Texas Hill Country Wineries
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About this ebook
Russell D. Kane
Russell Kane divides his time between Houston and Fredericksburg, Texas. A technical writer whose research spans three decades and has garnered two awards for writing excellence, he has covered Texas wines and cuisine since 1998 and now blogs on the subject of Texas wine at VintageTexas.com.
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Texas Hill Country Wineries - Russell D. Kane
tell.
INTRODUCTION
The Texas hill country winery experience is a relatively new phenomenon, having evolved from a restart
of the Texas wine industry in the mid-1970s. At that time, almost simultaneously, many states began to explore growing grapes and making wine.
An event that helped to kick-start these rudimentary efforts into local winemaking is now referred to as The Judgment of Paris
; an event that took place in 1976, the nation’s bicentennial. The Judgment,
as it is often called by wine aficionados, refers to a wine competition held in Paris by Steven Spurrier, a wine merchant and bon vivant. In this competition, wines from fledgling California vintners won a miraculous victory (as judged by the French themselves) over wines from many of their top-ranked chateaux of Bordeaux and Burgundy. As a result of this milestone event, there was a wave of optimism in states all around America, leading many to try their hand at local winegrowing and winemaking.
Creating a respectable new wine region is no small task; California has been at it for over 100 years, and Europe has had centuries to do so. It requires learning about the adaptability of grapevines to new locales, with different soil and weather conditions, while also expanding knowledge of new viticultural practices to handle the plethora of local diseases and disorders that can afflict grapevines. Such efforts proved more difficult than many had anticipated, with results better in some states than in others. The Finger Lakes region of New York, Columbia Valley in Washington, and Willamette Valley in Oregon achieved success in the 1980s and 1990s.
Luckily, Texas has a long farming legacy, a deep-seeded pioneering spirit, and a tradition of agricultural grit and determination. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Texas winegrowing renaissance focused on efforts to use the same grape varieties common in France and California: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot. With some noteworthy successes, it would take Texas another 20 years to ultimately realize that it was not Napa or Bordeaux, and that it was sure as heck not Burgundy. It had to find grape varietals native to a Mediterranean climate more closely resembling that of Texas. These included grape varieties such as Viognier, Roussanne, Vermentino, and Trebbiano for making white wines, and Tempranillo, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Sangiovese, Dolcetto, Aglianico, and more to use in its reds. All of these grapes have one thing in common: a love of Texas’s hot weather, sunny skies, and sandy, limestone-encrusted soils.
The Texas hill country is an uplifted portion of central Texas defined by arid, hilly landscape and picturesque limestone ledges. It is a region where elements of great vistas and tourism combine with winemaking and culinary diversity. By the late-2000s, to the surprise of many that envisioned Texas as only a bourbon and beer state, the Texas hill country emerged as a leading wine and culinary travel destination that could compete on a global scale.
In 2007, Orbitz Food & Wine Index of the United States
conducted a survey of hotel, flight, and travel package bookings. From 2005 to 2007, it was no surprise that the survey showed that California’s Napa Valley was the fastest-growing destination. However, the survey also showed that the American region ranked second fastest in growth in that time was a relatively unknown newcomer: the Texas hill country. It identified this region as encompassing the areas of central Texas around Fredericksburg, Dripping Springs, and Marble Falls.
Fueling both the winery activity in central Texas and the overall Texas wine experience have been the impressive gains in grape growing and winemaking statewide. Current statistics indicate that Texas is now in a neck-and-neck battle with Virginia for the number five spot in wine production among American states, behind the well-known top four states of California, Washington, New York, and Oregon. Texas is the seventh-ranked state in the cultivation of wine grapes and fourth nationally in wine consumption, looking seriously at the number three slot.
In April 2014, the Texas hill country turned heads in the wine world when Wine Enthusiast magazine placed the region on its annual top-10 list of must-see
wine country destinations. The hill country was among trendy emerging wine regions such as Greece and Baja, Mexico, and more well-established and acknowledged wine regions such as Sonoma County, California, Mendoza in Argentina, and Barossa Valley in Australia.
But, how does Texas hill country wine stack up in quality against wines from key wine-producing regions?