Aspen Wine - Aspen Wine Classes & Aspen Wine Events

Aspen is the perfect place to enjoy fine Colorado wines. Aspen wine events draw patrons from all corners of the earth who attend special Aspen wine tastings. Wine connoisseurs and potential aficionados gather at luxurious Aspen wine events and Aspen wine classes designed for anyone with an appreciation for fine wines.

The Colorado wine country region is known for its favorable combination of high-altitude sun, temperate evenings and effortless organic viticulture. Recognized world-wide for award winning wines, Aspen wine tastings and Aspen wine events are the ideal venues to experience exquisite food and wine pairings while learning about the pioneering traditions of winemaking and the secrets of grape growing.

Get Ready to Taste Some of the Finest Wines in the Country

Attend Aspen wine tasting classes and learn about specialty wines, and the grapes that create them. The more you know about classic grape growing and winemaking, the more distinguished your wine appreciation. In this article peruse red and white wine grape characteristics, familiarize yourself with the winemaking process and pick up wine terminology you’ll use at your next Aspen wine appreciation event.

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Aspen Wine Classes—History and Winemaking

Viniculture and the farming of vineyards are abundant with traditions, roots and history that date back hundreds of years. Experience the enjoyment of some of the most renowned Colorado wines. Visit fine Aspen wineries where you can learn from passionate sommeliers and expert vintners about the history of Colorado’s exquisite high-desert vineyards and its viticulture.

Aspen enjoys Colorado’s Western Slope harvests. Colorado’s grapes are specifically cultivated for winemaking. More than 100 years ago, Colorado winemaking originated on the Western Slope and halted during prohibition. Vineyards were uprooted and destroyed while the lands recovered by orchard farming.

2 decades later, when prohibition ended, vineyards began to make their way back to popular society and reestablish the traditional founding vintner’s expertise in viticulture and winemaking. Even today traditional grape varieties create Colorado’s renowned, fine wines. In the late 20th century the Grand Valley was designated a Federal Viticultural Area, making wines for the surrounding areas, like Aspen, as well as worldwide.

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Aspen Wine Classes—The Winemaking Process

Harvest—Crush—Ferment—Bottle

Harvest the grapes, crush the grapes, sustain the fermenting process and then bottle the wine. As simple as that process may sound, this viniculture is tradition and passion passed down from generations of families—a study that takes time, practice and years to master.

Aspen Wine Classes—The Fermenting Process

Sugar and yeast crate ethanol. When ethanol comes into contact with carbon dioxide, we have fermentation lift off!

Sugar + Yeast = Ethanol (Alcohol) + Carbon Dioxide

Yeast consumes sugar, and creates Ethanol or alcohol. Grapes have everything it takes to ferment, even while still hanging on the vine (yeast, sugar and carbon dioxide), but it takes specific elemental conditions in order to make fine wine.

Aspen Wine Classes—Wine Alcohol Content

Most wines contain 8% to 14% alcohol. Fortified wines, or wines that are infused with spirits, contain 18% to 21% alcohol content.

Aspen Wine Classes—Fortified Wines

Port, Sherry and Madeira are all fortified wines. The Graystone Winery of Colorado specializes in Port. You can request special tastings at your next Aspen wine tasting or Aspen wine event.

Aspen wineries house some of the most quality wines in North America. Colorado maintains cool temperatures and a fairly short growing season giving vintners a specific grape growing blueprint to master. By mastering grape varieties that thrive in the Colorado high-desert mesoclimate. Colorado vineyards and wineries have produced Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot varieties that are enjoyed with great appreciation.

Aspen Wine Classes—Climate

Mesoclimate illustrates a specific vineyard or hillside’s temperature and typical climate. Macroclimate refers to a complete region of viniculture, where microclimate portrays the typical temperature closely surrounding the grape vines in any vineyard.

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Attend Aspen Wine Classes, Events, and Tastings

Aspen Wine Events—Learn from Talented Sommeliers

Aspen wine events will teach and entice as expert guides inform you about wine, viniculture and food pairing. Enjoy a birthday celebration, anniversary or any special occasion at the Aspen wineries, whether intimately for 2, or with a group.

Treat yourself as sommeliers recommend pairings based on their extensive knowledge of the body of a wine compared to the heaviness of food. The balance of these 2 elements creates pairing harmony. Learn how flavors can be intensified or weakened depending on pairing and how they affect your palate.

Aspen Wine Tastings—Learn by Doing

Expertise from Aspen wine classes and application through Aspen wine events will refine your appreciation divulging the secrets of fine dining and wine. The perfect pairings of food and wine, texture and flavor. Improve your dining experience and enhance your dining pleasure by learning from the best.

Tour wineries and sample fine wines in the exquisite setting of Aspen. Aspen wine event tour experts, who are educational guides and sommeliers, spearhead tours and tastings ensuring your Aspen Wine classes or Aspen wine events memorable and eventful.

Aspen wine events are held in the perfect venues for experiencing wine traditions and the history of Colorado’s wineries and vineyards. Whether you’re a vintage expert or beginning your journey into the world of wines, there are Aspen wine classes and Aspen wine evens for everyone.

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Aspen Wine Classes—Familiarize with Classic Wine Grapes

Most classic wine grapes were originally cultivated from regions of the Old World. With expert viticulturists and modern day techniques, some of those grapes have made their way to New World countries producing award-wining wines and devoted appreciation. While some grapes can be grown in a variety of regions, others have remained stationary in their original location.

