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Restaurant News: Bites and Bites

From the copy and paste press release department: Some fabulous things to eat and drink.

Barking Rocks News Flash. Friday night, October 16th we will be listening to Beatlegras.  They are accomplished musicians that blend Beatles music and bluegrass style in a way that Ringo would totally dig. Doors open at 7:00 for a little socializing (wine drinking) and the show will begin about 8:00. Rumor has it that Rhett is coming to sit in on a song or two. We only sell about 100 tickets so it will be very intimate.  Secure your $15 seat by dropping by the winery (preferred) or calling 817-579-0007.

Whole Foods Market/Highland Park. Match craft beer with great food. Wednesday, October 14, 2-4:00 p.m. (4100 Lomo Alto & Lemmon) Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery, author and international beer guru, will be at the store to answer all of your beer and brewing questions. Garrett will be cooking and pairing four of his brews with delicious foods as well.

Rahr and Sons Brewery and the Greyhound Adoption League of Texas.  Wrap up Greyhound Awareness Month Saturday, Oct 17 1:00-3:00pm with an afternoon beer tasting. Cost is $5 per person which includes a souvenir pint glass and 3 full beer tastings.  A portion of the proceeds benefit The Greyhound Adoption League of Texas.Click here for more information or call 972-503-GALT.  Rahr and Sons Brewery is located at 701 Galveston Avenue in Fort Worth.

Five Sixty by Wolfang Puck. New New Happy Hour Concept. “Sip and See” takes on a whole new meaning with the launch of Five Sixty by Wolfgang Puck’s happy hour on Monday, October 12.Dallas’ restaurant with a view will serve beverages and bites at happy hour prices on weekday evenings. Monday through Friday, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Five Sixty will offer a changing food menu of various “chef’s choice” items in the restaurant’s bar and lounge atop Reunion Tower. Drink offerings will include a list of five choices comprised of beer, wine and cocktails. This is a happy hour designed to keep guests smiling with each of the five tapas-sized plates and five varying drink options priced at $5.60 each.

It’s A Grind Coffee House. Fairgoers receive 10 percent off soothing tea drinks (”Soothies”) with fair ticket stub or photo of consumption of greasy goodness. To receive the discount all customers must do is show their State Fair of Texas ticket stub or a photo of them consuming deep-fried delicacies (photos will be added to the It’s A Grind Facebook page). “Soothies” are made with real fruit puree and green tea, which has been shown in studies to help aid in digestion. They are available in three flavors: Mango Mania, Strawberry Banana and Wildberry. Fairgoers can simply ride the DART rail system Green Line from the Fair Park to the Baylor Medical station (It’s A Grind’s Dallas’ location) to get their “Soothie” to help ease the pain!”

Sevy’s Scotch Club. On our beautiful covered patio, from 5:00-7:00 pm on Monday, October 19th. We will feature five great single malts with specially selected food pairings for each.  $44.95 per person, plus tax and gratuity.  Reservations required, seating is limited.  Contact Jimmy, Stefaan, or Amy M. at SevysCatering@aol.com, or 214-265-7389.

The Munson Wine Trail: Homestead Winery in Ivanhoe, Texas

I know these wine videos don’t appeal to every reader, but I have a soft spot in my heart for wine makers in Texas. Twelve years ago I found myself standing in a barn outside of McKinney with some folks from the Texas Agriculture Department and a handful of area farmers. The Agriculture Department was touring the state and encouraging farmers to consider grapes as a cash crop.  Many  “seasoned” farmers scratched their heads and snickered–they’d never heard such heresy. Most of them went back to their fields and planted whatever crop fit their comfort level. However, a few took the challenge and now successfully grow and sell grapes.

Texas has a long way to go in the grape growing business. Currently there are only about 4,000 acres dedicated  to grapes. But the farmers who have devoted themselves to the task are producing some marvelous raw product.

I say all of this because after watching  these videos produced  by Andrew Chalk, I fell for Gabe Parker of Homestead Winery in Invanhoe, Texas. I love the deft touch of his hands as they move through the grapes. I adore his Texas accent that flowers his explanation of  the ancient wine making process of fermentation taking place on the High Plains, AVA Tempranillo grapes.

Gabe slays me again when he compares and contrasts the process with his Cabernet.

