Uncorking Success

How Blue Beryl’s Founder Turned Her Passion into a Thriving Business

By Kaia Hofmeister – Hometown Highlight Editor

A young Palisade local built her dream business, but that wasn’t always the initial plan.

Located on the side of a small road with floor to ceiling windows facing the Bookcliffs, Courtney Kiel sits at a table in her own winery, Blue Beryl, and shares her experience as a young entrepreneur.

Kiel was born and raised in Palisade and she initially went to school for a fine arts degree. While obtaining this degree, one of her requirements included a painting class.

“I went to CSU initially for graphic design,” Kiel said. “And there, they made me take a painting class, and I was so angry about it. I was like, this sucks. I’m not a painter, I’m a graphic artist… and I fell in love with it. Turns out I’m good at it. I called my parents and I was like, I’m changing my degree from graphic design to oil painting. And they’re like, alright, prove it. So I spent the next four years trying to be a cool artist.”

After discovering her love for art, she still wasn’t entirely sure how she wanted to use that talent. Kiel grew up surrounded by peach, pear and apple orchards. When she was in middle school, her family bought the surrounding property, removed the orchards and planted grapes. While they first sold the grapes to other wineries, one day her mom had a great idea.

“My mom’s like, how much easier would this be if I just sold my grapes to you? And I was like, that would be kick ass? And honestly, to kind of came from like me trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life as well,” Kiel said. “And I knew I loved being outside since I grew up in the vineyard. It’s like another form of therapy to just being out in the vines. So it’s like, man, if I couldn’t do that with my life, that’d be pretty cool.”

But making wine wasn’t something that came easy. She spent her first two years as an apprentice under the winemaker at Hermosa Vineyards.

“He still helps me out every once in a while,” Kiel said. “I know how to do all of it but it’s nice to have that mentor around, you know. So I started making wine for Blue Beryl in 2019. That was our first vintage of Malbec.”

Her favorite part of apprenticing at Hermosa Vineyards was getting her hands in the dirt.

“I love working with earth and like everything that it gives us,” Kiel said. “And so I’m a really hands off winemaker, I don’t like do any additives or anything like that. I do inoculate with yeast, but other than that, I don’t touch it. So we really focus on getting our hands dirty in the vineyard first. And then the winemaking comes second, obviously. So like, if we make really good grapes, if we produce really good grapes, then the wine will follow suit, not vice versa. So that’s kind of the fun part of it. And just like the art of it all, too. It’s like a an old recipe, in my opinion, because we’ve been doing it for centuries.”

Kiel currently uses her love for art and design to create her own labels for her wine. However, in the past she also designed her tasting room from the ground up. While she initially bought a home on the property, Kiel and her husband decided to tear it down and build the tasting room.

“When you’re designing a place from the very beginning,” Kiel said, “the way you want it to feel, it’s very daunting, because you’re like, okay, well, I’m trying to think of like how future Courtney would feel about this decision that I’m making now. Like, what if I change my mind on it?”

But Kiel admits that the most difficult part of establishing Blue Beryl was the waiting process.

“The hardest thing was being patient and seeing everyone else do what I wanted to do, but I still had to like sit here and just wait, I guess, because winemaking is a very long process,” Kiel said. “Just even from living in this house to knowing what to do with it to turning it into the tasting room to the whole uncertainty of it all. It was very scary for me.”

Despite the challenges Kiel faced building her business, she has no regrets as a young female entrepreneur and encourages others to follow their dreams.

“I would say just go for it,” Kiel said. “If you like something, do it and just keep doing it. Like don’t, don’t stop if it’s your passion. I know like, thankfully, I’m financially backed by a good support system for sure. But if you have the means to do something that you want to do, you should do it. 100%.”