When you consider the places that are associated with drinking wine, Colorado typically doesn’t rank toward the top of the list.  Despite this, there are actually over 100 producers in Colorado making wine, along with two AVAs, West Elks and Grand Valley.  One of these producers is the urban winery, The Infinite Monkey Theorem.

Founded in 2008 by Ben Parsons, The Infinite Monkey Theorem winery boosts an output of over 50,000 cases a year, and the founder Ben Parsons has been featured as one of the Top 40 Under 40 by Wine Enthusiast.  The winery has been a wine pioneer in both kegging and canning wine.   While cans and kegs may not be the norm, they do offer some distinct advantages over glass.

To start, both are more environmentally friendly, requiring less energy and cost.  Kegging also prolongs the life of the wine once opened, meaning that instead of having a few days before oxidation ruins the wine, you can keep it for 60-90.  Meanwhile cans offer portability, allowing you to take wine to places where it would ordinarily be difficult.  Skiing anyone?

Canning has limits though. Even though it’s BPA free (to avoid the aluminum taste) and keeps costs down, it’s not for complex wines.  Hence why The Infinite Monkey Theorem still employs glass bottles for wines like it’s Riesling and Petit Verdot. For example, the Riesling utilizes the micro climates of the western slopes, and that’s a great way to show off the Colorado grapes utilized in the wine.

While The Infinite Monkey Theorem Winery does source a lot of it’s wine from Colorado, it doesn’t strictly use grapes from Colorado.  This is due to the climate of Colorado, which can be a bit short for grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon (the growing season is about 50 days short).  Therefore, in order to meet demands, they do source some of the wine from Colorado.

That said, while you can find some of The Infinite Monkey Theorem’s canned wines in Target and Whole Foods, it’s worth going out of your way to visit the winery.  Not only are samples given of several of their wines, but the staff are delightful, and the environment is hip and fun.  They also have plenty of knowledge about the process, which is awesome for wine geeks [Like did you know that the red stains in the middle of a barrel are caused by overflow?].

Tours cost $25.  You can find out more at The Infinite Monkey Theorem’s website!