Drinking Local in Texas
Discovering the wines that rarely make it out of Hill Country
Posted: Dec 14, 2010 10:00am ET
I'm headed for Texas. I
don't seem to have found time for much fine dining yet, but I'm doing OK. The
mixed roasted nuts from Duane Reade are, well, crunchy. The Lumberjack's
Platter at the Rochester, N.Y., Denny's was sort of exactly what I'd expected.
Make that feared. And the gyros at Chicago O'Hare were a blast. "Thick or
thinly sliced?" the guy asked. Since I didn't actually know what a gyro was, I
said, "Oh, don't worry about slicing, I'll take it as it is." So he showed me
the gyro. "Thinly," I said, bleakly. It'll be better in Texas.
And I'm here. The driver
leaves my bags on the sidewalk, turns the engine on. I get in. Then he loads
the trunk. Welcome to the world of compulsory air-conditioning. I get to my
hotel. "Dinner finishes at seven," the front desk clerk says. "Sorry, starts at
seven?" "No, finishes." It's a different country, Texas. Can I get a glass of
wine? Sure. Is it local? Sure. Can I see the bottle? Silly me. Fred Franzia may
be a lot of things, but Texan he ain't.
Even so, I try a
mouthful of Steakhouse Beef. Juicy, tender. Where's my palate gone? That
seasoning could launch a moon shot. So I head to a bar to watch the
Yankees–Rangers game. This looks promising. Texan red. Alamos Malbec. Texan
Shmexan. Argentina clearly has an Alamo, too. I wonder whether I'm not quite
getting the hang of Texas.
I need to get out of
town. So I do. Up into the Hill Country near Austin. I'd heard how beautiful
the Hill Country was and, well, it's very nice. Hilly. Lots of stumpy oaks and
juniper trees. But it's not quite upstate New York in the fall. There are a few
wineries, although vineyards seem to be in pretty short supply.
Yet it's clearly the
wineries that matter; Texas Hill Country is the second most visited American
wine area after Napa. That does surprise me, except when the locals describe to
me the countryside spreading between San Antonio, Houston and Dallas—three of
the U.S.'s bigger cities—and I begin to realize that perhaps these gentle
rolling hills are a kind of paradise in a pretty rough land, and that a winery
trip could easily be made to seem irresistible. Suddenly, it makes sense to
hear people describing the Hill Country in terms of wine tourism, rather than
wine production.
And quite a few of the
wines do seem to be made with the quick-turnover tasting-room consumer very
much in mind. Easy to drink, soft, young, sometimes not quite dry. As Wes
Marshall, a local wine writer and my new "best buddy" drinking partner in the far
south, says: The greatest luck and curse for Texas wine is that they can sell
every drop they make. Texas wants her wines to be lauded out in the world, but
the world never sees them. They've all been drunk by Texans.
Wes starts pulling out
the bottles, and things begin to become a little clearer. Firstly, I'd heard
tell that the best Texan vineyard soil was probably in the High Plains around
Lubbock, and a lot of the wines I liked best were made from High Plains fruit.
But most of the winery addresses are down in the Hill Country near Austin.
Encouragingly the best stuff with a Lubbock address was from Llano Estacado,
whose spicy, zippy Viviana white blend and delightfully fresh unoaked Chardonnay
were top drops.
But the last few years
in the High Plains show how Texas is not natural vineyard country. Until the
resplendent 2010 vintage came along, they'd had terrible conditions up north
for five long years. One of their best vineyards had lost its crop five years in
a row—frost, hail, tornados, monsoons, the usual stuff. You need some Texan
bloody-mindedness to carry on. And some imagination.
Oz Clarke breathes in the fresh Hill Country air at Fall Creek Vineyard in Tow, Texas.
Looking at these
climatic conditions, I felt there were too many classic French varieties
planted, and not enough hardy performers from elsewhere. Then I came across a
smashing, vivacious, 2009 Vermentino from Duchman off High Plains fruit, and
listened to empassioned descriptions of a 2009 Dolcetto, and I thought, yes,
more Italian varieties would suit Texas very well—Fiano, Falanghina,
Verdicchio and Grillo for whites, Sangiovese, Barbera, Nero d'Avola amongst the
reds. And Tempranillo from Spain must have a chance here. And they might help
the search for a Texan style.
If I had to choose
French grapes that were producing really interesting stuff, I'd put Viognier up
there, though the results are more erratic than Virginia's. I think both
Cabernet Franc and Tannat have a future—perhaps Petit Verdot. And maybe some of
the less well-known Rhône varieties. Becker Vineyards already does a splendid
Provençal Mourvèdre Rosé and a nice, raspberryish Châteauneuf-du-Pape-y,
Rhône-style blend called Prairie Rôtie. In fact, Becker is probably the winery
I was most impressed by.
I wandered off into the
night with the brilliant burnt acid intensity of a Haak Madeira Jacquez 2006
stinging my gums and found a place downtown that might serve me some chow. "The
unlicensed possession of a weapon is a felony with a maximum penalty of ten
years imprisonment," the notice warned me. But then I saw the blackboard.
"Fried Chicken and Champagne? Why the hell not!" Hell, yes. Texas. A very
different place.
[Note: Jacquez is a
hybrid from the island of Madeira and is being phased out.]
I had a long layover at DFW and much to suprise, there was a Texas wine country experinence right across from my gate. Well, I saddled up to the bar and proceeded to spend about $60 in tasting fees and even bought a few bottles. I did not care of the whites but otherwise I agree with you-- the Bordeaux wines were uniformly not good but the Italian, Rhone and Spanish varietals produced a few pretty solid wines. The best wine was a Norton (Claros from Stone House Vineyards)--great tannins, acidity and an unusual minerality.