When You're Young, They Assume You Know Nothing, And They're Probably Right.
One of the most consistent questions I’ve received during my time in the wine industry was how are the wines from Texas?
And for the longest time, I would respond with a polite answer of not great but they’re certainly trying and then I’d quickly change the topic. This was mainly because I didn't know much about Texas wine. It certainly had a stigma of mediocre quality but I hadn't had enough Texas wine to speak with any sort of authority. To be honest, that didn’t sit well with me. As a native Texan, I’m proud of my state and having studied wine for many years, I knew there was potential to make great wine, it just required the right set of circumstances. So I started tasting the Texas wines that were available at the time. Most were serviceable at best, varietally true wines with stereotypical labels containing some variation of a cowboy or a truck or a star with an outline of the state.
After tasting my share of mediocre Texas Chards and Cabs, one thing became clear. The standard answers to winemaking questions were simply not going to work here. In order to make truly great wine, winemakers would be required to use different varietals, different trellising methods, and have a completely different mindset if they were to make the jump from mediocre to good. And later on, the leap to great.
It was in the late 2000s while managing a wine bar in Austin that I was invited to speak as an “industry expert” during a local wine festival. I guess they couldn’t find anyone else better to speak so they settled on me. (Mind you, the wine scene in Austin was still in its infancy, nothing like you’ll find today. The only master sommelier you would find wandering about was Guy Stout unlike nowadays where you can’t cross a street in Austin without bumping into half a dozen somms.) In attendance were consumers as well as wine professionals and quite a few Texas winemakers. All was going swimmingly until the very end.
During the Q&A session that was meant to wrap up the evening, the question was posed innocently enough “Is Texas even capable of making great wine?”
A tension befell upon the crowd. Somewhere in the back, a record scratched. A crowd which, as previously stated, was largely comprised of the very people making those Texas wines. Most of the speakers, who were much wiser and more deft than me, answered smartly to the effect that Texas already produces great wine, you just have to be willing to look for it. Me, being somewhat naive, well I responded exactly how I felt. Yes, Texas is capable of making great wine, it's just not being made yet. But great wine won't be made unless our winemakers are willing to radically change the status quo. You’re not going to be able to make great wines in Texas if we continue on the current path of growing and producing wines from international varietals, such as Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, that are not acclimated to the growing conditions found in Texas. Believe me, I know producing wines from those grapes is the easy way forward, those varietals are safe and popular for a reason. They’re easily identifiable by the average wine consumer, they’re relatively easy to pronounce, and they produce wines that have a flavor profile consistent, although certainly not on the same quality level, as wines from the more popular regions. In short, it takes far less effort to sell a Texas Cabernet Sauvignon that doesn’t taste great than it does to sell a well made Texas Tempranillo or Mourvèdre or Albariño or any of the other myriad of varietals that are far better suited to the Texas climate than Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.
As you can imagine, I was instantly pilloried.
After the presentation, every winemaker in attendance (or at least it seemed like every winemaker in attendance) approached me full of righteous indignation. The idea that I would even suggest their wines weren’t at least good as the wines coming out of California was completely preposterous. They challenged me on the spot to taste their bottlings and say to their faces the wines weren’t great. Uncomfortable doesn’t begin to describe the way I felt. After all, I had poo-pooed all over their life’s work. In all fairness, they had every right to be sore at me, but that didn’t make what I said any less true. That evening, I ended up tasting more Texas wine than I had at any point before and, as I previously stated, the wines were varietaly true. They tasted just like Cabernet Sauvignon is supposed to taste, no doubt about that, just not very good Cabernet Sauvignon, often the wines were overwhelmed by aromas of cooked fruit, chewy tannins, and too high in alcohol. And in my mind, I knew Texas was capable of producing far better wines than these.
As the lyrical sage John Lennon sang many years ago, Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. I continued on my path in the wine industry keeping a wary eye on the state of the Texas wine industry. During that time, I’d visit Fredericksburg and taste the latest offerings, always cognizant of which varietals were being featured and which were on the rise. Now, just over a decade since that fateful night, I think it’s pretty clear what direction the Texas wine scene has taken.
There’s still plenty of Texas Cabernet Sauvignon to be had, in fact it’s the most planted varietal in the state. However, the rise of those outlier varietals Tempranillo, Mourvèdre, and Sangiovese is undeniable. In fact, even more obscure varietals such as Alicante Bouchet, Touriga Nacional, Petite Sirah, and Cinsault are experiencing triple digit growth.
The average wine consumer has become more savvy, much more willing to try varietals they’ve never heard of before much less can pronounce, as well as styles of wine that just a couple of short years ago were familiar to only a few true wine nerds.
Pet Nat Rosé? Why not.
Fortified Skin Fermented Picpoul Blanc? Hell yeah.
And the Texas wine industry is all the better for it.
Reading this out loud makes me sound pretty full of myself, like I think I’m some kind of wine prophet. I don’t believe that at all; I just had either the courage or the stupidity to say out loud what everyone else was thinking. It’s pretty clear that the real prophets are those Texas winemakers who had the fortitude to break away from the industry norms and chart a new course. Sometimes it didn’t work out, sometimes it did. But that didn’t discourage them from trying.
It’s with that in mind that I decided to start this page. I’m searching for the stories of those brave Texas winemakers who are changing the very landscape of Texas viticulture. Hopefully by shining some light on their efforts, I can feel like I’ve done my part in helping Texas become a truly great wine growing region.
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