These Utahns are reviving the century-old LDS tradition of…winemaking?

St. George • If the wineries that have cropped up recently in southwestern Utah have a familiar ring, it is because they echo the region’s pioneer past when vineyards and grape growing were ubiquitous and wine fueled profits.

The Dixie Wine Mission was created in 1861 when pioneer-prophet Brigham Young sent 30 Swiss families skilled at winemaking to the region. It supplied the then-Utah Territory with sacrament wine while growers sold the rest to non-Latter-day Saints to buy goods they were unable to produce themselves.

Where other ventures in the area failed, the grape-growing business took off. By 1870, there were about a half-dozen outfits in St. George producing up to 2,500 gallons per year, according to “Dixie Wine,” a thesis Dennis R. Lancaster published in 1972.

The death knell for the lucrative mission sounded in the late 1800s when the Silver Reef Mine closed and hard-drinking miners lost their jobs. The final nail in the coffin came when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supplanted the sacrament wine with water, and the industry withered on the vine.

More than a century later, a hardy group of entrepreneurs is resurrecting the wine industry and restoring it to its fruitful place in the Greater Zion area economy. Thanks to their efforts, a small but steadily growing wine industry is rising Phoenix-like from the ashes.

The Utah Wine Trail

The Utah Wine Trail launched in 2021 with a simple mission: to promote wine tourism and educate folks on all that goes into winemaking along the way. Visitors are bestowed with a dizzying array of wine and bequeathed with a trail pass that gets punched at each winery and entitles them to a complimentary gift for visiting all six locations.

Besides a religious fervor for growing and fermenting grapes, launching a winery, the winemakers attest, requires a good deal of faith — both in themselves and that visitors will turn up. It turns out that Zion National Park and zinfandels, copper sunsets and orange muscats, red rock canyons and cabernet sauvignons, and golf and grenache all make for perfect pairings.

Who knew?

Increasingly, many tourists and locals do, which explains the trickle-turned torrent of them who now patronize the half-dozen wineries that make up the revived wine trail.

While it may not carry the reputation that Napa Valley and other famous wine regions boast, vintners on the trail say southern Utah is a great place to grow grapes and produce wine.

“This is the cherry spot in Utah for grapes,” said Michael Jackson, founder of Zion Vineyards in Leeds.

Southern Utah, according to the Utah Wine Trail website, shares the same latitude as California’s central coast, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece — places renowned for producing some of the world’s great wines.

“What makes our wines unique in this latitude is that our vineyards sit at an average of 4500’ above sea level, some of the highest vineyards on the 37th parallel,” the website says. “This brings warm days and cool nights that, when combined with our volcanic soils, make this a special place to grow great wines.”

Like most winery owners on the trail, Jackson’s foray into growing and fermenting grapes happened organically. A conceptual artist who traveled the world designing art for large casinos, theme parks and hotels, he put down roots in the small town of Leeds in 2012 after visiting a former client who had retired there.

“I loved the place,” Jackson said. “You could drop your camera on the ground and take a good picture. It is so painterly here.”

Later that year, the artist — a wine aficionado who often frequented wineries during his travels — was drawn to the business when he met a Leeds man who was making his own wine. After helping the grower with pruning, harvesting and processing chores to learn about the craft, Jackson started a small vineyard at his home.

In 2015, he leased the land where Zion Vineyards has taken root and ended up buying the 26 acres along Hidden Valley Road several months ago.

Many of the 13 wine varietals he and his team produce have taken top honors at regional competitions, including three silver medals in the prestigious San Francisco International Wine Competition in January.

White wine and red rocks

It’s not just the wine that’s making the region stand out. Visitors also savor the beauty of the vineyards and the ambience of the wineries. Jackson said the connoisseurs who crowd his tasting room are mellow and enjoy sipping wine while drinking in the scenery.

“Just walking into a vineyard is sort of spiritual,” he said. “There is nothing like it. Drinking a glass of wine and looking out over the country is like a back scratch.”

A 20-minute drive to the west of Zion Vineyard, another winery emerges in the scenic high desert just off State Route 18. Bold & Delaney Winery sits amid dormant volcanoes in picturesque Dammeron Valley just outside of St. George — an ambience its owners say is hard to beat.

