Writer Russ Kane of VintageTexas under Contract with Texas Tech University Press
Contributions and experiences sought that highlight the Texas new wine country scene and its history
NEWS RELEASE: December 18, 2009 – Writer, blogger and wine aficionado, Russ Kane of Vintage Texas announced this week that he was now under contract with Texas Tech University Press (www.ttup.ttu.edu) to develop a manuscript on wines and grape growing in Texas. The manuscript is due for completion in late 2010.
The working title of the manuscript is “Texas Terroir: A New Wine Country Experience. According to Dr. Kane, “ I plan for the story to be a personal narrative about my travels, interviews and personal reflections on the wine revolution in Texas as told through the perspective of Texas’s extraordinary history, grand horizons and fascinating people.”
The story will explore the many facets of Texas Terroir. Terroir (not to be confused with “Terror”) is the French word often used to describe the “sense of place” of a wine characterized by its soil, geography and climate. In the case of Texas, terroir has an added dose of culture, cuisine and human experience forged on a foundation of limestone ledges and sandy soil similar to what many regard highly in major wine producing regions around the world. However, in Texas, it is also overlaid on a history of Spanish missionary life and its sacramental wine, frontier conflicts of territorial independence, statehood and secession, brutal Comanche battles and lingering effects of temperance and prohibition that could not eradicate the Texas destiny as a major wine producing region.
Kane continued by saying, “Just about three decades ago the long hard scrabble in Texas birthed a new wine country experience in Texas conceived of grit and gumption; basically, the Texas can-do attitude. Today, Texas is the fifth largest wine producing state in the USA and poised for rapid growth, but it is still inconspicuous to most people and has major challenges to address.” Kane’s story portrays Texas as a whole other kind of wine country, a unique fusion-experience to behold, complete with its iconic contributors, internationally award winning wines, a winery with a hitching post, tales of lost Spanish mines, a time machine, ethereal tastings with a long departed Catholic friar and a French pirate, and tasting room encounters with interesting people and a talking dog.
For examples of his writing, please go to www.vintagetexas.com/blog a site that has been his writing workshop for the past year that brought him the 2009 TWGGA Press Award. Dr. Kane acknowledges that the site has been extremely busy and must continue in parallel with the book project. The VintageTexas blog currently has traffic of about a 1,000 visitors per day and over 65,000 page views per month, and was recently listed in the top 100 wine blogs.
Dr. Kane already has about 30 percent of the manuscript content. However, if you have any reflections to relate or interesting history, personal stories, interviews, graphics or photographs that might contribute to Dr. Kane’s effort, please contact him at 713-454-9400 or by email at: russ@vintagetexas.com. All contributions will be acknowledged.
Huge Texas sized congrats!