Austin Food & Wine Fest Sunday, April 29th – What a Texas Wine Panel! A Gold Medal Line Up

May 012012

Austin Food & Wine Fest Sunday, April 29^th – What a Texas Wine Panel! A Gold Medal Line Up

I’ll admit, when I was asked to assemble a Texas wine panel for the Austin Food & Wine Festival, I had my doubts. Texas wines did not exactly draw the top time slot – ours was 11 am on Sunday morning. But, with the help of top rated Austin-based Sommeliers June Rodil, Craig Collins MS and Devon Broglie MS we quickly came up with a list of wines (mostly based on our personal experience and list of faves) that we thought were top rate, national-quality Texas wines. In fact, most had just received gold medals at the recent Dallas Morning News Texsom International Wine Competition.

But then, having been in conversation with Ray Isle, Food & Wine Magazine’s Executive Wine Editor, on my book, The Wineslinger Chronicles, I slipped him the question about being on our Texas wine panel. Graciously, Ray accepted and we were off the races with gold medal winning Texas wines and a “gold medal” panel of wine specialists.

I also have to admit that most people who attended the Texas wine tasting panel probably didn’t know much about the wines we selected. Gold Medal winners from the recent Dallas Morning News / Texsom International Wine Competition. The list included:

Duchman Family Winery Vermentino (Bingham Vineyards – Texas High Plains) 2010
McPherson Cellars Roussanne Reserve (Bingham Vineyards – Texas High Plains) 2010
Pedernales Cellars Tempranillo (Texas) 2009
Kiepersol Estates Stainless (No Oak Syrah) 2010
Sandstone Cellars VII (Touriga Nacional – Mason County Texas) 2009
Haak Vineyards Madeira (Blanc Du Bois – Texas) 2008

Vermentino and Roussanne are white grapes that came to Texas from the coastal areas of Italy and the French Rhone Valley, respectively. The red grapes, Tempranillo, Syrah and Touriga Nacional come from Spain, southern France and Portugal. The ringer in the bunch was Blanc Du Bois, which is Texas’s own wine grape. While developed in Florida for hot humid regions, more of it is grown here than anywhere else in the modern wine world. For more on the new lexicon of Texas wine, click here.

The rest is history with over 100 attendees participating in Sunday’s Texas wine panel. There wasn’t a spare seat left in the tent. The reviews….well, it’s always best to get them directly from the source. See what people had to say of Texas wines (see below). Also, click here (TEXAS WINE FACTS – FINAL 4-23-2012) for a copy of the Texas Wine Fact Sheet I made for the attendees.

Jess Mitchell – Attention turns to wine on last day of food fest (Video)

http://austin.ynn.com/content/local_news/284461/attention-turns-to-wine-on-last-day-of-food-fest

Matt McGinnis – Austin Culture Map

http://austin.culturemap.com/newsdetail/04-30-12-10-07-are-texas-wines-for-real/

Jessica DuPuy – Texas Monthly Eat My Words

http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/eatmywords/?p=6537&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Jeremy Parzen – HoustonPress Eating Our Words

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2012/04/ray_isle_texas_food_wine_magaz.php

The consensus: Texas wines ARE for real!