In search of Texas Terrior, I plan to travel, taste and talk to alot of people. I will try to document the encounters with great people I meet and experiences in places where I plan to linger.
Reddy Vineyards Vijay and Subada Reddy are another story in Texas high plains determination. They came from India to the USA for Vijay’s advanced degrees in Agricultural Sciences. After Vijay received his Ph.D. in Colorado, they settled in Lubbock where Vijay opened a soils analysis laboratory. Vijay’s interest in…
It was an early morning today to get up and out on the road to visit three major Texas vineyards around the Lubbock area. The fresh high plains air and a cup of coffee got me started. On the way, a patch of eye-popping yellow sun flowers helped as well.…
High Plains Harvest Tour In a matter of just a few hours from Houston by airplane, I left behind this vast and humid urban center and stepped off a plane in Lubbock, Texas on the high plains. It is 700+ miles further to the northwest and 3500 feet higher in…
Most wine producing regions have a cool body of water on their west coast (e.g. France, Chile, California, etc). This produces a cooling effect that depresses in night time temperatures. This cooling effect is critical to moderate daytime solar heating and allows the grapes to recover and prolongs ripening. It…
A Trip to Flat Creek Estate Winery The morning was truly a wonderful Texas Hill country morning….70 degrees, clear and bone dry. I was in my car with the top open and trying to navigate for the first time with my new toy – a GPS. My starting point was…
The Flagstaff House Restaurant sits nestled on the mountain side at an elevation of 6,000 feet and was originally a cabin built in 1929. Frankly, I though that I had made a wrong turn. My Garmin kept indicating “Next Right”, but all I could see while rounding the curves…
Texas Icons – The Aulers of Fall Creek Vineyards Texas is noted for its icons (people, places and things). Its iconic people helped forge Texas into a unique spot in the Universe. This is particularly true when applied to the visionaries that fashioned Texas into the 5th largest wine producing state…
On a visit this past week to the Haak winery, my wife Delia and I had the occation to tour their expanding winery and facilities for concerts, weddings complete with an on-site kitchen and chef. My wife Delia and I tasted a selection of Haak wines with Raymond and Gladys.…
“Texas Bays are a magnificent resource, shallow and brackish and marshy-bordered and rich with life …. The flat land runs to the flat bays, and beyond the flat sandy islands is the blue flat Gulf.” – John Graves, in The Water Hustlers, 1971 The sandy Texas coastal region is…
The Judgment of Houston – 1 Rewind about thirty wine years to the mid-1970’s……France was king of wine and California was clamoring for credit. Then, on May 24, 1976, Harpers Wine and Spirit Weekly Magazine staged a double-blind tasting event that they called “The Great Cabernet Conundrum”. This competition involved…
