The Arboretum
Introducing Southwestern Colorado's first estate winery.What is the arboretum?
Picture a place where forgotten apple varieties come to life, where the community and nature come together to produce memories cherished for generations.
The Arboretum is a big step in preserving a piece of apple history. We’re talking about 200 different varieties of apple trees—some you’ve never even heard of—planted here in Montezuma and La Plata counties. This area has been home to apples for over a century, but most of these old orchards are disappearing. We’ve been working to save them by grafting special wood from these historic trees onto rootstock, keeping their genetics alive. It’s more than just trees, though. The Arboretum is going to be a place where people can come together—a hub for conservation, cutting-edge fruit growing, and community.
Oh, and it uses less water than traditional crops, so it’s better for the environment, too.
How did we get here
We’re Elizabeth Philbrick and Jared Scott. We’re a city planner and a forester who ended up in Durango after crisscrossing the country with a bottle of bubbly and a road atlas, looking for a place where we could both work. Fast forward, and one night I (Jared) blurt out that I want to start a cidery. Elizabeth, in her half-asleep state, agreed, and here we are.
We served our first cider in 2020, right before COVID hit. We survived (barely), and now we’re here trying to save apple varieties that go back to the 1880s. These old orchards are like time capsules, each one showing what apples were trendy in their day. But they’re getting bulldozed and replaced with water-thirsty crops like hay. So we started grafting these old trees onto new rootstock to keep them going, and before we knew it, we had thousands of trees and nowhere to plant them.
That’s where the Arboretum comes in. It’s taken us over a year to get through the red tape just to get this property ready, and we’re looking forward to the next phase.
Want to be a part of this?
EsoTerra is currently hosting an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign and also has availability for large equity investment opportunities in an ongoing funding round.
Interested in equity investment? Contact [email protected] for more info.