By BONNIE TSUI
Published: December 6, 2011

FIRST, winemakers poured their vintages into bottles and corked them. Then they lost the corks and added screw tops. Then they lost the bottles and sold wine in boxes, next to beer and pretzels at supermarkets. And now, winemakers seeking some pop are canning wine.

In June, Infinite Monkey Theorem, a hip winery in Denver, began selling its black muscat, a slightly effervescent wine with a subtle taste of litchi, in a small black can emblazoned with its monkey logo.

“Being in a state that’s very outdoorsy, it made a lot of sense to find a container that would enable people to put it in their pocket and go for a hike or a picnic or to a concert,” said Ben Parsons, who owns the winery.

Don Ryan, assistant wine manager at Westminster Total Beverage, a huge wine and liquor store in suburban Denver, said they have been selling about a case of the wine a week, with each 250-milliliter can (about a glass and a half) selling for $6.99.

“I’ve been a little surprised that they’re willing to pay so much for it,” Mr. Ryan said, “but it’s good quality.”

In Northern California, a new brand called Flasq has been selling chardonnays and merlots in aluminum bottles. Flasq bottles have a sporty energy-drink aesthetic, with a brushed metal finish and spare black lettering. They’re sold at sporting arenas, private golf clubs and upscale markets.

Wine in a can isn’t entirely new. Among the first was sold by Barokes Wines, an Australian winemaker that invented a patented process called Vinsafe, which lines the aluminum to prevent any reaction that would impart flavors to the wine or degrade the container. The techniques are similar to what some craft brewers have been using, but wine’s high acidity and alcohol levels require a thicker lining.

Barokes’s wines, first sold in 2003, have won praise at numerous international wine competitions. Four varietals, including chardonnay and blanc de noirs, are sold in the United States.

The first winemaker in the United States to offer canned wines was the Francis Ford Coppola Winery, which starting selling its Sofia Blanc de Blancs minis in 2004 (in pink, Red Bull-size cans).

Paul Sanguinetti, the sommelier at Ray’s and Stark at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said that the growth of canned wines is fueled by a mobile generation. “Hipsters love it,” he said.

Another newcomer is Neowines, a Swiss company that makes three canned wines including chasselas, a varietal from the terraced vineyards of Lavaux, Switzerland. Its bright pink, lime-green and purple cans are labeled with the Lavaux appellation. As its name suggests, it is also aimed at plugged-in drinkers.

Neowines aren’t available in the United States, but with a new Bordeaux coming out this fall, the founder, Alain Toscan, is already fine-tuning the company’s message to enter the American market.

His tagline: “Yes, we can!”

[original article]

By Kristen Browning-Blas
The Denver Post

Once an event becomes established, the underground, unofficial parties are where the cool kids want to hang out. Nothing was cooler than Infinite Monkey Theorem’s blowout at the Smuggler Mine. Denver winemaker Ben Parsons chose this 1880 silver mine to debut his Black Muscat, packaged in a Red- Bull-sized can, sure to be a hit among those who like sweet, carbonated drinks.

After the sea urchin, rabbit and goat stew showoff dishes at the Best New Chefs tasting, pizza from Boulder’s Pizzeria Basta, Lasater Grasslands meatballs, and shrimp and grits were exactly the kind of comfort food partygoers wanted.

Kelly Whitaker of Basta and Steven Redzikowski of Oak at Fourteenth toiled like hard-rock miners, tossing dough and cranking pies through a portable oven parked at the mouth of the mine. Partiers stepped (or tripped) over old mine-car railings to get to the dance “floor,” a dirt clearing on the side of the hill. At one point, the DJ blew a fuse, and the whole scene went as dark as the mine’s tunnels before the twinkle lights and the pulsing music resumed. The party would have gone until dawn, but noise complaints shut it down around midnight.

The Smuggler Mine was the site of the largest recorded pure silver nugget, at 2,350 pounds, but it wasn’t removed from the mine until 1894, a year after the price of silver crashed. I predict that Ben Parsons and his sparkly wine in the silver can will have better luck with their equally risky gamble.

