High County Vino (The Daily Sentinel)
Dan West
July 28, 2024

Jayme Henderson and Steve Steese have been working with wine for a long time. However, around eight years ago, after years of experience in the Front Range hospitality industry, the pair of sommeliers decided they wanted to make a change.
At the time, they were working at a Denver steak and seafood restaurant, but wanted to relocate to “wine country,” which they thought of as being on the West Coast, Henderson said. They’d been to wine meccas in California and Oregon, doing internships with winemakers as vacations for years.
“It wasn’t necessarily winemaking that was the direction that we were going toward,” Henderson said. “We were very serious and focused when we did those internships. It was interesting and it added a layer of knowledge to being a somm (sommelier).”
They thought maybe they’d eventually open a wine bar. Farming was not at the top of their minds. However, a trip to California in 2016 made them reconsider their plans.
“There was a moment when we were on a wine buying trip in Sonoma in California,” Henderson said. “We had the honor of sitting beside one of our favorite winemakers at his table. He asked us what was happening in the Colorado wine industry.”
They started to talk to him about the trends at their Denver restaurant, what people were drinking and enjoying. The winemaker clarified that he was asking what was happening with the winemaking industry in Colorado. Henderson said she was stumped.
“We were managing a list of 750-plus bottles and only three were from Colorado and we didn’t even put them on the list. I personally never sold one and neither did Steve,” Henderson said.
“We prided ourselves on being very open-minded and approaching people where they are on their level. To not even know what was happening in our own backyard, it was embarrassing and humbling to not be able to answer that question to this renowned winemaker.”
When they got back to Colorado, Henderson said she started looking into the Colorado wine industry and soon the pair took off on a trip to Colorado wine country, but not lush vineyards and popular wineries of the Grand Valley. Instead, the pair ventured to the West Elks American Viticulture Area nestled just south of Grand Mesa and northwest of the West Elk Mountains in the North Fork Valley.
An American Viticultural Area (AVA) is a designated wine grape-growing region and the West Elks AVA was given that designation in 2001.
“The West Elks is absolutely incredible,” Colorado Association of Viticulture and Enology Executive Director Cassidee Shull said. “It stands alone for many, many reasons. It’s some of the, if not the highest elevation vineyards.”
With vineyards at 6,000 feet or higher in elevation, Shull said it is “such a different climate and terroir than what we have here in Palisade and of course what you see in other parts of the nation.”
The word terroir, familiar to wine enthusiasts, refers to the character or taste that is imparted by a wine by the environment that it is grown in, Shull said.
“It just has to do with all of the different nuances and the unique environment that is specific to how those grapes are grown within the soil and the environment it is grown in,” Shull said. “When we’re talking about here in Palisade, it’s the million dollar breeze and the really warm summers and the cool nights. It’s very different up in the West Elks.”
Henderson said they discovered the West Elks just through an internet search, but the couple fell in love with the area and the towns of Hotchkiss and Paonia after a visit.
“I said, ‘Oh my gosh. What’s this smaller area that I’ve never heard of out in the towns of Hotchkiss and Paonia?’ I’d had fruit from Hotchkiss and that’s the only association that I had with that town,” Henderson said.
They started to look at purchasing a vineyard and starting their own winery in the region. They found a property that already had grapes planted and were off and running less than a year later with their winery, The Storm Cellar.
“A year later in May of 2017, we were knee deep in pruning the vines and learning how to do that,” Henderson said. “Learning on our feet. It was a whirlwind. That 12 months was just insane.”
Growing at Altitude
Alfred Eames has been making wine for more than 50 years and planted his first vineyard in the North Fork Valley in 1992. He started his winery, Alfred Eames Cellars, in 1999 when there were only a handful of wineries in the area.
The number of wineries and cideries in the decades since has increased to 12, but Eames said land and water constraints mean it is limited in how much growth can happen.