BookCliff Vineyards

F 3/4 Road dead-ends at an entrance sign on the east side of Palisade. Past the sign, the Hawk Ridge vineyard runs along the east side of 39 Road, and the tasting room is a garage on the vineyard property. John Garlich, co-founder of BookCliff Vineyards, built the bar inside it in 2019. A covered deck seating around 50 people was added in 2022, facing out over the Western Slope. From the hill a visitor looks to the Book Cliffs, Mount Garfield, and the orchards and vineyards of the valley floor. The hill can also be seen from the Palisade Rim trail.

A garage on Hawk Ridge

No reservation is needed. A tasting is four wines for $16, and light food and non-alcoholic drinks are sold at the bar. On Saturday evenings the room holds Sunset Saturday, from 5:00 to 8:30 p.m. The October 2026 calendar lists it on the 3rd, 10th, and 17th.

Every wine poured is made from Colorado-grown grapes. The winery’s list runs from Chardonnay, Riesling, Viognier, and Muscat Blanc through Malbec, Tempranillo, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. It also includes a sweet rosé called A Touch of Red and red and white blends sold as Friday’s Folly. Colorado Wine names Cabernet Franc and Ensemble, a red blend in the Bordeaux manner, as the wines the house is known for.

The founders have since passed the business to three families. Jordan, the chief executive, is a Colorado native who studied aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado in Boulder and led operations at companies building satellites. Christopher, the chief financial officer, was raised in Greeley, holds the same CU engineering degree, and owns three restaurants in Northern Colorado. Will, the head winemaker, came into wine through a summer tasting-room job at Waterbrook Winery in Walla Walla, Washington, while playing baseball at Whitman College. After graduating in 2015 he taught English in rural Japan. He enrolled in 2016 at the Center for Enology and Viticulture at Walla Walla Community College, worked vintages at Bergevin Lane Winery and Dusted Valley Vintners, and spent two years as production assistant at Corliss Estates. Their wives, Candace, Danielle, and Lauren, complete the ownership team. “I want to be pulling the rope for BookCliff,” Will has said, “but also the greater Colorado wine industry as a whole.”

Fourteen grapes at 4,600 feet

Bookcliff Farms manages 37 acres planted in 14 varieties, by the winery’s own count. A 2023 Boulder Reporting Lab story put the holdings at 40 acres. Hawk Ridge alone is 20 acres. The ground is high desert at 4,600 feet, near the southern mouth of De Beque Canyon, where the Colorado River comes through. Cool air drains down out of the canyon onto lower land, which lowers the risk of frost. “It’s the million-dollar wind right in there,” Ulla Merz said of the breeze that falls on the vineyard. Grapes grow in Palisade at all because canal irrigation in 1882 diverted Colorado River water to the town.

The farm uses no pesticide and as little herbicide as it can. It fertilizes with compost and grows grass between the rows to keep the good and bad insects in balance. The wind did not save the vines in October 2020, when a severe freeze killed most of the buds. “We didn’t have a crop in ‘21,” Garlich said. “We were just training the vines back up from the ground.”

Besides the grapes of Bordeaux, the Rhône, and Germany, the vineyard grows Graciano, a Spanish red. “We were the first to plant [Graciano grapes] in Colorado that I’m aware of,” Garlich said. The first Graciano was bottled in 2015. That same year came a dry red from Souzão, a Portuguese grape usually used for port. BookCliff also picks Souzão late in the season, when it carries more sugar, for a port-style wine.

At the Colorado Governor’s Cup, the 2013 Ensemble took Double Gold and Best of Show in 2016, and the 2015 Cabernet Franc Reserve took Double Gold and Best in Show in 2018. In July 2026 the food site Tasting Table named BookCliff the best winery in Colorado. “Although its beginnings trace back to an experiment with winemaking in a Boulder basement, Bookcliff Vineyards is now a premium Colorado wine country destination,” it wrote.

Peaches, weekends, and a basement in Boulder

Garlich and Merz met at CU Boulder. They first tried growing grapes in their Boulder backyard and struggled. In the spring of 1994, on one of their backpacking trips, they drove toward Moab, Utah, and came through Palisade. Peaches were then the town’s dominant crop. In 1995 they bought a 10-acre peach orchard there. The winery’s story dates BookCliff from that purchase, its badge reads “Est. 1996,” and Colorado Wine’s listing gives 1999.

In spring 1996 they planted vines on about six acres: Chardonnay, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. They added about two acres every year after. During the week Garlich worked as a structural engineer and Merz in software development. On weekends they drove over the mountains to plant. Garlich took winemaking courses through the University of California, Davis, continuing-education program. “Going to our vineyards in Palisade was like a weekend getaway,” he said. “It wasn’t a burden, but for the traffic.”

Merz grew up in Baden-Württemberg, in Germany’s wine country. “When we started cultivating grapes, our neighbors in Palisade weren’t sure we would last,” she said. Those neighbors lent them equipment and gave advice. She chose the name for the cliffs across the valley. “Our name simply reflects the terrain. No one had used it before. The Book Cliffs are as common on the Western side as Flatirons are here.” She has said that a lot of tasting-room visitors assume, because of the name, that the winery is from Grand Junction.

The sources tell the first vintage two ways. The Daily Camera reported in 2019 that the couple sold most of the 1998 crop to other wineries. They kept enough for two barrels of each variety, stored at Creekside Cellars in Evergreen. A year later, by that account, all the work moved to the basement of their Boulder home: crushing, fermenting, bottling, labeling, and storage. The Boulder Reporting Lab has them crushing and bottling the first batch in the basement in 1998. It reports they sold about 2,000 cases, or 4,500 gallons, that year and for a few years after.

Sales moved from farmers markets to liquor stores and restaurants, and the couple bought a neighboring parcel in Palisade. They opened a winery on Lee Hill Drive in Boulder in 2008, by the Reporting Lab’s account, with a tasting room the year after. The Daily Camera dates both to 2009.

For years the vineyard itself had no tours and no tasting room, and so no visitors. In March 2019 Garlich and Merz were remodeling the garage, aiming to open in the first week of May. “It’s exciting,” Garlich said. “We can make good wine here in Colorado.”

A hilltop under easement

In September 2024 Colorado West Land Trust announced a conservation easement on Hawk Ridge. The easement keeps the 20 acres in farming and protects the views. The Daily Sentinel named the owners as Garlich and his wife, Ursula Merz. With Hawk Ridge, the trust had conserved nearly 900 of the Grand Valley’s 3,000 acres of fruit-producing land. “Protecting fruitlands like those at Hawk Ridge is essential to maintaining the unique identity of Palisade,” said Rob Bleiberg, the trust’s executive director.

“Once fruitlands are gone, they’re gone forever,” Garlich said. He gave another reason as well: “It was important for us to preserve our original experience of standing on top of this hill and looking all around at these gorgeous views.”