By: Jacob Laxen, jlaxen@coloradoan.com | The Coloradoan
It’s a good thing the original deed at 624 Main Street in Windsor doesn’t have any jurisdiction.
The framed 1894 document prohibiting the sale or manufacturing of any intoxicating liquors hangs in the tasting room at the new Forgotten Roots Winery. The establishment debuted March 5 and its tasting room is open Wednesdays through Sundays.
“This has been a dream come true,” said Ryan Carroll, who co-founded the winery with his wife Sarah. “Everything has been a blur so far. It’s all happened so fast.”
The former house has been renovated to accommodate the winery. The location was previously a real estate office.
The winery is adding a parking lot and converted the building’s upstairs master bedroom into a special event room. Forgotten Roots also plans to have a patio with old wine barrels serving as tables.
Forgotten Roots is currently serving other Colorado-made wines, sangrias, meads and ciders.
The winery has its own strawberry and plum wines fermenting with plans to also make wines from beets, berries, cactus fruit and other fruits and vegetables. Forgotten Roots uses Colorado-grown ingredients whenever possible, even using 50 pounds of plums foraged from a Poudre Canyon valley in its current batch.
The winery also plans to grow some of its own ingredients on site.
“The idea is make wines that were prevalent in the 1800s when this building was first built,” said Ryan, who has been making his own wines for about a decade.
“You have to put yourself in the shoes of someone living back then. We didn’t have a lot of grapes coming through here but people still wanted to enjoy alcoholic drinks. So they made it with what they could.”
And while Forgotten Roots plans to be inspired by the 1800s, they won’t be abiding by the 1894 building’s original deed.