Tag Archives: Texas wine

Wine of the week: McPherson Cellars La Herencia 2009

The key to success for regional wine is not so much about quality or even pricing. It's about producing wine that reflects the place where it is made. Regional wine will never be successful if it's nothing more than a knockoff of what's being done elsewhere — and where it's being done better, as well.

That's why the best regional wine has a sense of terroir, whether it's a New York riesling, a Missouri norton, or a Virginia viognier. The top producers in those states know they have to compete with California, but they have also realized they don't have to do it on California's terms. They can do it on their terms.

That's what we've finally figured out in Texas. There has been a revolution in the past five years, with growers and winemakers embracing warm climate grapes in a way I never thought possible. Today, we have quality wines made with tempranillo, roussanne, syrah, sangiovese, blanc du bois, black Spanish, and viognier — grapes better suited for the Texas terroir than the traditional French varietals. Even the state's biggest producers, who can sell (and need to sell) chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon because they're in grocery stores, are using these new varietals to produce fascinating wines.

One of the best examples of the revolution is McPherson's La Herencia ($14, sample), a tempranillo blend that has the Spanish grape's varietal characteristics yet retains a Texas quality. It's richer and more full than a Rioja, the best-known tempranillo from Spain, with more red fruit. But it's not too fruity or too tannic or too alcoholic, like so many California wines.

Serve this with barbecue, almost any main course with rice (like jambalaya), and even some roast or grilled chicken dishes. Availability will be limited outside of Texas.

My 47-word regional wine week essay

DrinkLocalWine is holding a 47-word essay contest to promote Regional Wine Week, which starts Sunday. My effort is below. It's not as good as Dave McIntyre's (but don't worry — Dave, my partner in locapour, can't win any of the terrific prizes we have this year). But I think it's better than my haiku last year.

The average August temperature in Texas is in the 90s, and 100 and higher is common. The Burgundy average temperature is 68. What's more surprising: That we have so much trouble growing chardonnay and pinot noir or that it only took 20 years to figure this out?

Texas Twitter Tuesday

Yes, the Wine Curmudgeon is going to tweet live on Tuesday, part of a weekly feature used to spread the word about Texas wine. We'll start at 7 p.m. and will twitter about the Texas Wine Garden at the State Fair, Texas Wine Month in October, and DrinkLocalWine's Regional Wine Week.

Visitors are welcome, so stop by and say hello; we'll be tasting three Texas wines. If you want to follow the fun on Twitter, I'm @wine_curmudgeon, and the event's hash tag is #TXwine. Also, Russ Kane and Denise Fraser, who put this thing together, have set up a Tweetchat room for #TXwine Twitter Tuesdays at tweetchat.com/room/TXwine.

This tweeting thing should be interesting. First, I don't do it very often, so keeping my pungent witticisms to 140 characters will be a challenge. Second, I'm told the Twitter-sphere for this event can get very caustic, and that only the manliest of men and womanliest of women can survive the heckling. Will I be curmudgeonly enough?

State Fair wine update

Friday morning update: How about some video? There’s a 15-second commercial in the front, but after that, the Wine Curmudgeon and Channel 11’s Garry Seith talking about Texas wine. Plus, I’ll be back at the Fair this afternoon for some more Channel 11.

Set those digital recorders. The Wine Curmudgeon will be on Dallas’ Channel 11, sometime after 5:30 a.m. on Friday, to talk about the Texas wine garden and wine stage at the State Fair of Texas. I’m told I’ll even get a chance to display my corkscrew skills.

And, no, that’s not too early to drink wine.

Texas wine at the State Fair of Texas

The Texas wine garden at the State Fair of Texas, and the interviews that we do on the wine stage, is one of the Wine Curmudgeon's two or three favorite events. John Bratcher, my partner in Two Wine Guys, and I interview Texas winemakers, sommeliers, wine personalities (and even wine writers) about Texas wine: what's good, what's bad, and what still needs to be done.

