Vineyards at La Caille (Photo courtesy La Caille) I believed that Utah could produce excellent wines that didn’t have to apologize to anyone for what they were.” Thus, IG Winery just stopped trying to sell through the state. We tried to play that game, but it wasn’t what I wanted to achieve. “They had to be able to make money while selling to the state,” says McCombs, “But that reinforced the idea that Utah wines were cheap and low quality. And some wineries felt they had to produce cheaper wines to make selling in liquor stores an economically viable option.

“Distributors were the only ones making real money, in this case that’s the State,” says McCombs. At 88%, the Utah DABC markup is higher than any other state. In addition to the cost and care of producing quality wine, by the time a bottle reaches liquor store shelves, the price markup is considerable-some might say unpalatable. And just about the only place you can get a bottle of IG Wine is at its winery. La Caille sells most of their wine, about 70%, through the restaurant, even as they’ve expanded to allow for on-site bottle purchases directly from the winery. “The best quality we can find, we get,” Marron says simply.ĭespite the demand, you likely won’t see La Caille’s wines or IG Winery’s Utah Cabernet Sauvignon in Utah’s liquor stores. Of all of the grapes he samples for his wines, he estimates he only ends up ordering 5% that pass muster to use in his wine. Marron is likewise fastidious and particular about his wine, regardless of where the grapes are from. Grapes from their vineyard make the Enchanté Estate Seyval Blanc (Utah Wine Festival 2021 Gold Medal Winner) and the Estate Rosé, a blend of the Seyval Blanc and Dornfelder grapes. Likewise, La Caille makes wine both from grapes grown in their own vineyard and grapes sourced elsewhere (most of their wines retail $45-$75). “We don’t sell any of it for less than $60 a bottle, and it flies off the shelves.” “It’s highly unusual to be able to get that kind of money for your wine,” says McCombs. “We have to make a unique blend for Utah, regardless of where the grapes come from.” IG Winery does manage to sell a wine that is made from 100% Utah grapes-McCombs’ Utah Cabernet Sauvignon retails for $100 per bottle. Without enough local grapes, winemakers need to look elsewhere to supplement their stock, which raises the question: can you call it a Utah wine if all of the grapes in the bottle aren’t grown here? “As long as it’s produced and bottled here in Utah, it’s a Utah wine,” says McCombs.

“We’re farmers at heart,” says La Caille winemaker Mike Marron, and as proud as he is of their own grapes, you can only get so much of them from three acres of vines. Chateau La Caille (9565 Wasatch Blvd., Sandy, 80) has a vineyard at the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Selling wine in Utah is a little tricky, thanks to legal restrictions and growing pains aren’t limited to the wineries in southern Utah. Just like grapevines, these things take time, and Utah wineries are literally having to do it from the ground up and often in the face of bureaucratic resistance. Utah’s wine industry is growing, but it doesn’t have the existing infrastructure or support from the state that they need to grow at the speed they would like. New vineyards would help, but, “when you plant vine, it takes at least five years before you get fruit,” McCombs says. Some of them have vineyards…but if you slice that six ways, there’s not a lot of grapes to go around,” says McCombs. “There are six wineries in southern Utah. That doesn’t mean Utah vintners don’t have their growing pains. Wines from IG Winery (Courtesy IG Winery)

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