The Wine Curmudgeon

2013 Colorado Governor's Cup/AWS Competition

This year has been nothing short of a revelation for regional wine. First, there was the stunning quality of wines from the other 47 states in The Dallas Morning News and TexSom competition. Then, there was Maryland’s winning effort at this year’s Drink Local Wine conference.

Last weekend, there was Colorado’s exceptional performance at the annual Governor’s Cup. I tasted 100 wines, and almost none of them, to paraphrase one of the judges, was a drain dumper. It was easily the best showing from Colorado in the decade or so I have judged its wines.

The official results won’t be released for a month or so, so I don’t know the names of the winning wines (though I will update later). But there were still many highlights, which come after the jump:

DLW13: What's next for local wine?

The best news from Drink Local Wine’s fifth annual conference over weekend in Baltimore is that the local wine movement is, finally, about more than wine geeks. It’s about local, and that’s as it should be.

One of the things that always flummoxed us during DLW’s early years was the antipathy that local food people felt for local wine. I’ll never forget the phone conversation I had with a prominent Missouri food blogger when I invited her to the 2011 event in St. Louis. I could almost see her turn her nose up: “Why would I want to drink Missouri wine?”

More, after the jump:

Texas wine -- 10 years after (part II)

This is the second of two parts looking at where Texas wine has been, where it is, and where it’s going. Part I, which discussed the most important changes in Texas wine over the past decade, ran April 12. Today, some of the best wines I tasted during my trip to Fredricksburg.

Much has changed in the Hill Country wine business over the past decade that little has to do with the quality of the wine. The tasting rooms are more modern, more California in style and quite sophisticated; gone is the old “Mom and Pop, welcome to our dining room and have some wine” feel that was so common then.

Also new: tasting fees, which were unheard of a decade ago. Because, frankly, no one would have paid them. Consumers are also willing to pay top dollar for Texas wine. Few of the wines in the eight wineries I visited cost less than $20, but given the crowds, no one seemed to mind.

What I liked, after the jump:

Texas wine -- 10 years after (part I)

This is the first of two parts looking at where Texas wine has been, where it is, and where it’s going. Part II, detailing some of the best wines I tasted during my trip to the Hill Country, ran on April 15.

In the first years of this century, there were fewer than 100 wineries in Texas, and I knew almost everyone in the Texas wine business. Today, there are almost 300 wineries, and not only don’t I know them, but they don’t know me.

That growth is a function of two things: First, more favorable state regulation, which no longer treats a Texas winery as the work of the devil. Second, the increasing influence of all things local, and especially the local wine and food movements, which has helped to create an increasingly viable market for Texas wine.

Nothing demonstrates this better than Texas wine on restaurant wine lists. When I started going to the Hill Country in the early 1990s, it was almost impossible to find Texas wine in restaurants, and I annoyed more than one employee by asking why they didn't have Texas wine. This time, there was Texas wine on every list (including a brewpub), and the Cabernet Grill only has Texas wine.

In addition, the locals have made a commitment to Texas wine that didn't exist before. Ernie Loeffler, the director of the Fredericksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau, is knowledgeable about the local wine business, and sees it as a crucial part of the region's identity. Five wine country tour buses check in at his office every Saturday, and the percentage of visitors who say wine is why they're in town has tripled.

Even better, the quality of Texas wine was markedly improved. There was very little difference between the best Texas wines (at any price) and wines from the rest of the world. This does not mean that the state has solved all of its wine problems, and there is still too much poorly made and indifferent wine. But the changes have mostly been for the better, and there is no reason to believe that things won’t keep improving.

More, after the jump:

Drink Local Wine, regional wine, and the growth of local

This week, the second most important wine writer in the world wrote about what she called the 50 states of wine: “But the exciting thing is that the proportion of good to very good wine made somewhere other than on the Pacific coast has been increasing markedly recently.”

And then Jancis Robinson mentioned Drink Local Wine. Even the Wine Curmudgeon had to smile. More, after the jump:

Wine of the week: Brennan Vineyards Buffalo Roam 2010

One of the greatest wines in the history of Texas was the 2006 Brennan syrah (and the 2007 wasn’t bad, either). I have waxed poetic about both, and the 2006 helped form the tweet that launched the local wine movement in 2009: “Texas wines aren’t s---.”

Unfortunately, Brennan no longer makes syrah. But it does make a red Rhone-style blend, the Buffalo Roam ($18, sample, 12.9%).

Yes, the wine isn’t $10 or $12 and availability is limited, two things I rarely do for the wine of the week. But this week, with the fifth annual Drink Local Wine conference just a couple of days away, I wanted to use this wine to show how far local wine has come – not just in Texas, but in much of the U.S.

Because there are hundreds of wines like this in the 47 states that aren’t California, Washington, and Oregon:

• It’s professionally made, without the flaws and off-flavors that were all too common in regional wine a decade ago.

• It reflects Texas terroir and a Texas style of winemaking – lower alcohol, earthy, spicy, less fruity and, above all, balanced. In this, it tastes like a Rhone-style wine that was made in Texas, not a California-style wine made with Rhone grapes that could come from anywhere, including the Rhone.

• It uses grapes suited to Texas, mourvedre and syrah, and not grapes grown in Texas because consumers have heard of them.

How impressive is this wine? So much so that I don’t even mind the name.

On the road in search of Texas wine

The Wine Curmudgeon has not done much with regional wine lately, and especially with Texas wine. Just too much going on, what with The Cheap Wine Book, a new consulting gig, keeping the blog up to date, and even some freelance magazine writing.

Which is why I’m spending next week in the Texas Hill Country on a media tour, visiting as many wineries and tasting rooms as possible. My reports will appear on the blog over the next couple of months; I want to try and put Texas wine in perspective, not only with other Texas wine, but with other regional wine – and, even, the stuff made in California.

There is no doubt that Texas wine long ago passed what the noted Texas food writer Dotty Griffith calls the Chateau Bubba stage. The quality of Texas wine has never been better, and more wine drinkers than ever know this. A Texas wine Twitter event in January was such a success that #TxWine was the site's most popular hashtag that evening – not easy to do on a social media network where the Kardashians are the top attraction. And how about a Texas wine stunning the food types at a barbecue cook-off in the Pacific Northwest earlier this year, besting wines from California, Washington, and France?

But does that mean, at all prices and for all producers, that Texas wine is ready for the big time? That’s the next challenge regional wine faces, that it can compete dollar for dollar with wine from the rest of the world. And that’s what I’ll be looking for.

One personal note: I’ve resigned as president of DrinkLocalWine, and won’t be at the Maryland conference next month. Just too much else going on to allow me to organize my fifth conference in five years. I have no doubt that the Baltimore event will be DLW’s usual smashing success, thanks to the efforts of people like Michael Wangbickler, the new president, and Richard Leahy, who is spearheading the conference.

This will be the first DLW event that I’ve missed since Dave McIntyre and I started the group almost six years ago. I’ll miss it (though not managing the bank account) – not only for the wine, but for the wonderful people I’ve met who make regional wine so much fun. But not to worry, becasue I’m still a regional wine guy, and anyone who doubts that doesn’t know the Wine Curmudgeon very well.