The Winery at Holy Cross Abbey's final afternoon ran from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, September 27, 2026. There was live music, and everything left on the shelves was 35% off. Owner Larry Oddo and head winemaker Jeff Stultz hosted it as one last celebration instead of a quiet lockup, the Cañon City Daily Record reported four days earlier.
That Sunday also took the place of a long tradition. For more than two decades, the end of September in Cañon City meant the Abbey's Harvest Festival, with wine, music and crowds under the trees at 3011 East Highway 50. The festival didn't happen this year. The lost festival is the part most people noticed, but it's only part of the loss. The Abbey was the one place in town that turned Cañon City's own grapes into Cañon City's own wine. With it gone, the nearest public tasting rooms pouring Fremont County wine are both a drive east on Highway 50, in Penrose.
Twenty-four years on the Abbey grounds
The Benedictine monks opened the winery to the public in June 2002. It reached 25 years of winemaking this summer. Oddo, who spent 23 years as a partner at a New York City accounting firm, bought the business in 2005 and learned it from the ground up, from production schedules to the customer calendar.
At its peak the operation employed 18 full- and part-time workers. It made up to 10,000 bottles a year from a lineup of 19 wines. The Congregation, its wine club, had more than 500 members at one point. The Colorado Association of Viticulture and Enology named it Winery of the Year in 2019, and its wines collected more than 1,200 medals and awards. Oddo also says it was the first Colorado winery to get its wine placed in a national park, at Yellowstone.
Its reach went well beyond the tasting room. Oddo, Stultz and manager Fleur Kaiser helped build and support the Royal Gorge Whitewater Festival and the Create Cañon City Balloon Classic as well as the Harvest Festival.
Why it closed
Oddo described a "perfect storm" for small, locally owned wineries. He pointed to an aging wine-drinking population. He also pointed to Proposition 125, which let grocery stores sell wine starting in March 2023.
"We had a sizeable footprint in the wholesale distribution market by selling to retail shops in Colorado, and when wine went into grocery stores, my revenues, my volume dropped 50% in that segment of the business."
The Gazette's coverage added higher production costs and lower wine consumption overall. Oddo announced in June that the winery was for sale, hoping someone would keep it running. By late September, in his words, "the right buyer hasn't emerged." He plans to go back to accounting.
The farewell note on the winery's website is signed "Larry Oddo & The Staff." It thanks the Cañon City community "for your unwavering warmth and acceptance from the moment we opened our doors in June 2002."
The bottle that had Cañon City's backyards on the label
This loss is particular to Cañon City. According to Oddo, the Abbey's most popular wine was Wild Canon Harvest, a field blend made from grapes the winery bought from local backyard growers. Every grower who contributed got their name on that year's label as part of "the wild bunch."
The program had real scale. In 2023, the Colorado Sun reported that the Abbey paid growers 60 cents a pound with a 20-pound minimum, and that about 50 growers contributed that year. That made it a community harvest, and a town-made bottle at the end of it.
This is the first fall without that buyer. As of early October 2026, no local reporting has named another winery or crush program taking home-grown grapes. That doesn't mean nobody will. It does mean anyone with vines along a Cañon City fence line has no published place to take the fruit this harvest.
The local tasting rooms that are still pouring are in Penrose
Two Fremont County tasting rooms have current, confirmed public hours, and both are in Penrose, the farm community along Highway 50 east of town.
| Tasting room | Address | Posted hours | What sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brush Hollow Winery | 465 D St., Penrose | Sat noon to 6 p.m., Sun noon to 5 p.m.; one listing adds Fri noon to 6 p.m. | Family-owned vineyard and winery that pours mead as well as wine |
| Bugling Elk Vineyards & Winery | 1215 Apple Lane, Penrose | Mon and Thu 2 to 8 p.m.; Fri to Sun noon to 8 p.m.; closed Tue and Wed | Vineyard-grown wine, with the latest evening hours of the two |
Brush Hollow's Friday hours aren't settled. Its own location page lists only Saturday and Sunday. The Colorado Wine profile, dated March 2026, adds Friday from noon to 6 p.m. If you're planning a Friday visit, call first. Bugling Elk publishes its schedule on its visit page. It's the only one of the two open on a Monday or Thursday evening.
Both are vineyard operations that grow at least some of what they pour. That keeps the Arkansas Valley's grape story going, even though the bottles now come from Penrose instead of the Abbey grounds. Other names come up when people talk about Fremont County wine, but older reports are all that's out there. Nothing from 2026 confirms they have public tasting hours, so they aren't listed here.
One more pour on Main Street
Abbey wine hasn't completely left downtown. The Cracked Pot is the paint-your-own pottery studio at 519 Main St. that mother-daughter co-owners Katie Saint and Rebecka Wilson soft-launched on June 12. It lists a Paint & Sip "Featuring The Abbey Winery" on Friday, October 16, from 4 to 8 p.m. The $30 ticket includes a bisque piece, the use of the glazes and studio, final firing, and a complimentary glass of Abbey wine.
The event comes three weeks after the tasting room closed, so the wine will presumably come from bottles bought before the doors shut. That's the studio's listing as posted on its services page. The studio asks people to call 719-315-1066 to reserve because spots are limited, and that call is also the way to confirm the wine is still part of the evening. One practical detail: the studio says fired pieces are ready to pick up in about a week, so plan to come back for yours a week or so later.
What hasn't been decided
The winery business and the land were always separate. In March 2024 the Daily Record reported that the 187-acre Abbey property, including the winery building and the historic structures, belonged to CV 11 Cañon City LLC, not to Oddo. A developer had a pending proposal to restore the historic buildings and develop the rest of the land, with the monastery required to be preserved. No newer public reporting has said whether any of that moved forward. So the future of the grounds where the Harvest Festival used to happen is an open question, not a settled plan.
Here's what is settled as of October 2026. The Abbey tasting room is closed. Wild Canon Harvest has no announced successor. Fremont County wine with posted public hours is a short drive east, at Brush Hollow and Bugling Elk in Penrose.
Here at Gold District Realty, we pay attention to the places that make up a town's calendar, and the Abbey was one of Cañon City's anchors for more than twenty years. If your property has its own piece of local history, whether that's old vines along the fence or ground near the Abbey, we'd be glad to help you see what that story is worth. Get an Instant Property Valuation, and if you'd like the longer conversation, we're happy to sit down with you.
