texas

We toured Texas Wine Country for a few days and here are some brief impressions from first-time visitors.

--Texas’s signature red will be Tempranillo and white will be Viognier – or not. We’re starting with this because it’s marvelously controversial. Texas is so large that many in the industry don’t think it needs or can have a signature. We’d argue that wine regions require one or two to cut through the noise: New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Malbec from Argentina, and even New Mexico sparkling wine, for instance. “You do want to be known for something,” said Patrick Connelly, general manager of highly respected Becker Vineyard...

The fellas at Austin Winery are anything but traditional winemakers. Cooper Anderson and Ross McLauchlan are navigating the wine world by following their own north star, as neither come to winemaking natively. It’s a path chosen rather than given, self taught, these gentlemen have encompassed in ten years what takes some wineries generations to obtain. Mastering first ‘conventional’ winemaking, then rolling the dice and taking a chance on a more natural, terroir driven approach. As proof by their wine portfolio, they are creating fun and interesting wines by interpreting others' winemaking styles in their own way and giving them a proper Texas twist by sourcing all their organic fruit within state lines.

They’re on their way to prestige and taking their tribe with them along the way, emboldening their team to try their own hands at creating the good juice under the Austin Winery Umbrella, with a ‘what is good for them, is good for us’ philosophy and even displaying their friend’s artwork on th...