Palmer Lake winery gains following for wine made from lemons, not grapes
PALMER LAKE • Forget what you might think about wineries. Or wine. Or winery tours.
Evergood Adventure Wines offers weekend tours and tastings at its headquarters, 613 County Line Road Unit L, Palmer Lake. To purchase a ticket, visit groupon.com/deals/evergood-elixirs-1. For more info about the winery, visit evergoodadventurewines.com.
Visitors to Evergood Adventure Wines might not know what to think when arriving at the tan-colored warehouse off a county road in this small Colorado town. There are no rolling fields or rows of plants or sunny California skies.
Couples line up for a taste of a strawberry lemon wine poured by owner Melanie Hexter during a tour at Evergood Adventure Wines in Palmer Lake.
There is a paved parking lot where a few cars park each weekend as curious Coloradans, and those from elsewhere, investigate. There are a dozen folding chairs on cement. There are four pitchers full of colorful liquid lined up on a counter. There are some big bins and a canning machine and boxes holding hundreds of cans, adding up to the bare-bones kind of sight reminiscent of brewery operations.
The Haxters officially started sharing their Evergood Adventure wines in June 2018. “The worldwide definition of wine is fermented fruit juice,” Melanie said during a tour July 23.
And there is Melanie Hexter, greeting everyone with a kind smile and voice that’s likely custom for a Midwest woman, wife and mother of six.
Holding a microphone, Hexter stands in front of the small audience and starts the story as if she’s giving a house tour.
“What’s the first thing you think of when you think of wine?” she says.
Lewis Saiz takes a sip of wine made from lemons during a tour at Evergood Adventure Wines on Saturday, July 23, 2022. The entire process to make a wine likened to “adult lemonade” takes around three and a half weeks.
It’s the first element of this hourlong tour she seems to have memorized, because she remembers the whole story. That’s because it’s her family’s story.
“It wasn’t alcohol he [her husband] was hooked on, it was the process: coffee, beer, then wine,” explained Melanie Haxter during a tour at Evergood Adventure Wines on Saturday, July 23, 2022.
Hexter remembers she has to start from the beginning.
“We are businesspeople who got into the wine business,” she says a few times over the course of the tour.
They are also people, both with busy family and career lives, who followed an unexpected curiosity.
Hexter talks about her husband, Matthew, starting a coffee club, then getting into craft beer and realizing he enjoyed the simple process of making. Around a group of friends, the idea of “adult lemonade” came about.
A couple sits and listens — between sips of wine made from lemons — to owner Melanie Haxter during a tour at the Evergood Adventure Wines warehouse on Saturday, July 23, 2022.
This is where Hexter goes further into her myth busting. She explains how this isn’t your regular wine. It’s right there in the tagline for Evergood Adventure Wines: “wine made from lemons, not grapes.”
The wine is also non-carbonated, gluten-free, vegan, low in sugar and low in sulfites.
After making this kind of wine at home, the family hobby got official in 2018. Evergood wines, which “celebrate shared adventure,” can be found in hundreds of stores around Colorado.
They moved into the warehouse in Palmer Lake, which is for operational purposes and not open for retail, in 2020. And every weekend, they share the journey with whoever walks in the door.
“It is our hope you enjoy our wines with good friends and healthy families,” Matthew Hexter says on their website. “Those who truly know and support the real you, as you together celebrate shared adventure.”
Melanie Hexter, who runs the business with her husband, Matthew, speaks during a tasting tour at Evergood Adventure Wines in Palmer Lake.
Brianna Merritt tastes “Skier Pee,” one of the flagship lemon wines made by Melanie and Matthew Haxter of Evergood Adventure Wines, on a winery tour in Palmer Lake in July.