[original article]

By John Mariani
June 26, 2011

It may seem that wealthy Coloradans have only recently followed Californian entrepreneurs into the wine business. But Colorado was producing nearly 2,000 gallons of wine a year as far back as 1899.

By 1968 — around the time Robert Mondavi revolutionized the California wine industry — the first modern Colorado winery, Ivancie, opened in Grand Valley. Now there are more than 50 in the state, and visitors can drive Colorado Wine Trails to Loveland, Boulder, Evergreen and Arvada in search of them.

Or you can stay in downtown Denver and visit The Infinite Monkey Theorem (TIMT) winery, which, since 2008, has operated out of a Quonset hut in a back alley of the city’s Santa Fe arts district. The winery gets its name from the idea in probability that a monkey striking typewriter keys at random for an unlimited time will eventually type out the works of Shakespeare.

“We like the simple irony of comparing such an endeavor to the incredibly controlled process of premier winemaking,” says TIMT’s winemaker and partner Ben Parsons. “We are the Shakespeare, not the monkey.”

The enterprise produced 4,500 cases last year, with 95 percent of the grapes grown around Colorado’s Western Slope, the rest sourced from California. Parsons and his partners have made TIMT a community project within the arts district, donating $25,000 to the University of Colorado Cancer Prevention Center (Parsons’ father died of colon cancer in 2007).

“We have local restaurant sommeliers digging dirt and bottling the wines,” he says. TIMT offers three- and five- gallon kegs to more than 400 local customers, bars and restaurants through its wine club.

Dicey Neighborhood

The winery plans to open its own restaurant this year, though right now the neighborhood gets dicey with druggies at night. “Good idea to lock your car,” says Parsons.

From the outside, the cement block building of the winery looks nothing like the baronial wine estates in California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys. Inside is a room full of cardboard boxes, open wine bottles and a tasting table. A young, black dog runs around at leisure. The tanks and barrels are in the Quonset hut, and the only real decor is the graffiti on the walls and a painting of a chimpanzee on the side of the delivery truck.

Parsons is a Brit, from Kent, who worked for London wine merchant Laytons, then moved to the vineyards of New Zealand, eventually graduating top of his class in oenology at Adelaide University. A job ad for a winemaking position, with no interview required, brought him to Canyon Wind Cellars in Palisade, Colorado. By 2004 he’d expanded Sutcliffe Vineyards (founded by another Brit, John Sutcliffe) to 4,000 cases a year, from 400.

Rhone Climate

Wanting his own winery, he figured he could source the best grapes from the Western Slope, which, with a 200-day growing season and less than 7 inches of rainfall, he compares to France’s Rhone Valley.

While everything about TIMT seems unorthodox, Parsons bases what he does on traditional winemaking. Though I expected that expertise to show in his wines, I really was quite amazed at the results. Tasting bottled, finished wines at the winery, I was immediately impressed by a mouth-filling, pleasantly fruity 2010 sauvignon blanc.

Parsons’ rose of cabernet franc was a beautiful, true rose color, very fruity and well suited to summer foods. A 100 percent petit verdot 2009 was still tannic but solidly knit, a big chewy wine, best with roasted meats. A 2009 petite sirah was very true to its varietal character, with a fine, expressive bouquet, and a sensible 14.2 percent alcohol, one of the best petite sirahs I’ve tasted anywhere.

100th Monkey

Not everything was so wonderful: an unfiltered 2009 malbec, with 10 percent petit verdot, smelled reedy and was a little sweet in the finish. And a red blend of petit verdot, malbec, petite sirah and syrah, called 100th Monkey, was too massive, almost cloying on the palate.

I tasted a number of other Colorado wines while out there and when I got home, and found that some producers still cling to a sweet, outdated style; others are experimenting with way too many varietals — many from out-of-state fruit — while others produce small quantities specific to the terroir.

If you’re ordering online from outside Colorado, antiquated interstate alcohol shipping rules may block your purchase, so check first with the winery.

I very much enjoyed the Rhone-style syrahs of Whitewater Hill, Boulder Creek, and Sutcliffe, but was surprised at the particular flavor of Sutcliffe’s 2008 Down Canyon Blend Red Wine, from around McElmo Canyon.