The Munson Wine Trail: Homestead Winery, Making Sherry in North Texas

In the video above, Gabe Parker, owner of Homestead Winery, discusses the winery’s La Bodega de Mitchell sherry with Andrew Chalk. Below, is Chalk’s report on the sherry production at Homestead Winery.

Every now and again, you discover a really memorable wine. It usually happens when you least expect it. Such was the case on Labor Day when I decided to spend the day traveling the Munson Wine Trail and started at Homestead Winery in Ivanhoe. The visit started typically enough. We were taken through the range of Homestead wines from dry whites to, reds, to sweet wines. The surprise came right at the end when owner Gabe Parker said, “Have you tried our sherry?” That caught my attention. Outside its traditional home in Spain,  a wine labeled ‘sherry’ is usually a bad wine cut with cheap brandy to mask its ‘unsaleability’ (Ed. note: new word, Kirk.).

Gabe was insistent and thrust a glass of a pale brown liquid into my hand. It was the right color for an Oloroso sherry certainly, but that is the easiest characteristic of a wine to replicate (just play around with the Deputy Dawg  Chemistry Set for a bit). I smelled it and discovered a nutty, slightly orangey nose of genuine Oloroso sherry. One sip and the caramel and earthy flavors of sherry wrapped in complex patterns around my tongue. There is a hint in the nose and the mouth of the spirit used in fortification. This wine is definitely sweet, but not cloying. How can they do this, I wonder, without the sine qua non of sherry production, the solera? (more…)

Benjamin Calais of Calais Winery in Dallas Talks About Wine

In this video Benjamin Calais, owner/winemaker of Calais Winery, talks with Andrew Chalk about the challenges of making wine in Texas.

Grapefest 2009

The 23rd Annual Grapevine Grapefest starts next week.  September 17-20 Historic Downtown Grapevine will welcome wine aficionados and novices alike to sample Texas wine, food, music and crafts in one of the largest wine festivals in the country. 

Families are welcome to enjoy activities such as the annual GrapeStomp,  a special kids only zone, live music on six stages and mini excursions on the Grapevine Vintage Railroad. 

Big kids, like me, will enjoy the Buick People’s Choice Wine Tasting Classic, featuring Texas wine favorites voted on by participants in the largest consumer judged wine competition.  Three pavilions will showcase the wine, two pouring wine from around the state, one dedicated specifically to Grapevine wine, and I am looking forward to purple feet from the GrapeStomp competition.  The culinary agenda is packed with demonstrations from some of Dallas’ favorite chefs, including Joanne Bondy, Brian Olenjack, Katie Natale, Paula Lambert and Royal Chef, Darren McGrady.

Chalk Talk: The Dallas Wine Trail. Full Report and Extensive Tasting Notes

Welcome to our first edition of Chalk Talk featuring Andrew Chalk. Andrew is a food and wine loving SideDish reader who has taken time out of his busy schedule to send in extensive reports of his experiences around Dallas. Last weekend, he hit the Dallas Wine Trail. Below are his recollections of the day-long event followed by his totally geeky, but insightful, tasting notes. And now, here’s Andrew:

Want to visit the wine country but out of NetJets units? Or don’t want to bear the cost of getting the G50 out of mothballs in the Arizona desert? Easy. Tour the wine country in Dallas where there are now four commercial wineries that have banded together in a joint promotion called the Dallas Wine Trail. The idea is that you travel from one winery to the other, taste three wines at each, talk to the winemakers, and tour the winemaking facilities. For $39 you get the tasting, light food at each location, a souvenir glass and a bottle of one of the wineries wines to take home.

First stop was throbbing downtown Lakewood to visit Times Ten Cellars. This winery sells almost entirely California wine. However, a new development is the coming on stream of their own Texas vineyard “Cathedral Mountain Vineyard” in Alpine Texas (that is so far away it’s closer to Chihuahua than Dallas). It is planted to what appears to be a risk-aversion strategy: Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc reflect Bordeaux. Syrah and Grenache reflect the Rhone region of France and Tempranillo reflects Spain. We tasted the first vintage from Central Mountain Vineyard which includes all of these grapes (see tasting notes below the jump). The food consisted of sandwich rolls filled with either tuna salad or ham. Pretty tasty.

