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Carboy Winery: Breckenridge’s local winery

By Kimberly Nicoletti
For the Summit Daily

Editor’s Note: Sponsored content brought to you by Carboy Winery

Carboy Winery moved into the historic, 1879 building at 103 North Main Street to provide a much more refined and sophisticated dining and sipping experience.
Carboy Winery/Courtesy Photo

Whether it’s happy hour, lunch, dinner or a sensory tour through the smoky, buttery, vanilla, oak or many other aromas and flavors of local wine, Carboy Winery will transport you to Breckenridge’s urban winery, built right next to the legendary Gold Pan Saloon.

While Gold Pan lends an Old West, rough-and-tumble kind of dining and drinking kind of atmosphere, Carboy Winery moved into the historic, 1879 building at 103 North Main Street to provide a much more refined and sophisticated dining and sipping experience.



After new owners of the Gold Pan ushered in fresh cuisine from renowned Denver chefs in 2017, they renovated the room next door and rebuilt the kitchen to accommodate the needs of the winery, as well as modern cuisine service. The winery includes about a dozen tanks, oak barrels for aging and additional stainless steel tanks to serve wine on tap, both at Carboy and the Gold Pan.

Select brands  



As guests step through the sliding glass door that connects Carboy and Gold Pan, classy marble-looking slate tables create an intimate dining and tasting experience under a drop ceiling adorned in gold tiles and walls covered with barrel staves.

The concept of Breckenridge’s Carboy Winery stems from its flagship winery in Littleton, which opened in 2016. The local winery sources high-quality grapes, juice and single-varietal wine, which expert winemakers then vint, blend or age in order to craft Carboy Wines’ select brands.

‘Fully functioning winery’

The winery includes about a dozen tanks, oak barrels for aging and additional stainless steel tanks to serve wine on tap, both at Carboy and the Gold Pan.
Courtesy Photo

Carboy offers about 10 varietals on tap and sells about 20 different bottles of wine, sourced predominately from Colorado’s Western slope, California, Washington and Oregon, as well as Italy and France.

“A lot of wineries cut corners and buy only the juice, but we fly out, harvest, crush the grapes and send the juice to Colorado,” said Chris Butler, general manager and co-owner of Carboy Winery and Gold Pan Saloon. “We are a fully functioning winery — we do everything involved in making wine.”

Bottles or growlers on tap

Carboy offers the unique opportunity to not only purchase world-class wine in a bottle, but also take it home fresh from the tap in a one-liter, refillable Carboy growler. In fact, Carboy is named after the wide glass container with a narrow neck, which dates back to 14th century Europe and appeared in Colorado during the Gold Rush. Winemakers often used carboys to experiment with small batches of wine and to top off barrels in the wine cellar.

Deals on wine bottles and tastings

Guests can experience a wine flight that includes 2-ounce pours of three or four varietals ($11 to $15), or a complimentary flight with the purchase of two or more bottles to go.

In addition, purchasing six bottles of wine garners one complimentary bottle, and taking home a dozen bottles gets you two free bottles of Carboy’s fine wine. And, if you prefer to enjoy wine and cheese in the comfort of your own place, Carboy offers a Board & Bottle of any charcuterie board and tap wine to go.

Don’t forget the food

New owners of the Gold Pan Saloon renovated the room next door and rebuilt the kitchen to accommodate the needs of Carboy Winery, as well as modern cuisine service.
Courtesy Photo

Carboy also offers an upscale menu without the upscale prices, serving a selection of cheese, nut, meat and olive boards, along with appetizers like lamb meatballs, curried cauliflower, bison carpaccio, onion soup, and Scottish salmon crudo, for $6 to $10.

Seasonal main entrees include: grilled beef short ribs with herbed potatoes, grilled salmon, and wine tortillas filled with shredded cabbage and your choice of pulled pork, roasted goat, chicken or crispy cauliflower.

Carboy Winery is the perfect place to satisfy any sophisticated sweet tooth, not only through dessert wines, but also with its small sweets, ranging from $2-4 for dark ‘n dank truffles, chocolate pot de crème or Palisade peach panna cotta. Or, indulge in the crème brulée for $7.

In addition to its dine-in, tasting and take-out options, Carboy Winery also caters to private parties, which accommodate small groups of 20 or less, or larger parties of about 35. If you want a true taste of Colorado, sip and savor Carboy Winery’s local offerings — and then pop into the Gold Pan Saloon for an encounter with the Wild West.


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