A mix of cabernet and syrah, the former giving excellent structure, the latter a sweet grape softness, it tasted the way I would think a wine from Colorado would taste — a bit unpolished and a little wild, but for a red wine to go with a lot of grilled foods, this is a winner.

 [original article]

By Ben Weinberg
04.01.2011

From the banks of the Mississippi River, across Colorado’s mountain peaks to the dunes beside the Great Salt Lake, winery trendsetters feed the appetites of devoted urban followers in locally relevant ways.

Ben Parsons, the British-born winemaker/owner of 5,000-case The Infinite Monkey Theorem Winery (TIMT), operates out of a Quonset hut on Denver’s industrial west side. Fruit from Colorado’s fertile Western Slope comprises the bulk of production, although his Albariño and Verdelho come from Lodi, Calif.

“Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Black Muscat, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Syrah, Petit Verdot, Petite Sirah and Cabernet Sauvignon,” says Parsons. “All Colorado fruit. But as the town of Palisade relies entirely on tourism, I decided to vinify in Denver, which has an up-and-coming restaurant community. I’m happiest in a city, and my young, educated clientele loves locally sourced wine.”

To the west, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Kiler Grove Winegrowers opened a 500-case urban winery in January. Michael Knight serves as general manager and covers vineyard work, winemaking, bottling, logistics and sales. “I grew up in Sonoma County and worked a few years at the University of California, Davis, where I picked up a great deal of information. But mostly I self-studied, and I’m lucky to be able to source fruit from my family’s vineyard in Paso Robles, Calif.”

Amigoni Urban Winery in is a 700-case operation in Kansas City, Mo. Owned by Kerry Amigoni and her winemaker husband Michael, the winery currently produces Cabernet Franc, Mourvèdre and white and red Urban Blends exclusively from vinifera grapes. “A lot of this job is trial and error,” Kerry Amigoni says. “Michael took classes at UC Davis, and we’ve traveled extensively to California and Italy, but nothing really prepares you for this unique challenge.”

Thriving in slow times

Three local businesses in diverse urban settings—dependent on well-heeled, technologically adept customers—are thriving in the current economic climate.

“We broke even last year,” TIMT’s Parsons says, “and we made a $25,000 donation to the University of Colorado Cancer Center. Production has grown every year, starting with 2,500 cases in 2008 to this year’s projected 6,000 cases. We’re expanding into canned wine, and by summer we’ll have an on-site kitchen for full restaurant service and a rooftop deck. Website version 2.0 is about to go live, and our wine club is gaining speed now that people can sign up online. We also do parties.”

The winery has also made a success of offering 3- and 5-gallon kegs to more than 400 local customers, including more than 100 bars and restaurants. “The juice stays good for three months,” Parsons says, “which means little wastage. We also don’t have to purchase bottles, so restaurants can keep the price south of $9 per glass.”

“There’s no substitute for having attractive products,” Knight says. “If you make good wine, you can welcome the public and just let them taste. We operate in a commercial district next to hand soap bottlers, temp-labor companies, kitchen designers, tailors and fire extinguisher rechargers. We may look a little rough, but if the wines satisfy, then people are willing to spend time here.”

Why Utah?

A posting on Kiler Grove’s website asks, and answers that predictable question: “Why establish an urban winery in Salt Lake valley of Utah? Sound like a demented scheme? Not so. We hope. We are doing just that. After years of attempting to work with San Luis Obispo County to get past the severe restrictions and other complications facing us, we took up the suggestion of a trusted Utah friend to do this in Utah….The community of South Salt Lake and the state liquor control agency have been amazingly accommodating in our effort to get established in Utah.”

WinesVinesDATA currently lists three other wineries in Utah, 6,000-case Castle Creek; 900-case Spanish Valley Vineyards & Winery, both in Moab and 1,700-case Hive Winery, Layton.