Next stop was at Calais Winery in the neutron bomb test zone known as Deep Ellum. This is the newest of the four wineries on the tour having been formed by Frenchman Benjamin Calais, with exquisite timing, just prior to the economic crash of 2008. To date, all of their wines have been made with California fruit shipped under dry ice for fermentation and aged at their winery in Dallas. However, change is afoot. On the day of the tour, he and his wife had got back barely 24 hours earlier from Newsom Vineyards in Plains, West Texas having spent 48 hours, virtually without sleep, hand picking and crushing fruit left on the vines after mechanical harvesting was completed. Newsom Vineyards is the source of most of the top-ranked Tempranillo wines from the state and Calais and his wife had to go through this hand-picking ordeal because there is a queue of some 50 wineries ahead of him for the fruit. He told me how he had planned to make a Rosé like the Tempranillo Rosados from Spain but gave up when he saw the color of Texas fruit immediately after crushing. The pigmentation was so dark he realized he would be making an inky red monster whatever his best-laid plans. The food match was Scardello’s cheeses although I had to leave before any serious sampling so I just grabbed a slice of the Empire Bakery bread.

The third stop was FUQUA Winery. This winery is focused mainly on California fruit and all three wines we tasted were majority California wine. The food here was the most varied of anywhere on the tour. Rex’s Fresh Seafood provided shrimp paste on crackers that tasted truly shrimpy but unfortunately had some chili’s in that made them incompatible with the wine. Kathleen’s Sky Diner (neé Kathleen’s Art Café) provided half a dozen toppings for bruschetta, an organic meat producer from Oklahoma provided succulent mouth-sized portions of various cuts of beef and Paula Lambert, representing her own firm, Mozzarella Company, served six cheeses including three very worthy chevres.

The final stop was Inwood Estate Vineyards. Here the emphasis is certainly not on ambience. Inwood Estate Vineyards produces wine exclusively from Texas fruit. The winery has a separate label, xxx, for its non-Texas wines. For the tour, they pulled out all the stops, serving their latest flagship offerings of Tempranillo-Cabernet blends, Tempranillo and the limited release ‘Magellan’, a blend of the five Bordeaux varieties and Tempranillo.

Perhaps it was a cult following, perhaps just because it was later in the day, but Inwood Estates was packed. The food had suffered. Maybe it had started as a hors d’oeuvres plate but by now it resembled a grainy movie of 1945 Dresden, with red specks. I passed.
The next Dallas Wine Trail will be publicized here on SideDish. I highly recommend it if you can take part.

Until then, jump for my geeky tasting notes. (more…)

Explore the Dallas Wine Trail Saturday

The four local wineries in Dallas collaborate for the second Dallas Wine Trail event Saturday, Sept 5th.  This one features a visit to the wineries including Fuqua Winery, Times Ten Cellars, Inwood Estates Vineyard and Calais Winery.
This in from Lee Fuqua:

Grand Tasting Part Deux
Explore the Dallas Wineries on Labor Day Weekend
Saturday September 5, 2009
11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Be a pioneer as this is a true wine trail.All the Dallas wineries are about a 15 minute drive from each other.They are all between Mockingbird and downtown Dallas.

Find your way to each winery where your admission price will include:
3 tastings at each of the 4 wineries a crystal “Dallas Wine Trail” wine glass to use and keep light food at each winery and  a bottle of premium wine to take home. All for only $39 in advance or $45 at the door, if any tickets are left available.Tickets available here.

2009 Texas Sommelier Conference in Dallas: To The Trade Program

Greetings from the Grand Sabine Ballroom at the Four Seasons Resort & Club in Las Colinas. Andrew Chalk and I are here to cover the 5th Annual Texas Sommelier Conference (TexSom) “To The Trade” segment of the conference. Yesterday, approximately 200 wine lovers showed up for tastings and lectures on Pinot Noir, Sake, Austrian wines, Rioja, and wines from Northern Rhone.

As we were sipping and learning, a group of 21 wine professionals were behind the scenes in other banquet room taking tests and competing for the Texas’ Best Sommelier contest. The winner will be announced tonight at the Grand Tasting.

“Management of a Beverage Program” starts in a little while and will be followed by seminars on “Aperitifs”,  “Cool Climate Australia”, Texas Wine”, and Napa Valley (Floor vs Hill Side). If you have any questions for any of the speakers, send me an e-mail. Otherwise, there is always Twitter (DSideDish) if you need immediate gratification.