When you attend Aspen wine events and Aspen wine classes, learn where the your favorite varieties are found, their flavor qualities and required growing conditions. Grow your appreciation at Aspen wine tastings enjoy for a lifetime.

Aspen Wine Classes—Good Grapes

Wines are named for the grapes that make them. Any experienced student of grape growing will tell you, “You can make bad wine from good grapes, but you can’t make good wine form bad grapes.” Leading directly back to the beginning of the winemaking process, wine comes straight from the vineyard.

Aspen Wine Classes—It all Starts with the Growth of the Vines

It is the Vitis Vinifera species makes some of the world’s most sought after wines. Considered an art form, viniculture respects the process and all the ingredients involved to play their essential parts for success.

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Aspen Wine Classes—Classic Red Wine Grapes

Aspen wine events and Aspen wine classes will color you palate with classic Reds. Below you’ll find a guide to reds and their traditional characteristics. It will give you their basic distinctions, but as you indulge in an Aspen wine tasting, you will begin to form your own opinions and tastes based on your personal experience and pleasure. Enjoy.

Color

Red wines vary from deep red to purple. Younger wines tend to show more blue than red. Orange shades or brick red show that the wine has age.

Climate Distinctions

A hot Climate denotes less acidic wines, while cool climates with an extended growing season denote fruity-based wines. When temperatures are neutral, grapes thrive with extended seasons.

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Aspen Wine Tastings—Indulge in Classic Red Wines

Cabernet

Cabernet originates from Bordeaux, though in modern times can be cultivated worldwide. Its main flavors denote blackcurrants, cedar, coffee, tobacco and chocolate.

Cabernet is a sturdy grape that easily transferred to the New World regions of Australia, South Africa, North America and South America, while still having great presence in the Old World countries.

Merlot

Merlot originates from Bordeaux. Today California and Italy are known for their Merlots. Key flavors include spicy fruitcake, chocolate, plums and black cherries.

Less traveled than Cabernet, Merlot is important in California and Italy and thrives in those temperate climates.

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir originates from Burgundy, residing in modern day throughout New Zealand, California and Australia. Characteristics endorse berries and sweet fruits like cranberries and strawberries.

The wines of the New World have proved to be award winning, though entirely individual from Burgundy. Sensitive to large yields, Pinot Noir favors small crops and is one of 3 grapes largely grown in Champagne.

Shiraz

Shiraz originates from North Rhone Valley and is also grown in Australia, South Africa, Chile and California. Black fruits denote flavor along with black pepper and smoke.

A full-bodied fruity wine, Shiraz has a long life span and favors warmer climates with longer growing seasons.

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Aspen Wine Classes—Classic White Wine Grapes

Aspen wine events and Aspen wine classes will indulge you with traditional white wines. Below you’ll find a guide to white wines and their traditional characteristics. It will give you their basic distinctions, but as you continue with your appreciation in an Aspen wine tasting, you will begin to form your own tastes based on your personal preference and pleasure. The subjective sense of wine tasting makes it all about you. Enjoy.

Color

White wines vary from crystal clear to a straw-like yellow—green tones for young wines and golden yellows for aged are common.

Climate Distinctions

A hot Climate can pull bright fruit flavors low in acidity. In hotter regions overripe fruit will veer on more golden yellow shades while cool weather heighten acidity. Mild weather with extended growing seasons ensures a balance of acidity and sweetness. Modern day grape growing techniques have been successful at maintaining white grapes even in unfavorable climates.

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Aspen Wine Tastings—Indulge in Classic White Wines

Chardonnay

Chardonnay originates from Burgundy and Champagne and is grown all over the world. Known for tropical fruit and citrus flavors paired with butter, vanilla, spice and oak.

The Chardonnay grape is a sustainable grape that can thrive in different climates while producing large quality yields. As a result of ease of growing, Chardonnay is cultivated in Australia, New Zealand, California, South Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, Southern France and Italy.

Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon Blanc originates from Bordeaux and today is especially famed in New Zealand. Sauvignon Blanc stands apart from other white wines with flavors of green and tropical fruits, cut grass and gooseberries. Sauvignon Blanc brought New Zealand its award winning acclaim.

Riesling

Originating in Germany, Riesling can be found in Alsace and Australia. Limes and minerals are flavor factors of Riesling along with fruit blossoms and apples.

New World vineyards are planting Riesling, though still the majority of Riesling vines are found in Germany. New Zealand and Australia produce Riesling with distinctly different styles than Germany and Alsace.

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Experience the Culture of Aspen

Aspen Wine Events, Aspen Wine Classes, Aspen Wine Tastings

Dating back hundreds of years, viniculture and viticulture have created history that is rich with tradition. After experiencing some of the finest Colorado wines when attending Aspen wine classes and Aspen wine events, you will understand how Aspen wine tastings are second to none. You’ll learn the history of Colorado’s high-desert vineyards and its viticulture from expert sommeliers and guides.

Whether you’re a connoisseur and expert at fine wine pairing or just starting out on the road to fine wines of the world, there are Aspen wine classes and Aspen wine events for every level of patron. Lifelong appreciation comes with the persistence of fine wine evaluation. Plan your next celebration event in Aspen where you can treat yourself to Aspen wine tastings and the culture of fine wine. A romantic weekend for 2 or a day out with friends, Aspen wineries offer exquisite venues, fine wines and good times.