“For us, accessibility is the key,” Amigoni says, “as well as a strong, local marketing push. Being part of the city’s core has allowed our customers to come in whenever it’s convenient. We advertise along the highway and call on hotels across the city. Our most powerful tool is our monthly newsletter, but we also maintain an active social presence on Facebook and Twitter. We’ve been able to increase production 30% each year. Before 2010, all of our sales were in Kansas City, but we are now finally distributing to the rest of Missouri.”

Black Muscat and butchers

What does the future hold for these vinous urban pio neers? TIMT will release its first sparkling Black Muscat this July, and Parsons is teaming up with Justin Brunson of the Masterpiece Deli to create a salumeria and artisanal restaurant in the trendy Highlands neighborhood northwest of Denver. “We’re excited about our FDA-approved dry curing room and open butchering area, where you’ll be able to see skilled butchers break up whole animals.”

Kiler Grove is in the process of finalizing its 2009 blends, to be released shortly. Amigoni is working on private label projects for some of the city’s historic venues, as well as continuing to plant additional acres of varietals like Petit Verdot and Mourvèdre, based on customer demand.

“This isn’t rocket science,” Parsons says. “The best wines are made from perfect grapes, wherever they’re grown or processed.”

 [original article]

BY BRUCE SCHOENFELD
November 23, 2010

The main entrance of The Infinite Monkey Theorem winery overlooks a rutted alley in a semi-industrial area of downtown Denver. A maid service’s fleet cars are parked next door. Don’t strain too hard to see the vineyards; they’re more than 200 miles away.

What’s nearby instead is an entire metropolitan area, which means that if you’re on a working layover in Denver and have a free afternoon, you can visit a winery almost as easily as you’d stop into a Starbucks. Step into the Quonset hut that Australian-trained enologist Ben Parsons has filled with fermentation tanks and oak barrels and, instantly, you’re in wine country. He’ll take you through the vinification process, offer samples and sell you bottles (ranging from $15.98 to $49.98) if you’re inclined to buy. All that’s missing are the vines.

Most of Infinite Monkey Theorem’s wines are made from fruit that’s grown on the far side of the Rocky Mountains and trucked in after harvest. That’s a laborious process, but because Parsons is based in the heart of the city, he can cultivate relationships with the people most likely to buy–and sell–his wine. Sommeliers come in and help us bottle, he says. Some of the city’s best chefs have come by and seen what we do. They help rack the wines. They taste from the barrels. And when someone sees Infinite Monkey Theorem on the wine list and asks them about it, they can tell the story because they’ve been here.

You’ll find similar wineries (and even a few distilleries) across the country, some with restaurants, formal tasting rooms and even galleries attached, others mere storefronts with an open door and an enologist waiting to lead a tour. All are accessible for the business traveler with a few hours to kill before a flight or with downtime during a week on the road.

Denver

The Infinite Monkey Theorem. Ben Parsons’ winery makes Colorado’s best wines. An expanded facility that will include food, a rooftop bar with a mountain view and a larger retail area is coming in 2011.

What to do: Catch the party atmosphere of the First Friday Art Walk Wine Bar, which features free-flowing wine, catered deli food and a DJ punching up tunes once a month.

What to drink: Parsons’ all-Colorado Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot (both $29.98) are not only delicious, they also raise the bar for how good wines made from Colorado fruit can be. The Riesling ($19.98), made mostly from grapes shipped in from Oregon, has a touch of sweetness and tastes like ripe peaches. Open by appointment. 931 W. 5th Ave., Denver. (970) 260-0710.

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BY: JACOB HARKINS
ISSUE: SEPTEMBER 2010

Within minutes of our arrival at Table 6 on a warm summer evening, Aaron Forman, the restaurant’s general manager, is fawning over our table. A bottle of delightful sparkling wine is delivered, followed by plates of cheese, shaved meats, and chicken liver mousse. All of it is gratis. Forman is known for charming diners, but this kind of service is reserved for two of the stars of Denver’s food scene: Ben Parsons, owner of the Infinite Monkey Theorem winery, and Justin Brunson, owner of Masterpiece Delicatessen. But while Brunson is well-liked in the restaurant scene, Parsons—the magnetic British winemaker behind Denver’s hippest winery—is a red-hot commodity, the kind of guy who must be treated well just for the sake of business.

