loss, but the trucking company didn’t. With the help of a lawyer, they got some money out of the transportation bond so they could rebuild the winery and secure a 15-year lease on the building. A rugged looking, shed-like structure, its exterior belies the cozy, chic interior. A stone-faced bar greets visitors just inside the door of the small restaurant. A patio and a stage for music sit between the restaurant and the river. The workroom of wine-making equipment shields guests from the noise of the highway.

Both chefs by training, Julie and Marcel assert that the 12 to 16 different wines they make each year are made “by trial and error,” and they credit their wines’ successes to their chef’s palates. In late 2022, they won a double gold medal for their 2021 Pinot Gris, which was included in the Governor’s Cup collection – a selection of 12 wines chosen to “represent Colorado’s wine industry,” according to the Colorado Wine Industry Development Board.

Locals have come to depend on Aspen Peak Cellars to provide a classy venue for events that the community wouldn’t have otherwise. In November, the Senior Alliance of Platte Canyon, a senior-services agency based in eastern Park County, wanted to host a fund-raising event and decided to hold it at Aspen Peak, which accommodated the group and contributed $18 of the $68 dinner to the organization.

“What else is there in town?” quizzed Karen Quiring who lives in Bailey and attended the dinner that night. “There’s really nothing nearby.”

Marj Charlier is a novelist and a former Wall Street Journal reporter. Her latest book, The Rebel Nun, was released by Blackstone Publishing in 2021.