By Deb Risden
Latigo Winery in Black Forest recently won The Gazette’s 2025 Best of the Springs bronze award after being open less than a year — and five years after they sold their first bottle of wine. Ben and Lisa Nelson opened the tasting room in June 2024.
In the years leading up to the opening, they focused on selling to local breweries, restaurants and at wine festivals.
Lisa Nelson said she and her husband have had long careers in the food and beverage industry. Ben Nelson, who is also a chef, began dabbling in making beer at home, eventually transitioning into becoming a lead brewer at a local brewery. Lisa Nelson, a wine lover, started buying him wine kits to try at home. She said he quickly transitioned from wine kits to crushing and pressing his own grapes for wine-making. “He started giving it to friends and everyone said it was delicious,” Nelson said. She said he started supplying wine to the brewery where he was the brewmaster.
The couple attended their first wine festival in Palmer Lake in 2023. “We had a really great response and that gave us the confidence to say OK, maybe we should do this on a larger scale,” Nelson said.
When Mountain View Café moved out of their space on Black Forest Road in early 2024, the Nelsons moved in, eventually opening a wine tasting space in June 2024. Until then, Nelson said they had been working on growing their inventory.
Latigo sources their grapes from Palisade, Colorado. “We partner with a couple of vineyards and transport grapes to our production facility in the Forest,” Nelson said. The Nelsons converted their barn to a production facility. She said when they started in 2022, they purchased about three tons of grapes. Nelson said one ton of grapes produces about 50 cases of wine.
They are projecting to produce about 350 cases this year and 800 cases in 2026. “Building up inventory is not quick,” Nelson said. She said white wines come from grapes from mid-September to early October and it takes about eight months to bottle and release. Red wines take a minimum of 12 months in oak before they are bottled and allowed to age for a couple of months.
The winery produces several varieties and anticipates expanding. Their regular white wines are chardonnay, a semi-sweet riesling and a semi-sweet gewürztraminer. Nelson said they have some regular reds, including cabernet sauvignon. She describes chambourcin as a hearty grape that grows well in Colorado high altitudes and short growing season.
They have a few blends, depending on what is available at harvest time.
Wrangler is a blend of chambourcin and syrah. Bella’s Blend is a white that combines
gewurztraminer, traminette and riesling, named in honor of the family dog who passed
away two years ago. Their newest red blend is called Rough Rider, a combination of
primativo, malbec and syrah. Bodacious Blush is their rose.
Ben Nelson is working on creating more variety with some new reds to come — 100% malbec and a cabernet franc.
The winery offers build-your-own wine flights and they serve sangria, wine slushies, mead from a local meadery and a Colorado cider; local food trucks are often on-site offering a variety of cuisines.
Latigo Winery offers a Pikes Peak Crush Club, a subscription package, as well as frequent activities such as craft workshops and Painting with a Twist. They also have live music in the summer. A list of their scheduled activities, food trucks and festivals they attend are on their website: https://latigowinery.com.
Latigo Winery is located at 11425 Black Forest Road.
Latigo Winery customers can enjoy plenty of outside seating in the picturesque Black Forest.
