N.M Wine Industry Undergoes Amazing Growth
Published Mar 28, 2008
Keith and Barbara Johnstone own Corrales Winery in Corrales, just north of Albuquerque.
Two monks brought the first grapevines to what is now New Mexico in 1629, well more than a century before California vines were planted.
That history is a source of pride for a new generation of winemakers in New Mexico who are part of a renaissance in an industry that weather and floods had all but eradicated in the early 1900s.
Central New Mexico is a big part of the picture and home to about a dozen vineyards, from Gruet, a sparkling wine powerhouse in Albuquerque with its start in the Champagne region in France, to small boutique producers such as Milagro Vineyards in Corrales.
Corrales also is home to Corrales Winery, a husband-wife partnership that produces 1,000 cases a year.
Like most of the vineyards in Central New Mexico, Corrales grows its own white grapes, but buys red grapes from colleagues in the southern part of the state, where altitudes are lower and temperatures are kinder to them.
“We are pretty far south but the altitude (over 5,000 feet) means we get a full change of seasons and palm trees don’t grow here,” says proprietor Keith Johnstone. “It gets cold enough that red grapes freeze in the winter.”
Johnstone, a materials engineer, was nearing retirement from nearby Sandia National Laboratories and wanted to make sure he had a project that provided a mental challenge. Growing grapes and producing wine has given Johnstone and wife Barbara that and more.
Corrales Winery doesn’t distribute but still sells out of everything it bottles, keeping a call list of more than 1,000 customers who want to know when a release is ready. The Johnstones don’t e-mail, they actually pick up the phone and call, having learned that their customers value the human interaction.
“We never have a wine as long as a year,” Johnstone says.
The winery may grow up to 2,000 cases a year but not beyond; any bigger and Johnstone figures he and Barbara couldn’t handle it alone.
“That is as big as we’ll ever get,” he says. “Gallo is not afraid of us.”
Casa Rondena Winery wants to double its production, too, from about 5,500 cases annually to 10,000. The vineyard, nestled in a valley just north of Albuquerque, bottled 210 cases in 1998, the year of its first commercial release.
“We have been growing at a rather phenomenal rate since the winery was founded,” says Howard Fox, Casa Rondena’s sales manager.
Casa Rondena also buys red grapes and grows white, specializing in Riesling and Gewürztraminer grapes. Serenade, a popular house blend, combines the grapes in a three-to-one ratio. Its signature wine, Meritage Red, an award-winning Bordeaux blend, took home Best Red and the Gold Medal from the 2007 Taste of Taos Southwest Wine Competition.
The New Mexico Wine Growers Association now has nearly 30 member vineyards. Another sign of the industry’s resurgence came two years ago when New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension Service hired its first viticulture specialist, Bernd Maier.
New Mexico wineries produce more than 350,000 gallons a year, tiny by California’s more than 450 million gallons, but a sure sign the industry is taking root.
Story by Pamela Coyle
Photo by Brian McCord
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