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Pinedale, Wyoming 

Climate Change benefits Wyoming

The Wyoming Department of Farming, Wyoming Tourism Office, and Pinedale Chamber of Commerce have joined together to celebrate the launching of a new agricultural industry for the Upper Green River Valley of western Wyoming.

With the continued moderation of the winter climate in the Rocky Mountains due to climate change and global warming, conditions have become just about perfect for a new pilot project to come into production. What is this new agriculture industry? Ice Wine.

Ice Wine is a rare, luxurious dessert wine made from grapes that have frozen naturally on the vine after the first winter frost. These vinyards are typically grown in cold climates. The frozen grapes are pressed while frozen, separating water as ice, and leaving a highly concentrated, very sweet and acidic nectar that produces a lucious, honey-like wine.

Critcal to the production is that the grapes must freeze on the vine. They are harvested at night or very early in the morning and pressed immediately while frozen. The most common ice wines are white, but there are also some red varieties.

Ice wines are very expensive, partly because it is labor-intensive to harvest, and because the harvest timing is critcally weather dependent. The yield typically takes four to five times more grapes than regular wine. To get the high sugar content. the grapes must freeze on the vine and temperatures must remain cold enough to freeze the grapes solid.

Wyoming has experienced significant warming over the last 50 years, with winter temperatures showing the most pronounced upward trend since the 1970s and 1980s. While severe cold waves still occur, the frequency of extreme cold has generally been below the long-term average since 2000. "We've been closely monitoring the winter warming trend for decades now," said Wyoming Department of Farming Extension Scientist Chris Smith. "We think the trend will continue, opening up new farm crop markets all across Wyoming in the future."

The winter of 2025 to 2026 was one of the most mild that locals can remember. One Pinedale resident commented they only had to shovel snow off their driveway once all winter. Fremont Lake didn't freeze over the winter, a rare occurence but perhaps sign of things to come, sadly causing the annual ice fishing derby to be cancelled due to lack of ice.

The idea of actually being able to grow a crop and have it survive over the winter in Wyoming seems almost too far-fetched to be true. But the science seems to be pointing to a long-term moderating of the winter temperatures enough to let plants survive while still taking advantage of the necessary cold snaps to create the important chemical reactions that cause the grapes to concentrate sugars for making ice wine.

"We know we need to diversify our valley's economy beyond natural gas and oil," said Pinedale Chamber of Commerce Director Cynthia Sanchez. "We applaud these visionary local entrepreneurs who are willing to invest and expand into new industries as opportunities arise."

"This has been a dream of mine for decades," said rancher turned farmer, Barney Williams. "Winter temperatures in Wyoming have been warming consistently for decades now. The timing has been perfect so far to have our vinyards go into production to make our first batch of Ice Wine this season. Once established, it will be very profitable."

Williams secured about 2,000 acres of land around Pinedale several years ago and planted rows of ice wine grapes. New grapevines typically take three years to produce a substantial, high-quality crop, though some fruit may appear in the second year. While they start producing within 3-4 years, vines reach full maturity and peak production in roughly 5 to 7 years. "We had our first harvest in 2024 and have been in production through the year," Williams said.

Wind River Gourmet Ice Wine is a cooperative venture between Williams and California-based winery, Napa Winyards, which is in the process of relocating their entire operations to Pinedale, Wyoming. "It was a tough decision to make, but with land prices skyrocketing in California, crazy new taxes, and the scarcity of water availability towards agriculture, we could see the handwriting on the wall. We decided to move closer to the pristine source of the water, rather than wait for it to travel all the way from the headwaters of the Green, into the Colorado River, and over to us," said sommelier Sebastian Montichello. "We're all very excited to bring our Ice Wine operations to Wyoming. Even though someone else already claimed the tag line, it really is all about the water."

Making ice wine from harvest to bottling typically takes 6 to 12 months. While harvesting occurs between December and February, the slow fermentation of highly concentrated sugar—lasting 2-3 months—means bottling usually happens in late spring or summer, or sometimes up to 10 months after harvest.

"Our first batch of Wind River Ice Wine is already being bottled and will be ready to ship by summer," Williams said.

The new winery, next to Wind River Brewing in Pinedale, will expand Pinedale being known for its award-winning beers and liquors, to include gourmet wines that are shipped around the world. An annual festival is being planned where townspeople and visitors can see the large kegs of wine from each season's Ice Wine batch being loaded onto trucks headed out to markets world-wide.

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