In the midst of the meal, Parsons chats with the sous chef, then heads off to tour Table 6’s new wine keg system (which operates like a draft beer system, but serves wine instead), the newest rage in chic restaurants. Parsons’ rosé, naturally, will go on tap at Table 6 in a few weeks. The table quickly downs the $80-plus in gifted wine and the food, so Parsons picks up the reserve wine list and rifles through the pages of rare, expensive bottles. The 34-year-old Englishman gives a spoken tour of fine wine in his singsongy Cockney accent, finally settling on a superb bottle of the 2005 Domini de la Cartoixa Clos Galena, a Spanish red that goes for $75. Forman glows. Quid pro quo.

“He spends money on people’s food, and he appreciates their food,” Forman tells me, despite the fact that Parsons was comped loads of goodies. “That stuff goes a long way in the business and in the industry.”

Table 6 is only the second course on our Thursday romp through Denver. An hour earlier, at Solera, a swanky eatery on East Colfax, Parsons’ crew tossed back a bottle of wine, a beer, a shot, and a cocktail. The tab was tiny. Later, a half-dozen drinks deep, Parsons gleefully dances into the Squeaky Bean, a haute, hip Highland restaurant, where a round of beers, a round of shots, and yet another round of beers seem to appear magically. The tab: $12. The staff just seems happy he doesn’t dance on the bar or shotgun any canned brews.

Drinking and glad-handing—er, marketing—are mainstays in Parsons’ life and key to his wild success. He started the Infinite Monkey Theorem in 2008, in the middle of the recession; after one year, he doubled his operation from 2,000 to 4,000 cases. Thanks to his unending onslaught on the city’s bars and restaurants, Parsons’ wine now appears on more than 125 Denver wine lists—a higher market penetration than any other Colorado wine, and even more appearances than many Californian or European selections. “I don’t necessarily think I have the best wine in the state,” Parsons says. “I think I have the best idea.”

His idea was simple, if unusual: an urban winery. With the help of silent partners, he bought an old Quonset hut and dropped it in the Santa Fe art district, a gritty area full of warehouses and galleries. It’s not exactly the idyllic setting that comes to mind when one thinks of a vineyard or château, but that’s the point: It’s a winery in the middle of the city, more in tune with posh restaurants than the Western Slope vintners.

Then, there’s the funky name; the “infinite monkey theorem” is the concept that a monkey, given an infinite amount of time, would eventually—and entirely randomly—type the complete works of Shakespeare. Parsons picked it, in part, to stand out from the rest of the Colorado wine industry, which is heavy on geological names such as Two Rivers Winery and BookCliff Vineyards. “[Colorado] is not a traditional wine-growing region,” Parsons says. “It’s a fledgling frontier region. So do I necessarily think the same shit that worked in Napa or France is going to work here? Of course not.”

Savvy marketing isn’t unheard of in the wine biz (see: Yellow Tail), but that shouldn’t obscure the fact that IMT wine is actually good: Take the 2008 Malbec, a bold red featuring dense blackberries and spices, or the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, an earthy and herbal Bordeaux-style white with respectable body. It’s some of the very best wine to come from the dry, temperate climate of Colorado, good enough that it doesn’t even warrant the traditional Colorado wine asterisk. (As in: “This wine is good—for Colorado.”) In IMT’s short tenure, the winery’s been featured in Sunset, Cooking Light, the Wall Street Journal, Wine Enthusiast, and this magazine. The 2008 vintage—Parsons’ very first batch—was reviewed favorably by the wine-drinker’s bible, Wine Spectator; IMT’s Syrah earned an 87, a tie for the highest mark ever bestowed on a local wine. (Any score over 85 is considered a very good wine.) “They are clean, varietally correct, polished,” James Molesworth, a senior editor of Wine Spectator, says of Parsons’ wines. “He’s obviously a very competent winemaker.”

Parsons paid his dues by working the vines in New Zealand and earning an oenology degree from the esteemed University of Adelaide in Australia. When he returned to London, he saw an ad for an open winemaking job at Canyon Wind Cellars in Palisade, Colorado. He packed up and arrived in the small agricultural town in 2001, a 25-year-old Brit with panache and a palate. His winemaking skills were unparalleled, and he soon was working as a full-time winemaker and consultant.

