(PENROSE, Colo.) — Several vineyards and cideries in Penrose have spent years perfecting their craft by adding new flavors for the people living and visiting the area. There's no mistaking that vino and ciders play an important role in Southern Colorado. Pop's vineyard offers a large selection of unique wines that are handcrafted by Pop himself. Steve Smith is a retired corrections officer and decided to leave the industry to open a vineyard with his son. Together, the two spend weeks building the vineyard, which is now often used for weddings. Courtesy: FOX21 News Reporter Carolynn Felling "We're a mom-and-pop operation, we're not sophisticated, we just enjoy serving our wines," said Smith. The pair imports their grapes from California and other places, but what makes their flavor so unique is a secret ingredient, homemade honey. Smith says he has five beehives on his property and uses the honey to add local flavors to each glass. Courtesy: FOX21 News Reporter Carolynn Felling "This is my honey wine, my mead, I blend that, I have five beehives, that I collect my honey out of. Then when I pull the honey, I add one gallon of honey with four gallons of water, and then I add orange juice and orange slices and apples and cinnamon sticks, and then with that process I'm able to ferment and it really comes out nice," said Smith. He says you can smell the honey, but when it passes through your palate, it dries out, so it does not create a sweet wine. One of his specialties is creating unique blends. "I have a Riesling; I have a symphony; I have a lot of blends. We like to blend our reds, and we like to blend our whites with the reds," said Smith. You would never guess that he started making his wine just five years ago by tasting it. He says knowing your palate is the best way to figure out what kind of wine you prefer. "You know, it's not complicated, and people try to make it more complicated than it is. It's just the wine you like," said Smith. Courtesy: FOX21 News Reporter Carolynn Felling He even uses flowers to add additional flavor. "This is a symphony, it's a very complex wine, semi-sweet with a floral smell to it, you can taste the aroma, you can taste the roses in it, it's a very complex wine," he said. Pop's vineyard also supports Apple Valley Cidery by selling their ciders at his vineyard. Courtesy: FOX21 News Reporter Carolynn Felling "I was already making beer for years, and I dabbled in a little bit of wine and had been doing cider for several years.... so, then I entered a beer competition, and had not gotten a medal, my first medal came from cider," said Kevin Williams, the owner of Apple Valley Cidery. Williams said he decided to open his own cidery when he noticed a lack of orchards in the Royal Gorge region. He says orchards were important to him and his family growing up in Penrose. "I worked at one of the orchards in the summertime, when my mom was a kid, there were a lot more orchards than there were when I was a kid and when my grandma was a kid, and [she] grew up here and went to Penrose High School. There were orchards everywhere. So, over the years, the orchards kind of dwindled between drought and development; there aren't really any left," said Williams. Courtesy: FOX21 News Reporter Carolynn Felling He says even though there are not many commercial orchards around the area anymore, sometimes he can find smaller orchards, which he adds into his cider, but he usually orders most of his apples from out of state. "I actually have some mead that I'm making right now from apples that were picked here in Fremont County last fall, and we're looking forward to getting that out here pretty soon in the spring," said Williams. He told FOX21 NEWS that the process behind making his award-winning ciders is tedious but worth it. Courtesy: FOX21 News Reporter Carolynn Felling "You take the juice, you add yeast and some nutrients, and in our case maybe some dried fruit for flavor and color, and then it's well fermented over a fairly cool temperature," said Williams. They offer flavors like prickly peat, apple, apple cinnamon, and blackcurrant. "The cidery offers rich flavors, we don't do really dry. We have it a little bit sweet, but we try not to be too sweet. There's a lot of commercial examples out there that are a little too sweet for people. Then there's a lot that are really dry and that doesn't appeal to a lot of people. So, we try to sit in the middle where it's sweet enough to pair with foods and be refreshing and be flavorful, but not so sweet that you don't want to have a second glass," he said. If you would like to taste these delicious wines or ciders, you can find more information on their websites. ...read more read less