Category:Regional wine

James Tidwell earns Beard semifinal nod

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

And it’s well deserved, too. Tidwell is the sommelier, beverage manager and overall wine guru for the Four Seasons in suburban Dallas, and is a semifinalist for the James Beard award for outstanding restaurant wine service for his work at the Four Seasons’ Cafe on the Green. Best yet, James believes in Texas wine, and has always done his best to promote it, both at the Four Seasons and in his role as co-founder of TexSom, the Texas Sommelier Association.

The final nominees will be announced on March 21, and the winner will be announced May 9. The Beards are the food and wine business’ equivalent of the Academy Awards, and they include a glitzy awards ceremony. If James is a finalist, will he wear a tux? If so, I’ll run a picture on the blog.

The semifinal list has some big names on it, but the other one that impressed me is Glenn Bardgett, who runs the wine program at Annie Gunn’s in suburban St. Louis. Glenn is also a huge advocate of regional wine, and he is helping us with our DrinkLocalWine.com conference in St. Louis in April, which is focusing on Missouri wine.

Texas wine, the Legislature, and the state’s budget crisis

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

This Texas industry is recognized around the country as a leader and innovator, providing thousands of jobs and adding more than a billion dollars to the state's economy. Yet the Texas Legislature is about to strangle this industry by cutting off its seed money and eliminating the work it does to market and research its product.

If this industry was oil and gas, or even wind (in which Texas leads the country in production), would the Legislature be so eager to eliminate its funding? Of course not. But because the industry is wine, the Legislature is poised to cut its $4.3 million in state funding.

This is a huge mistake, and not just because I write about wine. The Texas wine industry is an important part of the state's economy, and the money it receives from the state has played a key role in the wine industry's growth. In this, Texas wine is not some effete pastime enjoyed by a bunch of outsiders who don't like to drink Lone Star and eat chicken fried, but big business. Or, as we like to say here, Big Bidness.

Texas wine sales increased six percent in 2010, with consumers buying almost 240,000 cases of Texas wine from retailers that Nielsen surveys (which doesn't include Walmart-owned stores or restaurants). That, by the way, compared to a five percent or so increase for all wine sales in the U.S. Even more impressive: Texas wine outsold Argentine and Chilean wine — combined — in the state in 2010. The cost of this success? That $4.3 million in seed money, paid every two years. That comes out to less than $6 a Texan, or $3 a year. After the jump, how that $3 a person investment has paid off.

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DrinkLocalWine.com 2011 conference tickets on sale

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

And such a deal — a Twitter Taste-off, plus winemaker reception, for just $35. And who says regional wine isn't a recession buster?

The details are on the DLW Web site. Our third annual conference is April 1-3 in St. Louis, focusing on Missouri wine. This should be especially fun, because Missouri produces top-flight wine, but does so with hardly a European wine grape in sight. The state's 121 wineries specialize in hybrids and native American grapes like the norton, vidal blanc, and seyval blanc, and they regularly win awards at some of the top competitions in the world.

Mini-reviews 20: Stone Hill, Souverain, Spy Valley, Vertus

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Reviews of wines that don ?t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month (Thursday this month because of the holiday).

? Stone Hill Vignoles 2009 ($16, sample): Lots of pineapple, but not all that sweet with a long peach pit finish. An excellent example of what can be done with this hybrid grape from one of Missouri’s top producers.

? Souverain Sauvignon Blanc 2009 ($14, sample): This wine is one of the reasons why I love wine, and it has nothing to do with whether I “liked” it or not. The Souverain is done in a style I don’t usually care for, oaked sauvignon blanc, but it’s so well done that I can appreciate what it offers and recommend it.

? Spy Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2009 ($18, purchased): More wonderfullness from what may be the best sauvignon blanc in the world. Look for even less citrus and more tropical fruit than usual, which is saying something since Spy Valley is among the least citrus-y of the New Zealand sauvignon blancs.

? Bodegas Iranzo Vertus 2003 ($15, sample): Tempranillo from a less well-known part of Spain, and well worth the effort. More fresh cherry fruit than a Rijoa, lots of bright Spanish acidity and even a bit of herb tucked in. Highly recommended.

When local wine isn’t appropriate for a local food event

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival, in its 26 years of existence, has done epic work in bringing Texas wine to the people. At one time, it was about the only major wine festival in the state that paid attention to Texas wine, and its efforts have played a key role in improving the quality of Texas wine.

So why, for this weekend's Wine and Swine Culinary event, which is one of the festival's major fundraisers, are no Texas wines being served? There are Texas chefs. But the wines are from Australia, California and South Africa. I have an email in to the event organizers, and if I hear anything, I'll update this. Maybe there's a good reason, like no Texas winery wanted to participate. Yes, I'm being facetious.

Update: Erika White, the festival's executive director, replied to my email: "Peregrine Hill will be there and they are from Texas. We continue to support Texas wineries of course and are working on a few Texas Wine Signature events during the Festival."

Which is all well and good, of course, though it would have been be nice to see Peregrine Hill listed in the publicity. But it still doesn't address the question of why a major Texas food event is skimping on Texas wines.

National Wine Experience

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Alex Papajohn is a brave man. How else to explain the National Wine Experience, his effort to bring wine from two dozen states to Washington next weekend for a huge consumer tasting?

"Wine is made in all 50 states, and I thought it was a good idea to show people that," he said. "This is an opportunity for wine made in regions that no one has heard of to show what they can do.

Which, given he was talking to the Wine Curmudgeon, was preaching to the choir. We've been making the same 47-state argument for DrinkLocalWine.com for three years, and it's always a pleasure to hear it from someone else — and someone else who is doing to so much to advance the cause.

That's what impressed me the most about the National Wine Experience. This is not just some one-off, but a serious undertaking to showcase regional wine. For one thing, Papajohn has had to wrestle with the the three-tier distribution system and the U.S.' direct shipping laws (which I know much more about than I want to know).

Wineries just can't donate their wines to the event; rather, they need to sell the wines to a distributor, who has to sell them to Papajohn. That meant, for most of the wines that will be poured, Papajohn had to become a virtual retailer. He had to fill out forms and orders and all the rest of the paperwork that a retailer has to go through to run a wine shop. Which is a lot of work to do if it's a full-time business. Can you imagine how much work there is if you're only doing it for a one-day event?

Papajohn laughed when I asked him about this, and said, yes, that part has been an adventure. But it has not deterred him from his goal of spreading the gospel about regional wine. And, he said, don't worry if there are only 24 or 25 states participating this year, including Texas. Next year, there will be 50.

Texas, New York and regional wine

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The cyber ether is ablaze with discussion about this week’s Grape and Gridiron Classic, which paired Texas and New York wines in a blind tasting. We tasted 11 wines, and the participants preferred the Texas wines eight times. We wuz robbed, wrote some New York bloggers, while others claimed the fix was in. Some of the Texas writers went overboard in the other direction; Lone Star pride, no doubt, or salve for the Cowboys’ woeful season.

Yes, the result was surprising (and more on that later). Even more surprising? That people could think that the Wine Curmudgeon would be involved in something that wasn’t 100 percent aboveboard. Question my passion for cheap wine or that I really like the Ramones. But my integrity? I think not, and I have 25 years of doing the right thing to back that up. More, after the jump:

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