The Anatomy of a Crush at Denver’s Urban Winery
Crush is one of the busiest times of the winemaking calendar, starting with the early ripening grapes of September and lasting, at times, until November. While the harvest is usually synonymous with the actual vineyards, we get just as busy in downtown Denver. Here’s how it all shakes out. Step 1: The Order Perhaps the trickiest part of operating an urban winery in Denver is finding grapes. If you’ve been to the winery, it’s obvious the fruit doesn’t come from around the corner, rather from more...
Read More5 Years of Making Wine in Denver
It all started so simply in 2006 when Paul Bonacquisti lost his job as a radio DJ due to his station flipping formats. The logical step, of course, was to open a winery smack dab in the middle of Denver in the Sunnyside neighborhood. Well, it wasn’t that logical in most people’s minds. See, at the time, urban wineries weren’t trendy nor popular, and consumers still thought a trip to a picturesque vineyard was in order for the full wine-drinking experience. If five years in business tells you anything,...
Read MoreThe Making of a Denver Urban Winery
Forty-sixth and Pecos. Cherry Creek North, it is not. Traffic is heavy with Interstate 70 just a few hundred feet away. There’s a gas station, a few fields and a national chain of a sandwich shop anchoring an industrial complex. That’s about it. Napa, it is not, either. Yet it is home to Denver’s first urban winery, Bonacquisti Wine Co., some 300 miles from the vineyards it orders its grapes from. The location always begs a simple question: Why a winery, right here? “Take a sigh of relief we...
Read MoreA Denver Winery By the Numbers
Some of us are the analytical type. We choose round numbers over vague references. In the world of wine, there’s room for romantic notions and hard scientific facts. If you prefer the latter, here’s how the Bonacquisti Wine Co. looks on paper. 2,000: Our average annual case production. Yellow Tail does more than 11 million. Are we even being enough to be small? Will take the artisan, hand-crafted moniker. 2,500: Total square feet of the winery, which means we can produce, at a maximum, one case of wine per...
Read MoreDenver Eats: Sunnyside Dining
With the explosion of top nosh in LoHi and the Highlands, Sunnyside often gets lost in the foodie conversation. Perhaps for good reason (at least until recently). For too long the neighborhood food scene was just a handful of cheap ethnic joints along 38th Avenue. With the recent openings of several new restaurants, Sunnyside can now lay claim to some great (and diverse) food options. Here’s a where you need to eat in Sunnyside. Buchi Café Cubano 2651 W. 38th Ave., 303-458-1328 It’s hard to get a...
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