Kingman Winery, Denver CO

My mom and I came to Denver this Memorial Day weekend to see Les Miserables and my friend Emily but had a lot of time to kill before our show so we hit Hammond's Candy for the tour and to stock up on old fashioned candies. While we were waiting for our tour, my mom came across a pamphlet for Colorado wineries and vineyards....and there were a few really close to Hammond's

Woohoo!!! 

We tried hitting one with a fancy name first but saw that they were having a fancy party so we went back to follow the wine signs that mom had spotted on the way. They led us to Kingman Winery which was a small store-front with a nicely decorated tasting area and a wall that separated it from the production area. We got to try all the wines that they offered:

Whites-

Chardonnay

Viognier

Riesling

Reds-

Cabernet Sauvignon

Marv'lous 1680

Zinfandel

They also had a special wine that was a bled of Riesling and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes (which I can't remember the name of) and it is their summer wine for 2013. It was an interesting bled of white and red that made for a lovely wine to drink on a hot summer day. They designed the label using a painting from one of their featured artists (they do a art night once a month where an artist comes in and teaches people how to recreate one of their paintings while drinking wine... I should do this some day).

They prided themselves on taking familiar wines and making them unfamiliar. They don't age their Chardonnay in oak barrels so it doesn't have the creamy and buttery taste that most Chardonnays have. They also process their Riesling differently so it's not as sweet as most Rieslings go. As for the reds, they only age their Cabernet Sauvignon for about 8 months before bottling when it normally ages for a year. This gives it a strong beginning but a more mellow end than most Cabs.

When we were done with our tastings, we were offered a tour of their operations... Which was very small compared to what I had seen at other wineries. They get all of their grapes from a valley in another part of Colorado and process them all in the small space behind the tasting room.

My favorite of their offerings was their Chardonnay, which is strange since I don't usually favor them. I was not a fan of the Riesling and did not mind the Cab, two even stranger things. 

Kingman was an interesting little find and was glad we visited.

"Your adaptive unconcious is crying out to taste our wine."

Another Good Time at MONA

Wow. I had not realized that it had been so long since the last time I posted.

Well, this weekend brought the Wine and Jazz Festival back to Kearmey and of course Jessi ventured west to go with me. The weather was threatening nastiness like it usually does for the W&J Fest but we were not disheartened. We got there around 7, met up with some friends and found a table outside near the stage to plan our stratify. The lightening was flashing and the rain was just starting to sprinkle when we headed in for our first tastings... Which I got exactly one of when they told us the event was shutting down because of the weather. If it cleared, they would open back up and we were welcome to come back.

What to do until then you may ask. Well, we did what everybody else did... We headed to the closest bar to wait out the storm. The poor guy behind the bar at the Garage didn't know what hit him. He was ready for a quiet evening at work when he suddenly got slammed by dozens of people from the festival. He desperately called other bartenders for help while trying to serve drinks, which he was doing rather well considering. Everybody was cool with the wait so that made his job easier.

We stayed there for a couple of rounds, found one more friend and headed back to the MONA parking lot for round two of wine.

Most of the vineyards and wineries that were there were the same from years past but that didn't stop Jessi and I from hitting them up for our favorites (and not so favorites-Sweet Hattie anybody?). We did find some new good ones, my new favs of the evening were Silver Fox from Silver Hills and Wine-A-Rita from... somewhere. During the course of the evening, we found or were given about 20 extra tickets so we had that many more chances to try the wines that peaked our interest.

We had some good laughs, tried some great wine, and listened to some good music while thumbing our nose at Nebraska weather. Overall, it was what the Wine & Jazz Festival has come to mean to me: bad weather and an awesome time.