“Wine will never taste as good as when you drink it in a vineyard,” co-owner John Delaney said. “It has to do with the aura of being in a vineyard, the relaxed feeling you get sitting next to the vines, especially this time of year, looking out the window at the people picking grapes.”

Delaney, a certified sommelier, co-owns the winery with friend Mark Bold. Bold, who knows the lay of the land so well he could navigate it with his eyes closed, said what sets their wine apart is the vineyard’s soil, which he says is quaternary sediment and glacial residue — an excellent combination for agriculture.

Bold and Delaney first met at the Painted Pony, a St. George restaurant Bold often frequented and where Delaney was a wine steward. Eventually, he learned that the Bolds had grapevines, in southern Utah of all places.

“So I came up to see it and they just couldn’t get rid of me,” he recalled.

Despite the area’s virtues, Bold said he had some qualms about getting into the grape-growing business when he purchased the land in 2013.

“I intentionally bought the property off the highway because I didn’t want anybody watching my foolish experiment fail,” he quipped.

He needn’t have worried. Tourists drop in after learning about the winery on Google. Locals living in the Ledges, Sun River, Kayenta and other St. George-area hot spots also flock to the winery’s tasting room to buy a bottle and enjoy charcuterie alongside the wines that Bold and Delaney say hold up and stand out with the region’s best.

The unconventional route

Shane and Kalie Tooke were novices when they bought a vineyard on the two acres where they later opened the Water Canyon Winery in 2021. Fortunately, the previous owner, along with some trial and error, schooled them in the winemaking art.

Now seasoned in the craft, the couple is educating visitors to their Hildale winery on the virtues of their natural wines, which are free of sulfites, enzymes and preservatives. Shane Tooke prefers his natural vintages to conventional wines, which he said give him heartburn and headaches.

“By not adding anything to our wines, we let the fruit with its sugars and acids get as balanced as possible. We also use native wild yeast ambient in the environment for fermentation,” he said. “The result is that we have this beautiful, live product that is fresh and clean.”

They supplement their homegrown grapes with premium fruit they buy from California and Washington, enabling them to produce 15 different wines. All their wine is stored in stainless steel tanks as opposed to the more traditional oak barrels.

On some wines, they use carbonic maceration — placing uncrushed grapes in sealed, oxygen-free, carbon-dioxide-rich vessels that allow fermentation inside the grape skins, Shane said. The process produces light-colored wines that are low in acidity and tannins and easy to drink.

“I’m going to put a quality product in every bottle,” Shane said. “I’m not going to serve something that is not up to par. It might not be your style of wine, but it is not going to be unacceptable wine.”

Since their wines have no preservatives, Kalie said they must be consumed within 24 hours after a bottle is opened.

For the Tookes, wine is about family. Their picturesque property includes the Winery Café and a large pavilion for weddings and other events. Indy, a trained chef and the Tookes’ son, owns the cafe while his twin sister, Emma, runs the outdoor events as well as the winery’s Springdale location just outside Zion National Park.

As individual as each winery on the trail is, the owners — who are all friends and often consult with each other — say they all share a passion to make the best wine possible and grow the industry. To that end, Bold is trying to get the federal government to declare the region as the Greater Zion American Viticultural Area.

That would put southern Utah’s wineries on the same — albeit smaller — footing as areas such as California’s Napa and Sonoma valleys or Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The growers also recently formed the Utah Viticulture Association and are working with Utah State University to establish common standards and provide growers with the knowledge they need to be successful.

Brittany McMichael, director of the Greater Zion Convention & Tourism Office, hails the wineries as a welcome addition to Washington County.

“Grape growing and winemaking is still a new and growing industry in Utah, but one that’s important, both to tourism and the state’s agricultural heritage,” she said. “We also have a growing food scene in cities like Springdale and elsewhere with a number of outstanding restaurants. It’s a great asset to our communities to have Utah wine to complement our local cuisine.”

Jackson, the owner of Zion Vineyard, said the sky is truly the limit.

“If you relate southern Utah’s wineries in this area to an airplane, we are rolling down the runway but still haven’t left the ground,” he said. “But once we reach the right speed, this industry is going to lift off.”

To make that happen, the winemakers say they must make their potions as perfect as possible. Anything less could be, well, sour grapes.