{"id":71694,"date":"2017-02-24T19:38:43","date_gmt":"2017-02-25T02:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/amateur-winemakers-may-soon-be-allowed-to-compete-under-colorado-bill\/"},"modified":"2017-02-25T02:38:43","modified_gmt":"2017-02-25T02:38:43","slug":"amateur-winemakers-may-soon-be-allowed-to-compete-under-colorado-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/amateur-winemakers-may-soon-be-allowed-to-compete-under-colorado-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Amateur winemakers may soon be allowed to compete under Colorado bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=266775c4-2364-400a-953e-dad1d311e76b&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1382\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>DENVER \u2013 Budding oenologists have some friends at the state Capitol who want to level the playing field with other practitioners of zymology.<\/p>\n<p>Or in English, amateur winemakers might have restrictions lifted so they would fall under the same laws as other homebrewers.<\/p>\n<p>House Bill 1145, which would allow amateur winemakers to participate in wine-making contests so long as only the judges taste their wine, was passed on a unanimous 13-0 vote by the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe we have over 140 wineries in the state of Colorado, and it\u2019s great to open up the industry to amateur winemakers for exposure,\u201d said Rep. Leslie Herod, D-Denver and sponsor of the bill.<\/p>\n<p>While the bill allows for homemade wines to be entered into competitions, it doesn\u2019t allow for the sale of them, Herod said.<\/p>\n<p>By allowing amateurs to compete, Herod said she hopes some of them would create their own companies and continue to promote this as a viable business in Colorado\u2019s diverse economy.<\/p>\n<p>HB 1145 enjoys bipartisan support, with Sen. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, sponsoring it in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cQuite frankly, Colorado\u2019s wine, beer and spirit industry is not a partisan issue, and we need to make sure we are doing everything that we can to support local business,\u201d Herod said.<\/p>\n<p>Having passed committee, the bill will next receive two readings in the House before a final vote is taken. If it passes, it would move to the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>During Thursday\u2019s hearing, there was little discussion, but Rep. Paul Rosenthal, D-Denver, did ask one very poignant question.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just want to know, is the wine any good? Have you sampled any?\u201d Rosenthal asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have not, but I look forward to it if this bill should pass,\u201d Herod answered.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:lperkins@durangoherald.com\">lperkins@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>put them under same rules as homebrewers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14,21,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-state-house-of-representatives","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71694"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}