Video: Texas Wine Trails – Way Out Wineries, A Visit and a Taste
This week’s Texas Wine Trails episode features the Way Out Wineries, nestled between the High Plains and the Texas Hill Country. These eight small-town wineries host five road trips each year, each with a seasonal theme. In September, Way Out Wineries holds a “Tailgate” road trip celebrating legendary Texas football with Texas wines, pairing wines with a different Texas pork dish at each winery. Visit http://www.wayoutwineries.org for more info.
VintageTexas has stopped at and sampled wines from several of these way out wineries. Read more on these Texas adventures below.
Taking the Long Way Home Awaiting a Taste of Heaven
While I truly enjoy wine tasting, driving in Texas is another one of my personal passions. It can be long stretches of interstate pavement that are straight as a crow flies or tightly curving Texas back roads. These roadways yield to me experiences of my adopted state in a patchwork of colors, aromas and textures, a delight similar to the way wine plays on my palate.
On my way back to Houston from the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, I diverted to the southwest, not exactly a direct trajectory for home. The diversion was to call on the man simply known by many as Tiberia. He is the easy going, near-bohemian winemaker at his Texanic, micro-winery in Granbury, Texas. The winery is called Barking Rocks (www.barkingrockswinery.com). If you ask…Why Barking Rocks? Take a long look at the winery logo on the wine bottles that illustrates the initials of Helen Knox as found in a stone fence on the winery property and you will not have to wonder any longer. Tiberia renovated her cattle barn and it is now the Barking Rocks winery and tasting room.
More at: https://vintagetexas.com/?p=1154
A Little Bull, Country Western Honky Tonkin’ and a Glass or Two of Texas “Chardonnay” at Brennan Vineyards
During my recent sit in the Brennan Vineyards (www.brennanvineyards.com) tasting room in Comanche, Texas, while I was trying to discern the nuances between their 2008 and 2009 Viogniers, in walked a lady. She was welcomed by Trelise Brennan with a friendly enough, “Would you like to taste some wine?” The response was immediate, “OK, but actually, I’m a beer drinker but want to buy a bottle of wine for a friend hosting a party. Do you have a Chardonnay?”
Trelise mentioned that Brennan Vineyards, like a growing number of Texas wineries, does not make a Chardonnay as this varietal can be difficult to grow in Texas. However, she offered, “How about our Viognier?” The look on the other side of the tasting room bar was one of puzzlement as if to say, “What, no Chardonnay? Is this a winery or what?”
I pitched in with a comment of my own saying, “You know that Viognier is in Texas what Chardonnay is in California.” To this I added, “When you taste the wine it’ll be dry like a Chardonnay, but with a taste of white peach, a dry white peach.”
More at: https://vintagetexas.com/?p=1523
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