The conventional wisdom is that European-style wine grapes like cabernet savignon and merlot, called vinifera, can't be grown in East Texas. The climate is too humid, for one, and the area is a prime breeding ground for Pierce's Disease, which is about as bad as grape diseases get.
So what is Kiepersol Estates, located south of Tyler, doing in East Texas? And how does it manage to make some of the state's top wines?
"We still don't know the answers exactly, but we're getting the right outcome," says Pierre de Wet, a South African who immigrated to the U.S. in 1984, planted grapes in 1998, and produced its first vintage in 2001. "It has been a lot of trial and error."
More, after the jump:




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