Boulder Couple Makes Wine Hobby Into Profession Reporting

 A Boulder couple has turned a hobby into a profession. They make wine using every inch of their home.

It looks like a typical Boulder house, but inside Tracy and Blake Eliassons' home the cork floors throughout are the first giveaway one has stepped into a full blown winery.

"This is my little wine lab. We tried to do everything in a very traditional fashion," Blake said.

The house oddly enough is on Grape Avenue.

"We didn't give that as a prerequisite for the realtor or anything," Tracy said.

The Eliassons call their home of Settembre Cellars.

The couple, who both have engineering backgrounds, have a vineyard in the backyard with two grape varieties.

"It's 15 vines of a French-American hybrid," Blake said.

However, the Elliasons say most of the grapes from the 150 cases they sold in 2007 came from growers in Palisade, Colo., but all of the winemaking is done at home. They age the wine in French oak barrels.

"It's a style choice for our wine," Blake said. "I don't like a whole lot of oak flavor."

Fermentation is done in stainless steel tanks in their garage.

"Our passion is really fine exquisite dry wine," Tracy said.

Settembre Cellars produces five different bottles of wine. They range in price from $22 to $28.

They don't have a tasting room, so they deliver the wine to Boulder residents on bicycle.