After Canyon Wind, he worked at Sut-cliffe Vineyards in Cortez, where he started producing bold Syrahs and crisp Chardonnays. He gave owner John Sutcliffe—himself a feisty Englishman—assistance breaking into the Denver market. But in 2008, Parsons abruptly quit—or was fired, depending on who tells the story. Both sides accuse the other of dishonesty and unscrupulous business practices, and neither man has spoken to the other since the split. “Ben was so awful to everybody in the Colorado wine industry,” Sutcliffe says. “Being charismatic, a great winemaker, creative—all of which Ben is in spades—he then throws that in your face.”

It’s a well-worn story on the Western Slope. At various times, Parsons consulted for countless wineries, including Mesa Grande Vineyards, Jack Rabbit Hill, Black Bridge Winery, and Augustina’s Winery. Few ended well. His day-to-day job at Canyon Wind ended on a sour note. He was also permanently 86’d from Le Rouge, a Grand Junction brasserie owned by John Barbier of Maison la Belle Vie Vineyards. Parsons, for his part, admits nothing more than a little immaturity. “I was 25 when I moved from London to Grand Junction,” he says. “There is a big difference between the two places, and I probably abused my position at Canyon Wind to a certain extent, like showing up hungover and stuff.”

Today, Parsons’ isolation from the industry continues. He refuses to have Infinite Monkey Theorem listed on the Colorado Wine Board’s website on the premise that it does him little good to be lumped in with the rest of the state’s wine. “Why did I start my winery?” he asks. “Because I don’t think there’s any competition.” He adds: “It’s tough to be a champ of the [Colorado] wine industry. The wine is pretty innocuous, the story is boring, it is poorly marketed. It’s so old. It’s stale and stagnant.”

“He has promoted his wine at the expense of other [winemakers],” says Doug Caskey, the executive director of the Colorado Wine Board. “He’s not afraid to express his attitude.” Yet Parsons’ skills as a winemaker are unquestioned by virtually all who have worked with him. Winemaking is both science and art, and Parsons is the rare vintner who knows what to do in the lab and with the canvas. “My vineyard is better for having Ben Parsons,” Sutcliffe says. “Canyon Wind is better for having Ben Parsons.” Sutcliffe’s putting on a good face, but his words are genuine.

On a chilly spring day, Parsons leads a Quonset hut tour for three attractive couples in their 30s. They’ve spent the last few hours watching Parsons scale the racks of barrels, stacked a half-dozen high, to pull samples for this private tour and barrel tasting. There’s no fancy tasting room, just cement floors with drainage holes that pull double duty as spit buckets.

The girls flirt with the winemaker as their boyfriends stand by, admiring him. Parsons has charmed them all during the $50 per person tour; they will all tote a case or two home. “I think people pick up on my enthusiasm,” Parsons says. “They know that it’s a passion, and they see that I am genuine in my love of what I am doing. It’s contagious.”

Parsons is hoping his passion will continue to spread. He just released his 100th Monkey—a red blend of Petit Verdot, Syrah, Malbec, and Petite Sirah. At $50, it will be his most expensive offering, out of reach for just about everyone except hard-core wine-lovers or folks splurging for a special occasion. He’s planning to open a restaurant called Lechón—which means suckling pig in Spanish—next year with Brunson, his good friend. It’ll be just up the street from Masterpiece; Brunson will handle the pork- and seafood-heavy menu, while Parsons will tackle the beverages. Parsons is also starting to turn his gritty winery space into an East London–style, chic wine bar; the renovation of the patio started this past spring, and by early 2011, the roof of the office building could be popped to make room for a restaurant and indoor bar.

Unraveling his blueprints, Parsons is nothing short of giddy. He’s left the Western Slope in his wake, turning a Quonset hut into a brand known outside of the state; soon, he will have two of his own restaurants. He can already hear the music in the background, the cackle of neighborhood regulars stopping in for a small plate and a bottle, and the corks being popped during Denver’s best wine party.

[original article]