Cottonwood Cellars / The Olathe Winery

Cottonwood Cellars stands on Highway 348, west of Olathe. The turn is at the traffic light where 348 meets US 50 in the middle of town. The winery’s directions warn against taking the other Highway 348 out of Delta. From the light the road runs west 3.4 miles by the state wine board’s count, 3.5 by the winery’s. Signs stand along Highway 50 north and south of Olathe, and none stand between town and the gate. In 2001 a Denver Post reporter described the approach: just past a dairy farm, across the road from acres of alfalfa, and down the hill from a cornfield. Olathe itself lies on the Western Slope, about 50 miles south of Grand Junction and halfway between Delta and Montrose.

The winery occupies a 52-acre working farm on California Mesa, a bench known for its mild climate and for growing fruit. From the yard the San Juan Mountains, the Grand Mesa, and the Uncompahgre Plateau are all in view. Giant cottonwoods shade a lawn, and the winery invites visitors to bring a lunch and eat under them. The yard holds up to 150 people for family reunions and weddings. The tasting room fills a building of 2,500 square feet that also holds a piano, oak barrels, and stacked case goods. Wine club members collect their bottles there. The calendar of dinners and events starts again each April. From January 2 through March 31 the room opens by appointment only, and the state wine board’s listing advises callers to telephone first.

Oak, lees, and Lemberger

The winery calls itself a traditional European-style family operation, and its equipment came from Italy. It bottles under two labels, Cottonwood Cellars and The Olathe Winery. Production runs to 3,500 cases a year by the wine board’s figure. In a 2014 interview the winery put it at 3,700 to 4,000 cases.

The estate vineyard, Cottonwood Vineyards, covers 22.5 acres. It grows Lemberger, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Gewurztraminer. The winery photographs its Lemberger rows with the Grand Mesa standing to the north.

The reds age in French and American oak. The “reserve” reds stay in the barrel about two years and the others about one. Every red then spends at least another year in the bottle before release. Each year the cellar buys new barrels in heavy, medium-plus, and medium toast, and it keeps older barrels in use to avoid over-oaking. The Chardonnay ferments sur lie in American oak, resting on its lees at least nine months for a creamy texture before a year in the bottle. The winery’s own line on its reds: “The longer they age the better they taste.”

The off-dry whites and blushes go another way. They ferment slowly and cool in temperature-controlled poly tanks, over several weeks by one page of the winery’s site and several months by another. Fermentation is stopped while 2 to 3 percent residual sugar remains, and the wines come out each spring.

The list at the tasting bar runs to:

• Reds: Claret, a Pinot Noir–Lemberger blend called Pinolem, and the Classic Blend
• Whites and rosés: White Pinot Noir and White Lemberger
• Reserve: a Reserve Merlot
• Dessert: a port-style Tawny Merlot

The 2005 Classic Blend took Best of Show at the 2011 Governor’s Cup. The winery also mails a free newsletter, the Cellar Rat, and each issue pairs one wine with a recipe.

A retirement farm on California Mesa

The owners are Keith Read, the winemaker, and Diana Read, who handles marketing. The spelling here follows the winery’s own pages. The Denver Post spelled the name Reed in 2001, and the state wine board lists the contact as Diane Read.

The couple came from California. By the Post’s account they had no winery in mind when they arrived. They bought the 52 acres as a retirement property, a base where Keith and their two sons could hunt and fish and where Keith and Diana could rest from careers in the computer industry. Keith had grown up on a California farm, though, and wanted to grow something. At an alfalfa seminar in Montrose he learned that his ground would suit some alpine varieties of grapes. A Glenwood Springs paper later put it more briefly: the winery began in 1994 “when Keith decided he wanted a retirement project.”

The first five acres of vines went in in 1995, and the planting grew each year after. To reach the rocky soil that grapes do well in, the Reads scraped off the farm’s rich topsoil, and the neighboring farmers were horrified. When the couple dumped a pile of brown grape residue in a field for compost, some neighbors accused them of leaving a dead cow to lie there. In 1998 a new building went up for barrel aging and case storage, and the tasting room followed.

Sweet corn and a ‘94 cabernet

By January 2001 the Reads had 20 acres in grapes and the capacity to make 6,000 gallons of wine a year. They were finishing the tasting room under the old cottonwoods. Nancy Lofholm of the Denver Post set the scene: “Around these parts, ‘vintage’ is likely to refer to the year your tractor was built.” Olathe, she wrote, was on the map “for something besides darn good sweet corn.”

The wines had travelled well beyond town by then. They appeared on lists at Wolfgang Puck’s and Tante Louise in Denver and at several Denver-area country clubs. The American Culinary Federation chose one for the Millennium Tree banquet in Washington, D.C. Another was one of 200 American wines, and the only one from Colorado, chosen for the 2000 Thomas Jefferson Invitational, where it won a certificate of merit. At a Telluride Wine Festival, master sommelier Joshua Wesson called a ‘94 Cottonwood cabernet “the best Colorado red wine” he had tasted. Steve Carlton, the former St. Louis pitcher, drove up from his home in Durango to buy it by the case.

Les Mergelman, president of Olathe State Bank, told the Post he had not been a wine drinker until Cottonwood Cellars came to town. With row crops returning little, he expected some longtime farmers around Olathe to consider grapes. “It probably adds a little class to an area,” Mergelman said.

A bank basement in Glenwood Springs

Keith Read went on designing wines, 18 in all by 2014. Of those, three won a gold and two bronze awards at the 2012 San Francisco International Competition. A second tasting room opened in 2013, and by the winery’s later account two more were planned.

The Glenwood Springs room opened in the basement of the 100-year-old Citizen’s Bank Building. In 2014 Debby Langford was its wine hostess. Visitors chose five wines for a flight, and souvenir glasses, T-shirts, and picnic bags were for sale. The winery described its customers there to the Glenwood Springs Post Independent in 2014: “Local people and people who are traveling into Glenwood Springs wander down the basement stairs to see what is down here.”

In 2024 Cottonwood Cellars poured at the first South Fork Wine and Chocolate Festival, up the Rio Grande. The South Fork paper wrote that the winery had been making Colorado wines for over 34 years. The winery’s own home page counts from 1994 and reads “30 Years of Excellence.”