Tag Archives: Roussanne

Is Roussanne The Next Breakthrough Texas Grape?

wine-tastingby Andrew Chalk

I recently reported on a tasting of Texas wines made from the Rhône grape named Roussanne.  Thirty four Dallas consumers blind-tasted 17 Roussanne wines (or blends) from major Roussanne growing regions (10 wines were from Texas) and when the results were in, Texas wines occupied four of the five top positions, including first.

That tasting, organized by a wine event group named Gusto, has been replicated closely by them in Houston and Austin. Here are the results for the top five wines out of 17 in each tasting. I have highlighted the Texas wines to draw attention to their rankings:  Continue reading

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A New And Novel Way To Get Introduced To Wine

txvstheworld1by Andrew Chalk

Interested in wine but not sure which of the dozens of tastings each month will really teach you how a specific grape tastes and show you examples from great to gruesome? Gusto, a wine education event organizer aligned with the Texas Wine and Food Consortium, may have the answer that you have been looking for. After a 2008 start in Houston, the organization expanded to other major Texas cities, reaching Dallas just this week. Their winning event is a series of tastings running under the general heading “Texas vs. The World”. Each tasting in the series is based around a single grape type and compares multiple examples of that grape from major producing areas around the world.

A distinguishing feature of the events is that since they are “Texas vs..” there is a strong Texas representation among the wines. They are all served blind over a two hour interval during which attendees do the flight of wines at their own pace. Each attendee gets a scorecard and at the end is the ‘reveal’, an event that leads to revelation among the beginners to wine tasting and, among those who think they know their wines, some egos being massaged but others pricked.   Continue reading

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Texas Roussanne Wines Get Ranked

rouss-blind_set1by Andrew Chalk

You may recall that Crave conducted MoAT1 (the Mother of All Tastings No. 1) just a month ago where we pitted 16 Texas wines from the Viognier grape against two known stars from California and a French example. Texas took the top six spots, confirming an improvement in quality that I have seen happening over several years. Now comes news that TXWineLover blog, one of the best blogs about Texas wine, has conducted a similarly comprehensive tasting, but this time of wines from the Roussanne grape from Texas. Roussanne is a good choice. It has also been steadily improving and is also a wine grape originating from the southern Rhône region of France.     Continue reading

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