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About Palisade
About Palisade
Palisade is Colorado's leading wine country, a farm town of about 3,000 people where the high desert climate and mineral-rich soils grow good grapes and better stone fruit. Agriculture runs the place. The tasting rooms, markets, and restaurants grew up around that heritage rather than the other way around.
The town sits along the Colorado River with the Grand Mesa and the Book Cliffs filling in the horizon. More than 20 wineries and tasting rooms operate here, each pouring varietals that come off the local terroir. The annual Colorado Mountain Winefest brings in thousands of visitors for the wine culture and everything else the farms produce.
Grapes are only part of it. Palisade peaches are known well outside Colorado, and cherries and other stone fruits do just as well in the microclimate here. Farmers markets and farm-to-table restaurants carry the range of it through the season, and the annual Palisade Peach Festival is built around the town's most famous crop.
There is more to do than eat and drink. Trail systems around town cover hiking and mountain biking, and the Colorado River handles fishing and kayaking. Colorado National Monument is a short drive for the red rock formations and its hiking trails, and the Grand Mesa gets you up to alpine lakes and high country.
Palisade has committed to sustainable agriculture and to preserving the land it farms, which is the reason the orchards and vineyards are still in the ground. Its growing reputation as a culinary destination has followed from that, and it draws food-minded visitors from across the region.
- Population
- 3,000
- Elevation
- 4,700 ft
- Best time
- Spring & Fall
- Known for
- Wine Country
What is Palisade known for?
Palisade is Colorado's wine country, plain and simple. The high desert climate and the soils here grow good grapes and even better stone fruit, which is why the town's name is on so many peach crates. It's a small farming town that happens to have a lot of tasting rooms.
When should I visit Palisade?
Spring and fall are the most comfortable for getting around outside. Summer is the time for tasting wine and picking fruit when everything's coming ripe. Come fall you've got the harvest and the leaves turning, which is a lot of people's favorite stretch on the Slope.
How many wineries are in Palisade?
There are more than 20 wineries and tasting rooms around Palisade, and they pour wines that taste like this particular ground and climate. The Colorado Mountain Winefest each fall pulls in thousands of people and is the easiest way to sample a wide range in one go. Plenty of the rooms are close enough to hit a few in an afternoon.
What can I do outdoors near Palisade?
Beyond the orchards and vineyards, you're a short drive from Colorado National Monument and the Grand Mesa, so hiking and biking are close at hand. The Colorado River runs through, which opens up fishing and paddling. It's an easy place to mix a day outside with a stop at a tasting room.
Are the Palisade peaches really that good?
They are, and the locals don't say that lightly. Palisade peaches show up at farmers markets and on restaurant menus all over the Western Slope when they're in season. The Palisade Peach Festival celebrates the harvest, and cherries and other stone fruit come off the same orchards earlier in the year.
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