Country Roads Vines and Wines
Sharon and Dan Kauffman outside of their winery Country Roads Vines and Wines in Fort Morgan.
Courtesy photo / Country Roads Vines and Wines
Farm couple’s passion yields a unique Morgan County crop By Maegan Olmstead The Fort Morgan Times
Sharon and Dan Kauffman have a prosperous vineyard in Fort Morgan, growing grapes that will explicitly thrive in that particular environment. Dan is the winemaker and Sharon assists and helps with the sell-
ing and running the winery that they opened earlier this year. They have traveled extensively to educate themselves on varieties of grapes and conversing with other vineyards about how best to cultivate one of their own. Their property is a third-generation farm and has always been agricultural land, and they continue to farm 400 acres of corn and
4 • OCTOBER 30, 2021 • SALUTE TO AGRICULTURE
alfalfa. The only thing that has changed is that starting in 2018 they began planting vines on the land to coincide with their passion for wine. “It’s keeping that agriculture land in agriculture but it’s not taking land out for what Northeastern Colorado is known for with the corn and alfalfa,” said Sharon. They now have 400 vines that
are cold-hearted varieties and can withstand temperatures below 20 degrees and will have a late bud break. This means that the bud will not break until the middle of May to avoid any late spring freezes that can occur in this part of Colorado. When most people think of wines in Northeastern Colorado
See KAUFFMAN, pg. 5
