What You'll Get

Hands-on Education - Learn the key elements of world-class winemaking in a unique hands-on learning environment. Work alongside Blake, Tracy and the Settembre team as you experience (and taste!) the fundamentals: punch down, press, barrel top, and bottling. 

Making and Tasting - Develop your tastes as you explore the individual stages of winemaking. With each learning stage, you'll enjoy a bottle to take home with you, as well as a bottle of the wine you helped produce when it's ready, 18-24 months after. 

Description - During fermentation of red-wines carbon dioxide bubbles carry skins and seeds to the top of the fermentation tank. Our traditional techniques call for this "cap" to be be manually pushed back down into the fermenting juice in order to extract color and phenolics, and to manage tank temperature. Climb the ladder, use your upper body, experience the aromas, and taste the fermenting juice.

Punch-down happens yearly during the fall, 3x a day, for about a week on each red wine. The window of opportunity is about 3 weeks during late September/ early October. You will also be invited to our volunteer "crush crew" events on days that grapes arrive, a nice lead-up to the punch-down experience.

Cost - $100 per person. Limited to 3 people per session. All participants must be 21 years of age or older. 

Bring home a bottle now (current release, same varietal if available) and a bottle later (you'll receive a certificate for a bottle of the wine you actually worked on, typically ready 18-24 months after punch down). 

We require a $25 deposit to book your experience. The next step is easy: we'll contact you within 24 hours of receiving your deposit to get started. 

Thank you for choosing Soulcrafting!

Description - During press we separate wine from skins and seeds (in the case of red wines) or juice from skins and seeds (in the case of white wines.) Work alongside our winemaker Blake Eliasson for this critical wine-making operation. Grape "must" is transferred to the stainless steel bladder press, wine (or juice) pressed off, the press emptied, and repeat. Taste the wine in this very early process, compare free run juice to hard press. Press typically takes 4-10 hours, you are free to join for part, or all, of the day.

Cost - $100 per person. All participants must be 21 years of age or older. 

This experience is available as a one-to-one learning alongside chief winemaker Blake Eliasson, and is limited to 1 person per session. 

Bring home a bottle now (current release, same varietal if available) and a bottle later (you'll receive a certificate for a bottle of the wine you actually worked on, typically ready 9-20 months after press). 

We require a $25 deposit to book your experience. The next step is easy: we'll contact you within 24 hours of receiving your deposit to get started. 

Thank you for choosing Soulcrafting!

Description - Wine, stored in barrels, evaporates slowly over time. In order to minimize oxygen exposure during the elevage, and produce exquisite Colorado Wine, our winemaker Blake Eliasson tops each barrel with extra wine (from the same varietal and vintage) once every 2 weeks. Each barrel needs about 375 ml (1/2 bottle) of wine added every 2 weeks. Join Blake in topping, and tasting several barrels. This experience affords you the chance to taste wines as they develop, and a chance to taste the same wine with and without the influence of French Oak. 

Cost - $150 per person. Limited to 4 people per session. All participants must be 21 years of age or older. 

Bring home a bottle now (current release, same varietal if available) and a bottle later (you'll receive a certificate for a bottle for your choice of the wines that you tasted, typically ready 15-21 months after punch down). 

We require a $25 deposit to book your experience. The next step is easy: we'll contact you within 24 hours of receiving your deposit to get started.

Thank you for choosing Soulcrafting!

Description - The final winemaking step, ahead of bottle aging, is bottling. During this experience you will learn from Blake about our bottling process and the details that we mind in order to move wine to bottle with minimal impact to final quality. Details such as filling technique (we use a vacuum filler), inert gas, and cork selection can be discussed while we fill bottles, pull corks, stack cases, and mark the final step in the crafting of another vintage. 

Cost - $100 per person. Limited to 3 people per session. All participants must be 21 years of age or older. 

Bring home a bottle now (current release, same varietal if available) and a bottle later (you'll receive a certificate for a bottle of the wine you actually worked on, typically ready 18-24 months after punch down). 

We require a $25 deposit to book your experience. The next step is easy: we'll contact you within 24 hours of receiving your deposit to get started. 

Thank you for choosing Soulcrafting!

Settembre Cellars was founded in 2007 by winemaker Blake Eliasson. Since 2007 Blake has made the move from full-time engineer to full-time winemaker, added a Graduate Certificate in Enology & Viticulture from UC Davis to his PhD in Electrical Engineering, and immersed himself into life as a winery owner. Blake finds winemaking to be a perfect mix of science and nature and has developed a winemaking style that employs his background in measurement science.

Tracy Eliasson also has a background in engineering with degrees in both Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and works full time in that field. With a passion for image processing Tracy has fun with winery graphic design and also lends a hand with crush, bottling, labeling, and of course, barrel tastings.