The winner of the 2024 Governor’s Cup for best wine is actually a well-known Colorado craft beer brewery.

Well, a division of it at least.

The OBC Wine Project in Fort Collins, with winemaker Travis Green and assistant Genevieve Swartz, took the cup with its 2023 Colorado Red. It’s a division of Odell Brewing, and the wine bar is right next to the brewery.

“We started making wine out of a hotel five years ago,” Green said Friday during the Colorado Uncorked event at History Colorado. “When we first started, people were like ‘what the hell does this brewery know about making wine?’ And when I came on as a winemaker, I asked the same question. But five years later, it’s been super and such an honor to be accepted into this community.”

“Fourteen winners is an all-time high,” said Kyle Schlachter, executive director of the Colorado Wine Industry Development Board. “Usually we try to keep it to 12, but the quality of the wines in the competition was so high that the judges couldn’t decide on those last two.”

There’s 160 wineries in Colorado and several of the participants Friday commented on the overall quality of the wines making great strides in the past 20 years.

“When Colorado’s industry first started, it was the cabernet sauvignons and the chardonnay, the typical varieties,” said Schlachter, who’s also the mayor of Littleton. “But now our grape growers are blending new varieties, and our winemakers are really making the grapes expressive wines that really showcase the diversity that we have here in Colorado.”