Texas Wineries Roll Out New Vintage
The Gregorian calendar assures us that it’s still winter, but the Texas Hill Country is manifesting perfect spring-like days beckoning one to its’ scenic drives along the Way Out Wine Trail west of Austin through rolling green hills and spirit-lifting vistas. Though the Texas wine industry doesn’t boast an en primeur market quite yet, three award-winning wineries — Perissos, Fall Creek and Wedding Oaks — held a new vintage tasting for media and consumers this weekend. Like the wines of an en primeur market, however, these wineries boast some nice standouts with super boutique limited production selections.
Taste of Time, Place and Passion in Every Bottle
Growing wine grapes and producing wines of this quality takes skill, passion and unwavering perseverance in Texas. Grape growers and winemakers here have worked hand-in-hand under some of the most challenging conditions to build a $2.2 billion industry. Sergio Cuadra, Fall Creek Vineyards Director of Winemaking, pointed out that the unforgiving Texas weather may reduce a harvest down to 24 to 36 hours, while elsewhere in the world, the harvest can span up to 10 days. Though it’s not just what Mother Nature can dish out that can undermine their forward progress, but also man-caused repercussions including harmful agricultural practices, apathetic legislators representing agricultural areas with big league GMO crops, adversarial trade associations and their lobbyists and unsympathetic bureaucratic agencies.
This Roll Out the Barrel Tour organized by Matt McGinnis, Pen & Tell Us Marketing of Austin, allowed us some samples straight from the barrels and some just bottled, but not yet released. With that being said, many of these wines were much like a young teenager, as Wedding Oaks winemaker Penny Adams illustrated …
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