Black Bridge Winery

Orchard Valley Farms & Market fronts State Highway 133 half a mile northeast of Paonia. From the road the farm looks across the North Fork Valley to Mt. Lamborn and Landsend of the West Elk Mountains. The Black Bridge Winery tasting room is a counter inside the market. Wine tastings carry a charge. A second tasting bar offers 18-year-old balsamic vinegars imported from Italy and a row of infused olive oils, and those cost nothing to taste. A dump bucket sits on the counter for anyone who wants to spit or empty a glass.

The market, the river, and the U-pick rows

The market shelves hold the farm’s own beef, raised on North Fork pastures and finished at the farm and sold frozen as ground beef, steaks, and roasts. Beside it are jams, salsas, mustards, chutneys, honey, jerky, pickles, local cheeses, and picnic fixings, along with jewelry, yard sculpture, and Colorado mementos. The farm suggests building a lunch from these and carrying it, with a glass of wine, down to the river. The picnic ground lies along the shady bank of the North Fork of the Gunnison River, which borders the farm. Trails run from the market through the orchards, garden, and vineyards to the water. The farm also has a dog-friendly park area and a duck pond, and RVs are welcome. Walking and motorized tours of the farm and vineyard run in season when called ahead.

The winery takes its name from the century-old bridge that spans the North Fork at the farm’s edge. The Colorado West Land Trust describes the view from the market as “the Black Bridge stretching across the North Fork Gunnison River and the West Elks range punctuating the horizon.”

U-pickers get a wagon and a map of the farm. The 2026 schedule opened with raspberries in late June and cherries in early July. Early peaches and blackberries followed at the turn of August. By mid-August came peaches, nectarines, tomatoes, okra, eggplant, cucumbers, summer squash, watermelon, and cantaloupe, and apples and winter squash came in September. October brings pumpkins, apples, gourds, and winter squash. Picking runs from 10 to 4, and the farm asks pickers to bring a box or bag, since it charges a fee for containers on everything but berries. An older harvest calendar on the farm’s site gives raspberries in mid-June and cherries in late June, and it adds a caution: “Mother Nature is the boss around here.”

The 2026 daily season began May 23, after four weekend openings in May. North Fork Uncorked on June 6 and 7 brought new wine releases and wagon tours. On Saturday, September 26, the pumpkin patch opened with the Mountain Harvest Festival. On Mondays from May 25 through October 26, the 1-2 Thai food truck parks at the farm from 11 to 3 and cooks to order, “as spicy as desired.” The farm closes at 5 during the week of October 26. Sunday, November 1, is the last day of the 2026 season, marked with wine, food, art, local products, and wood-fired pizza.

Pinot Noir at 5,800 feet

The vineyard sits at 5,800 feet. It receives 13 inches of precipitation a year and has 150 frost-free days, on a 3 percent slope of Agua Fria stony loam. Chardonnay, Riesling, and Merlot grow there, and the farm says it is one of the few Colorado vineyards where Pinot Noir is grown successfully. Lee Bradley, the long-time grower, is known for his Pinot grapes, which form what the farm calls a classic “pine cone” shaped cluster. The Beezley Block Pinot Noir, made entirely from estate grapes, is named for the pioneer farmers who cleared the land where the vineyard now grows.

At harvest the grapes are picked by hand and destemmed. Reds ferment in bins and are pumped into aging barrels. Whites are pressed, and their juice ferments in stainless steel tanks. Fermentation is done within two weeks. The barrels rest in a wine cave whose structural framework was salvaged from a local mining operation. There Lee Bradley tops the barrels to replace the wine lost in aging, which is called the “Angel’s Share.” The Colorado Wine listing names a Thanksgiving barrel tasting among the events held in the cellar.

The winery’s list includes estate Pinot Noir and Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the red blends Farmer’s Ditch Red, Breaker Row Red, and Raven Lunatic. The whites are Chardonnay, oaked and unoaked, Marcellina Riesling in sweet and dry versions, and Alpine Mountain White. Peach and cherry wines are made from orchard fruit. The Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Riesling have won Governor’s Cup awards, and the Pinot took a Double Gold at the Colorado Mountain Winefest. The wines are made in small lots and sell out.

The farm’s account of the region goes back further. It says the mesas and river valleys of western Colorado have been grape country for more than a century. During Prohibition, vineyards were uprooted and replaced with orchards, and modern vineyards began in earnest in the late 1960s. The farm lies within the West Elks American Viticultural Area, which takes in the land around Paonia and Hotchkiss. The land trust notes it is one of only two such areas in the state.

From mining-company orchard to family farm

The farm’s own history dates the 80-acre place to 1976, when it grew fruit for wholesale packing houses in western Colorado. Lee and Kathy Bradley, both teachers, came to Paonia in the early 1980s to teach at the local school. During the coal mining boom, Lee ended up managing farms owned by a mining company. When the mines shut down, the Bradleys put their savings into the orchard Lee had been managing.

Lee had learned to prune fruit trees at sixteen, in the traditional way, balanced on a pair of stilts. He holds an agricultural education degree and a master’s in agriculture marketing and management from Colorado State University. Kathy holds a master’s in physical education from the University of Northern Colorado. The farm’s biography adds: “You have to stay in shape if you own a farm!!”

The Bradleys planted their first wine grapes in 1997. In the farm’s words, “They thrived… and we were hooked.” For several years the vineyard supplied grapes to other Delta County wineries. In 2004 the farm released the first vintage under its own Black Bridge label.

Fifty-five acres under easement

Ryan Bradley grew up on the farm and now runs it with his parents and his wife, Kendal. When Kendal taught agriculture at a nearby high school, she brought her students to the farm to learn the work. After the birth of their son, Beau, the family decided to protect the land. In the summer of 2023 they closed a conservation easement with Colorado West Land Trust on about 55 acres of fruitland. Under the easement the land can never be subdivided or developed, and later owners must honor the same terms. It joined 27 other easements nearby, which together cover more than 6,000 acres.

“After we closed the conservation easement in summer of 2023, my dad and I both felt a real sense of pride,” Ryan said. “And the farm will always be here now. Even if we fail, somebody else can step in.”

Kathy Bradley said, “I think all that we’ve done is so worth it now. It’s just a giant payoff with all our family here.”

Kendal agreed: “Beau gets to run around in the same place his daddy grew up.”