Welcome to The NoCo Pour: Your Guide to Drinking in Northern Colorado

In this column, we’ll celebrate everything worth drinking in Northern Colorado—whiskeys, beers, wines, craft cocktails, liquor stores, happy hours, restaurants, and the people who make it all happen. I’m Christian McClure, your guide and a certified sommelier (Level 2 through the Court of Master Sommeliers). Before we dive into the local scene, I thought it would be fun to share how a kid from Wyoming ended up obsessed with wine.

I grew up in a literal wine desert… Wyoming, where good bottles were hard to find. My first glass didn’t come until I was 24 and living in Colorado. Right after high school, I jumped into the oil fields. The pay was excellent for a young guy, but the long hours and the work itself left me unfulfilled. I joined the Army as a 19K Tanker to buy some time and figure things out. Driving and shooting tanks was thrilling, but military life wasn’t for me.

When my first contract ended, I went back to the oil fields—this time in Colorado—but the dissatisfaction followed me. I knew I needed a real change. I saved some money, moved to Fort Collins with no real plan, and crashed with a friend who worked at a restaurant. They were hiring a host, so I took the job.

A few weeks later, I moved up to server. During training, my manager mentioned that learning about wine would make me a better server. I took that advice far more seriously than he probably expected. Up to that point, I had never really drunk wine. I started buying and tasting the bottles on our menu, and to my surprise, I loved it. The more I drank, the more curious I became.

One day in the Denver airport, I spotted a wine bar and decided to treat myself. On the menu was a $45 glass of Silver Oak Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, more than I’d ever spent on an entire bottle, let alone a single pour. I ordered it anyway. That wine blew me away. When the bartender asked how it was, I said it was like nothing I’d ever tasted. He smiled and told me I was sitting right next to the owner of the winery, Sally Duncan. She introduced herself and handed me her card, and from that moment, I was hooked. I started studying wine in earnest.

Along the way, I learned about professional sommelier certifications. A sommelier doesn’t just know wine; they manage restaurant beverage programs and have deep knowledge of food and drink pairings, spirits, sake, beer, and cocktails. (The old-school role even included cigars, but that part has mostly disappeared in smoke-free America.)

There are several paths to certification: the Court of Master Sommeliers (CMS), Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), and International Sommeliers Guild (ISG). CMS is widely regarded as the gold standard and also the most rigorous. Their program has four levels: Introductory, Certified, Advanced, and Master Sommelier.

I started with WSET because it offered structured online modules. I supplemented those with books, hundreds of hours of videos, and countless tastings. I passed with 100%, which gave me the confidence to tackle the CMS Introductory exam (a 60-question test covering everything from winemaking to regions, climates, pairings, and spirits). I passed that too, then powered through the much tougher Certified Sommelier Exam, which includes a written test, a formal wine service, and blind tasting.

By the time I earned my Certified pin, I had become Beverage Director and Front of House Manager at The Cache at Ginger and Baker, a role I still hold today. Under my direction, our wine list has earned the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence every year for the past several years.

More recently, I’ve started sharing fun, educational content about wine, whiskey, tequila, and more on Instagram (@wineguy307). Scan the QR code below to follow along. I’ve also launched my own wine club that ships curated selections straight to your door, complete with tasting notes, fun facts, and pairing ideas. It’s a great way to explore new wines, learn along the way, and maybe even impress your friends, knowing you’ve got a personal sommelier picking them out.

Now that you know a bit about my journey from oil fields and tanks to tanks of wine, stay tuned. In future columns of The NoCo Pour, we’ll do deep dives into the incredible beverage scene right here in Northern Colorado: local distilleries, hidden wine gems, killer happy hours, and the passionate people behind it all.

Cheers!