It's all about bringing wine to the people, which is something that I believe in strongly and that the wine business could mostly care less about. Is it any fun being heckled by a bunch of drunks during halftime of the Texas-Oklahoma football game? Nope. But it's worth it if just one person comes away from the fair with the understanding that wine is not difficult, and that regional wine is legitimate.

Which is why this is a very difficult post to write, since this year's event looks like it will be the last one that we do. More, after the jump:

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Thank you, Texas Legislature, for a job well done

Texas is facing one of the most serious crises in its history, and no, it’s not the wildfires consuming the state, the years-long drought that has helped cause many of the wildfires, or even our on-going budget crisis.

It’s the breakup of the Big 12 athletic conference. How does the Wine Curmudgeon know this is so serious? The Legislature, which usually approaches state government as if it needs to hurry up and get home, open a beer, and sit in front of the TV in its t-shirt, is actually concerned and threatening action. The governor and lieutenant governor even issued statements.

This is the same legislature, of course, that eliminated $4.3 million over two years in state funding for the Texas wine industry. Gone is the money spent on research, including key efforts to determine which grapes are best for Texas. Gone are the marketing dollars that helped make the Texas one of the top wine tourism destinations in the country. Gone are most of the state employees who helped make Texas the fifth biggest wine producer in the country. It was all part of the 40 percent cut to the agriculture department’s budget.

Full disclosure: The state paid me $5,000 in 2010 for two Texas-related wine events, the taste-off against New York and the Texas wine stage at the state fair. But I’d write this post regardless, because it has never been about the money (and I took less money to do the wine stage this year). Instead, it’s about doing the right thing, which I’ve always done and which I’ll always do.

As opposed to the legislature, which has an agenda of its own and which always baffles the rest of us. To the legislature, football is more important than creating jobs or helping an industry grow that has consistently produced jobs, especially in depressed rural areas — and that has a multi-billion dollar effect on the state. Wine apparently isn’t manly enough for the Legislature, which sees college football — corrupt, money-grubbing college football — as the proper venue for its efforts. They deserve each other.

How desperate is the situation for state’s wine industry? Ed Hellman, the Texas Tech professor who heads the state’s grape research funding, is trying to raise the millions of dollars needed to restore grape research through private donors. State funding, he says, has gone away and will never come back. Meanwhile, a group of Texas wine aficionados has proposed to restore the marketing money through another voluntary donation program. What’s next? Selling band candy or holding a bake sale?

What Hellman didn’t note, because he is too nice a guy, is that Texas Tech signed ex-football coach Mike Leach to a five-year, $12.7 million contract before firing him a couple of years ago. That $12.7 million would fund the state’s wine grape program for six years. Aren’t priorities wonderful things?

Local food people still can’t figure out this local wine thing

The following comes from a friend of mine, and you'll understand the need for anonymity. She's a food writer who was at an oyster roast in the Pacific Northwest when someone pronounced that the reason Pacific oysters are superior to all others is that the region produces wines to match them.

My friend, of course, was speechless. "This made me think of you," she emailed. "Not surprisingly, he'd never heard of Texas wine." In fact, Texas has oysters from the Gulf Coast and wine to match, like dry blanc du bois and rose.

The Wine Curmudgeon can't decide what's more annoying: That someone who pretends to be a wine expert doesn't know that there is wine made in regions outside of his tiny, insular world, or that he knows as little about food and wine pairings as the character in Annie Hall knows about Marshall McLuhan. (Yes, I'll post the clip at the end of this.)

Because, according to this logic, oysters from Louisiana — which I happen to think are the best in the world, courtesy of the late, great Mr. Jutz — are irrelevant because there isn't Louisiana wine to go with them. Or that Maine lobsters are somehow lacking because there is no matching Maine wine. Or, to look at this illogic from the other side, that Loire wines aren't quite as good as they could be unless you can find Loire shellfish to go with them.

Where is Marshall McLuhan when you need him? After the jump, courtesy of drkatzjr27 at YouTube.

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