Far from just checking an eco-conscious box, vintners blend classic sustainable practices with frontier enterprise

By Rebecca Toy

Glass bottles cover the riverside beach at the Aspen Peak Cellars in Bailey just southwest of Denver – and their team is proud of what they’ve created.

Fear not, wine lovers. This is no muddy bank strewn with debris. Instead, the winery uses a machine that crushes glass bottles into safe-to-touch pieces within seconds. The team sifts out bigger pieces for driveway repairs, and the finely ground, sandy remains are heaped along the North Fork of the South Platte for tasting patios under tiki umbrellas, adding beach vibes to this quintessential Colorado river scene.

“Creating our own in-house recycling program with direct results to show was very intriguing to us,” says Marcel Flukiger, co-owner with his wife of Aspen Peak Cellars. For this Swiss-American chef couple, adding the crush machine in the spring of 2020 was Aspen Peak’s most recent step to tackle glass, but not its first. Since 2009, the winery has recycled tasting room bottles for reuse, reclaiming a quarter of the bottles they produce yearly.

Colorado wine is climbing, rising in production and quality, and gaining national attention for doing what the state does best – pulling off elevated feats. Deeply drawn to this terrain, it’s no surprise producers across the state join the broader industry’s conscientious drive to protect natural resources through land management. But Colorado’s frontier spirit permeates the wine world, and these are some of the producers who go beyond the eco-conscious standard with innovative – and sometimes consuming – commitment.

Maison La Belle Vie’s vineyards | Photo by Jadson Gir

Water on the Western Slope

Maison La Belle Vie – Palisade

Vineyards have long relied on flood irrigation, dousing vineyards with thousands of gallons of water from river canals. For days, the onslaught soaks the land, but it also loses water to evaporation and pulls nutrients through erosion. Every drop counts across the state’s Western Slope, which relies on the precious and nationally contested Colorado River.

Maison La Belle Vie partnered with the National Resources Conservation Service to try something different for its 4.5 acres of grapes. This summer, the family-run vineyard will have a new pump, water lines, and microjets, preserving the river and land by targeting vines more efficiently with less water.

“As the Colorado River is being threatened by climate change, we want to do our part to help,” says owner Nicholas Games. The French-inspired winery applies plenty of can-do attitude, running an onsite restaurant with ingredients from sustainable, local growers and ranchers and shipping wine with recycled and decomposable boxes.

Helping Colorado Farmers

Carboy Winery – Denver, Littleton, Palisade, Breckenridge

As the biggest name in Colorado’s wine game, Carboy Winery puts its resources back into the state. With locations from the Front Range to Palisade, the company applies a range of solutions. Carboy plants hardy grape varietals and uses micro sprinklers and drip irrigation to make the most of the land with the least water. The Palisade location uses a “greywater” system to recycle water used in wine production back to the vineyards. Carboy also brought 300-gallon tanks and kegs into their tasting rooms, saving over 750,000 bottles and corks.

But Carboy’s reach extends beyond its operations as a participant in the global 1% for the Planet movement, where partners give at least one percent of their proceeds to environmental organizations. Carboy stays local, supporting Zero Foodprint with its Restore Colorado campaign. “When you spend your money at Carboy, you’re helping Colorado farmers,” says Barbie Graham, Carboy tasting room supervisor.

Dune-Inspired Biodynamics

Aquila Cellars – Paonia

Co-founder Brandt Thibodeaux is quick to clarify: he and the team at Aquila Cellars are not dogmatic about biodynamics at their West Elks winery. But this isn’t just a team of winemakers adding sustainable practices; Aquila Cellars is passionate about approaching mindful agriculture as a solution to climate change. “It’s not about creating something that’s less horrible,” says Thibodeaux. “It’s about creating something that has real lasting impact.”

The team manages four vineyards – two previously abandoned – with principles from a range of sources, including Frank Hubert’s Dune. The sci-fi saga draws parallels in the Colorado Plateau, with ever-present water scarcity and conservation. Biodynamics is about fluid adaptation, and Aquila Cellars keeps their team close to the ground, tending the vineyards by hand and adjusting techniques for the lowest intervention.

“We work with the highest vineyards in North America in one of the coldest growing regions in the world,” describes Thibodeaux.

Natural Colorado Wine

Balistreri Vineyards – Denver

“Natural wine” is a buzzy and contested term in the wine world, viewed by some as a marketing gimmick to cover flaws. Others point to the benefits of ancient practices that don’t add yeast, sulfites, dyes, clarifiers or reducers. For the Balistreri family, natural wine means making it the same way their family did after immigrating from Italy: good grapes, thoughtful farming practices, minimal intervention in the cellar.

“You can taste it,” says Ray Domenico, operations leader and grandson of the winery founder. “Folks who enjoy our wines notice a difference in our unmanipulated wine, and that’s something we’re proud of.”

Sustainability at Balistreri starts with their small batches: bigger production means more water for clean-up. Solar panels fuel the expanded Denver property with natural energy throughout the year. But Domenico points to a larger network of responsible growers in Colorado’s Grand Valley. While the taxes and fees of certification may not be worth it for many that Balistreri works with, farmers and vineyards practicing organics are looking out for the state.

“We want to make Colorado wine with Colorado-grown grapes and champion the region and its terroir.”

Rebecca Toy is a freelance writer who covers wine, spirits, beer, travel, history – anything with passionate people doing inspiring things. She has contributed to National Geographic, Wine Enthusiast, Fodor’s Travel and others.