Tag Archives: Texas wine

by | August 19, 2013 · 8:42 am

October is Texas Wine Month at JW Marriott

marriottby Andrew Chalk

In the Hill Country, 36 wineries will be participating. Pay $25 for a minimum of one and up to three tastings at any of these wineries. Sign up here. Plan to reserve your accommodation right away at the J.W. Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort and Spa. To commemorate the 31 days of celebrating Texas Wines, they will offer a wine pairing dinner menu with Texas wines in 18 Oaks Restaurant nightly during the month of October.

Their press release read “Carefully selected by the chef, the finest meats, seafood and local produce will be complemented by the Texas Wine region’s best vintages”. I checked with their PR and all of the wines to be served are Texas wines:   Continue reading →

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by | August 13, 2013 · 9:05 am

TWGGA President’s Speech Replacement

Jim Backus as Bacchusby Andrew Chalk

This Wednesday, the Texas Wine and Grape Grower’s Association (TWGGA) meets in Austin to hold their ‘Legislative Forum’. It’s a meeting to discuss all things legislative relating to the Texas wine industry. By a remarkable coincidence, I had a dream the other night in which Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, appeared and proceeded to replace the TWGGA President’s opening address with a speech of his own. I reached into the back of his rental car and glimpsed this text.

“Fellow Texas grape growers and winemakers. This year, the Texas wine industry stands at a crossroads. We know that we have regions that can grow grapes as well as anywhere in the world. We know that we have viticulturalists as expert as those in other regions. We know that we can make world class wines from those grapes, witness the success of TWGGA member wineries  in the prestigious San Francisco International Wine Competition (a competition that is, in the view of many informed observers, the most competitive in the United States).        Continue reading →

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by | August 9, 2013 · 6:11 pm

Breaking News: Is Whole Foods Market Kicking California Wine Out Of The Texas Wine Section?

by Andrew Chalk

That is what Sabrina Houser has heard on “good authority”. She is with Dry Comal Creek Vineyards and Winery which I used as example when I wrote about non-Texas wine in the Texas wine section of a new Whole Foods Market in the Dallas area. If her source is correct, Whole Foods may be implementing a policy change whereby the Texas wine section will be populated only by Texas wines. California wine sold by Texas wineries will be moved elsewhere. This actually opens up the tantalising possibility of Whole Foods sourcing more Texas wines from more wineries (they could use the winners of our Viognier tasting or our Tempranillo tasting as a crib sheet to start off). Furthermore, it makes Whole Foods a leader in Truth In Labelling regarding Texas wines.  Continue reading →

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by | August 8, 2013 · 11:03 am

Texas Winemakers Asked To Pledge Honest Labeling

wine4by Andrew Chalk

Russ Kane, a Texas wine blogger who has been discussing Texas wine longer than me (and has even written a book about the industry) has a deep commitment to Texas wine. He is appalled to see a few wineries sell non-Texas wine with labels rich in Texas symbology through a legal loophole called ‘For Sale In Texas Only’. He had a novel idea to reduce the use of this misleading practice.   Continue reading →

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by | August 1, 2013 · 10:57 am

Make Go Texan Wine 100% Texan

go1by Andrew Chalk

After recently going into a Dallas wine store and finding a California wine displaying the Texas Department of Agriculture’s (TDA) legally protected ‘Go Texan’ mark on the front label I proposed that the TDA raise the standards for Go Texan wines to stipulate 75% of the grapes in the bottle come from Texas. I chose 75% because that is the minimum that the Federal (not state) rules require for a wine to use a designated place of origin. Continue reading →

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by | July 29, 2013 · 9:04 am

Go Texan Is Meaningless When Applied To Wine

texan1by Andrew Chalk

Crave readers will recognize the above symbol as the distinctive, protected, mark of the Texas Department of Agriculture’s (TDA) “Go Texan” campaign. The campaign even has its own web site, GoTexan.org. According to that site, the aims of the campaign are to promote Texas agricultural products. Under “Rules and Guildlines” the Department says firmly “Maintaining the integrity of the GO TEXAN mark is the key to preserving the powerful brand positioning GO TEXAN members enjoy. These guidelines are provided to ensure proper use of the GO TEXAN mark. If you have any questions Continue reading →

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by | July 20, 2013 · 1:45 pm

Dear Whole Foods Market, Please Remove Non-Texas Wine From Your Texas Wine Display

whole foods addisonby Andrew Chalk

Walking around the new Whole Foods Market in Addison this weekend I came across a whole pallet of Texas wines. Or so it seemed. One of them was the wine below. It is the Dry Comal Creek Vineyard ‘Comal Red XI’ Red Wine. The front label points out that the winery is in New Braunfels, so you might think that this is a Texas wine. On the bottom right of the label is a star decal which says ‘featuring Texas-Style wines’. That also appears to indicate that this is a Texas wine. Continue reading →

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by | July 16, 2013 · 9:16 am

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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