LaNoue DuBois – the family and the winery

[Montrose Mirror | September 18, 2023 | By Kathryn R. Burke]

The LaNoue DuBois Winery, five miles south of downtown Montrose, is owned by Rick LaNoue, Kathy Woods LaNoue, and their son, Lee LaNoue. The name and the location both have interesting historical significance.

The name LaNoue comes from Rick LaNoue’s family, who moved to Ouray (from Louisiana) in 1973. Rick’s father worked underground at the Idarado Mine on the raise drills. The surname, LaNoue, is French, originating in the coastal region of Normandy. Rick’s great-great grandfather, Marie Michel Hypolite LaNoue, had migrated to Louisiana during the French Revolution.

The name DuBois comes from Kathy’s family, the Woods. The Woods family have been in the area since the early 1900s, at one time, proprietors of the Cascade Livery Stables in downtown Montrose. They also owned a lot of land south of town and are now the 4^th generation of rancher/farmers on the historic Woods Farm in Montrose. This is where the LaNoue DuBois vineyards and winery now stand.

Kathy suggested converting the Woods name to French (DuBois). Bois is a French topographical name given to someone who lived or worked in the woods, or who worked as a woodcutter. Which is coincidentally appropriate, since Kathy and Rick’s son, Lee, is a master cabinet maker and woodworker, who did most of the woodwork in the winery’s tasting room.

Rick’s family, the LaNoues, had been vacationing in Ouray for 12 years, when his parents decided, “Why not just move there?” They did, and Rick wound up graduating high school in the same class as Ouray’s former sheriff Dominic Mattivi Jr. Like his father before him, Rick also worked at the Idarado, handing pipe, but he worked above ground in the machine shop.

After college, Rick worked for Chevron Production in the Rangely Oilfield for 29 years. He met his wife, Kathy Woods, in Rangely in 1994. She was studying at flight school to become a pilot.

Kathy’s dad, Ralf Woods, was an Army Air Core pilot and trained fighter pilots during World War II. “He was one of five siblings (four boys and one girl), who all served during the war,” Kathy said. “And all of them came home safely at the end of the war!”

After the war, and still flying, Ralph built The Woods Short Takeoff Landing Strip (STOL) on a piece of the Woods Farm across the road from the family’s brick house. Today, that little runway is still there, but rocky and covered in weeds; the last plane to land on it was 30-40 years ago.

Ralph, and his wife, Ruby, along with Ralph’s parents O.H and Grace Woods, continued to run the farm, buying up more land, until it wound up a 300-acre cattle ranch. They ran cattle up to Owl Creek in the summer, stopping on the way at the Cookie Tree ranch, now under the waters of the Ridgway Dam.

Kathy and her four sisters grew up farming (as well as riding horses and herding cattle). Like so many others that have grown up on family farms, the girls were anxious to leave and experience life “out there.”  Which Kathy did after marrying her first husband, whose Army career led them to traveling around the world. Considering that her dad, and all her aunts and uncles had been in the military, it wasn’t surprising when Kathy married an army man. Nor was it surprising that she decided to follow in her dad’s footsteps and become a pilot.

Meanwhile, back on the Wood’s property, Ralf had tired of running cattle, and in 1998, went back to farming and grew alfalfa. Within three years, he’d had enough, and was looking to make another change. Ralf and Ruby decided to think about retiring. Ruby suggested planting a small vineyard on a rocky part of the farm, to test grape varieties to determine if there were high quality wine grapes that might thrive in this climate. Even though he had decided to quit farming, Ralf kept at it for another seven years, finally retiring in 2008, at age 88. He and Ruby decided to give the farm to their daughters.

Rick and Kathy picked up on Ruby’s idea of growing grapes. Rick was an amateur winemaker, and Lee their youngest child, was fascinated with the process of making wine. Lee had been helping clean bottles since he was eight. During their vacation time, the LaNoues had been visiting the farm (and almost always worked: stacking hay, stacking pipe, and laying gated pipe) almost every weekend for several years.