A Strong Texas Brand No sooner did I arrive at the winery than a barrage of words shot in my direction without any encouragement or provocation from my side. “I’ve been doing this for far too long . . . I get rocks thrown at me. Why? I guess that I just don’t play nice […]
Tag Archives: drink local
Sun on the Skins
Sun on the Skins This high, flat plain [around Lubbock] didn’t exactly conjure up the image of wine country to me. The scenery was dominated by shades of burnt red below and indigo above. At the conjunction of these two domains, lean and well-drained soil combines with intense high-altitude sun, a little water, and copious […]
Blood, Sweat and Tears
Blood, Sweat and Tears Bobby Cox is a larger-than-life character both in stature and reputation among grape growers and winemakers. He’s something like a Texas version of Paul Bunyan, and Neal Newsom’s large blue grape harvester parked beside him appeared as the mechanical equivalent of Bunyan’s large blue ox, Babe. While Bunyan was a legendary […]
Deep Roots in Texas
Deep Roots in Texas Looking out from the road, the isolation in this part of Texas provides little to identify the era. It could be the present day, or just as likely the countryside of the nineteenth century when Frencesco Quaglia and his Italian immigrant countrymen scouted this area. As I slipped into Del Rio […]
Chihuahuan Love
Chihuahuan Love My stop on this trip, over a hundred miles to the east [of El Paso, TX], a mere stone’s throw in Texas terms, was Dell City and the Mont Sec Vineyard nearby. This vineyard, first planted over two decades ago and now consisting of over two hundred acres of wine grapes, constitutes the […]
A Sip with the Good Friar
A Sip with the Good Friar “When we entered the region, we saw grapes growing wild along the rivers of Tejas and they looked like I imagined they did for hundreds of years. The vines were thick, hanging from the trees on the river banks, and sometimes covered rocks and ledges.” This is how Father […]
Limestone Ledges and Red Sandy Soils
Limestone Ledges and Red Sandy Soils The spring sun warmed my face as I gazed out over freshly greened prominences to the north from a perch high on an eastward-pointing finger of the Edwards Plateau: my personal piece of the Texas Hill Country. I sat there wondering how and where did the Texas wine experience […]
A Wineslinger is Born
A Wineslinger is Born One evening, I wrote about this seemingly odd comparison between Texas and southern Australia. Most wine aficionados know the Coonawarra (also known by its terra rossa, or red earth) as the most sought-after vineyard soil in Australia. It too covers bedrock of porous limestone, assisting good drainage but offering summer moisture […]
Curious About Texas Wines?
Curious About Texas Wines? It’s time to to read The Wineslinger Chronicles: Texas on the Vine Congratulations. If you picked up this book [or clicked on to this website], you’ve already demonstrated a keen awareness for the sleeping juggernaut that is Texas wine. Perhaps you’re curious about Texas’s current role in the wine industry, or […]
