Exploring the surprisingly sophisticated and accessible sips along the ‘Utah Wine Trail’
It’s early November and there’s a pleasant crispness in the air as I chat with Mark Bold and John Delaney across the bar. We’re inside the small and cozy tasting room at the business partners’ namesake Bold & Delaney Winery, located just north of St. George along Highway 18. I sip a lovely pinot noir while Delaney talks, occasionally gesturing to the vines just outside the tasting room’s door. “Pinot is a thin-skinned, finicky grape that many of the region’s other wineries do not grow,” he says, “but it does very well for us.”
Now, if you’re wondering how any grape, much less the somewhat delicate pinot grapes, could flourish in Southern Utah’s red rock desert, you’re probably not alone. But Bold & Delaney Winery is also not alone. It is, in fact, one of six boutique wineries, from Cedar City to Hildale, making up the Utah Wine Trail (utahwinetrail.com).
“Southern Utah is at the 37th parallel, the same latitude as Spain, Italy and Greece,” explains Michael Jackson, owner of Zion Vineyards in Leeds. And like those famous European winemaking regions, the volcanic soils in Utah’s southwestern quadrant (more than 150 dormant cinder cone volcanoes dot the landscape there) and sizable diurnal shift, or daily temperature swings (often as much as 30 degrees), coalesce to create a surprisingly apt environment for wine-making grapes to achieve an optimal sugar and acid balance as they grow.
But enough wine-nerd talk. From north to south, the Utah Wine Trail begins at I/G Winery’s (59 W. Center Street) charming downtown Cedar City tasting room, a hip and inviting space furnished with velvet-covered sofas and local art. Some of I/G’s more notable varietals include its Barrel Aged Seduction, a red blend that tastes like Christmas in a bottle; Exhilerate, a refreshing and light sauvignon blanc; and 9 Barrels Red blend, a flavorful but not overt merlot made from grapes grown just northwest of St. George on Pine Valley Mountain. I/G makes 20 wines in all, available to taste at the winery by the flight, the glass (I/G Winery has a bar license) or the bottle.
The tiny town of Leeds, just north of St. George, boasts two wineries, including The Vine Yard (1282 N. Shadow Lane), owned and operated by Roberto Alvarez. There, Alvarez sits with visitors around his dining table offering tastes and tales of the 10 varietals grown in the fields behind his tasting room/home. When I visited, Alvarez and I tasted a deliciously fruity yet dry garnacha. Other wines offered there include cariñena, petite syrah, tempranillo, syrah, zinfandel, albariño, sauvignon blanc, semillon slanc and viognier. But when asked to name his favorite, Alvarez replied, “It’s like asking me, ‘which is your favorite child?’” When you go, be sure to go hungry. Tastings at The Vine Yard come with Instagram-worthy charcuterie plates.
There’s a history at Leeds’ other winery, Zion Vineyards (5 Hidden Valley Road). “Grapes were grown on this very spot in the 1880s,” says owner Michael Jackson as he looks out over his 4.5 acres of vines. Zion Vineyards’ offerings include a lovely grenache blanc, a refreshing albariño, a sweet moscato and a delicious selection of reds including tempranillo, petite syrah and zinfandel. “All of our white wines are aged in stainless steel tanks and all the reds in oak barrels,” Jackson says. Zion Vineyards’ existing tidy white clapboard tasting room will be dedicated to production when construction of a larger building, customizable for both small, intimate tastings and larger parties, like weddings, is completed later this year.
Standouts among the 14 varietals grown on Bold & Delaney Winery’s gorgeous Dammeron Valley acreage (1315 N. Horsemans Park Drive) include sauvignon blanc, the grapes of which winemaker John Delaney says are picked early, so its “light, bright and crisp” and malvasia bianca, first introduced to the Desert Southwest by Maynard James Keenan, winemaker and lead singer of the band, Tool. What all Bold & Delaney varietals have in common is that they are unfiltered. “As soon as you filter a wine,” Delaney says, “you immediately take away some of its character.”
Chances are you’ll get to meet at least one member of the Tooke family, owners and operators of the Utah Wine Trail’s southernmost stop, Water Canyon Winery, which spans two locations: the Hildale vineyard (1050 West Field Avenue) and a tasting room in Springdale (1066 Zion Park Boulevard). At both locations, visitors can partake in an experience unlike anywhere else: sipping Water Canyon’s all-natural wines.
“There are no additives in our wines, whatsoever,” Emma Tooke says, “which means that once you open one of our bottles, it needs to be consumed within 24 hours.”
Varietals grown at the Tooke family’s winery include sangiovese, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and barbera, among others. A large outdoor pavilion flanked by vines and the Winery Café, operated by Emma’s twin brother, Indy, are the centerpieces of the Water Canyon’s vineyard and tasting room in Hildale; the winery’s Springdale tasting room takes on a more moody, urban-Bohemian vibe, offering the perfect respite after day spent exploring Zion National Park.
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