2009 Texas Sommelier Conference in Dallas: Opening Night

Master Sommeliers Drew Hendricks and James Tidwell like beer.

Last night the 5th Annual Texas Sommelier Conference (TexSom)  kicked off at the Four Seasons Resort & Club in Las Colinas. Master Sommeliers Drew Hendricks, James Tidwell, and Guy Stout, the chief organizers, welcomed 21 other Master Sommeliers to the conference by putting them in a bus and taking them to Southfork for a barbecue. I was invited to join them and I must say I felt like I was crashing a very private party. These sommeliers and their wine industry friends are a refreshingly tight group and were obviously happy to be back in each others’ company. The Texas Sommelier Association has provided an effective association for wine people to promote professional wine service standards, outline paths for wine education, and to raise public awareness about what sommeliers do. In their spare time, they are party animals. Check out the photos from last night.

2009 GO TEXAN Drinklocalwine.com Conference in Dallas: Twitter Taste-Off Winners

Wine writers, professional “whiners,” bloggers, and wine makers participated in a Twitter Taste-Off at the 2009 GO TEXAN Drinklocalwine.com Conference in Dallas. It was crazy. Check out my photo album here. If you want to experience the Twitter madness, go to Twitter and type in “DLW09.”  Forty five local wines from 23 wineries competed. Jump for the winners. (more…)

2009 GO TEXAN DrinkLocalWine.com Conference in Dallas: Tasting Notes

Andrew Chalk attended yesterday’s Twitter Taste-Off of Texas wins. He reports his favorites:

The GO TEXAN DrinkLocalWine.com conference in Dallas this weekend featured a tasting of 45 Texas wines. All were 100% Texas fruit. The range incorporated over 20 grape varieties in styles that ranged from very sweet to bone dry. Here are my personal favorites. The scores are mine as well. (more…)

GO TEXAN Drinklocalwine.com Conference in Dallas: When is Texas Wine Really Texas Wine?

Andrew Chalk is with me at Drinklocalwine.com. Below is his first report from the conference that took place on Saturday. It’s an interesting topic that needs to be simplified not only for consumers but for “professionals” in the wine business. Let’s rumble.

The web site www.DrinkLocalWine.org exhorts consumers to drink local wine. This weekend the organization held its first annual conference and it happened to be here in Dallas with an emphasis on Texas wine.

However, it can be hard to recognize local wine. If you are at the liquor store and pick up a bottle of wine with the name of a Texas winery on the label the connection with Texas may be almost non-existent. It may actually come from grapes that were not grown in Texas. It may be fermented outside Texas. It may be aged outside Texas. In fact it may even have been labeled outside Texas. In other words, a completely finished wine is imported into Texas and the label says the name of a Texas winery. But none of the viticulture or viniculture had anything to do with Texas. How is the consumer to know where the grapes came from and where the wine was made? (more…)

2009 GO TEXAN Drinklocalwine.com Conference: Opening Night Dinner

Last night, I joined around 50 grape groupies from all over the country for the kick off dinner for the first GO TEXAN Drinklocalwine.com conference. The event, which continues all day today, will focus on Texas wine and feature some of the state’s best wines, top winemakers, and leading growers. Click here for a slide show of pictures of last night’s dinner and Texas wine pairings at Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts in Dallas. Those kids can freakin’ cook. Check back, we’ll be reporting all day or follow us on Twitter. (DSideDish)

Texas Wine Trail Harvest Adventures

Nancy posted the great Texas wine events happening this month last week in her Texas Wine Events post.  If you want to furter the excitement, and hit the trail try the following ideas sent over from GO TEXAN wine today.  Check out the various trails around the state for a little harvest get away this month.

With annual grape harvest celebrations kicking off around most of the state in August and September, many Texans are planning their next Texas wine trail tour. The Texas Department of Agriculture is making it easier for wine enthusiasts to plan the perfect wine weekend with its new Texas Wine Trail page (www.gotexanwine.org/texaswinetrails/) on the popular GO TEXAN wine Web site (www.gotexanwine.org) .

“Texas is one of the fastest-growing wine destinations in the country,” Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said. “The Texas wine industry and our Texas wine trails are an important part of our state’s agriculture tourism and economic health. Nearly 1 million visitors each year enjoy discovering the Texas wine industry.”

The Texas Wine Trail page provides a list of the Lone Star State’s eight individual wine trails, and with just one click, consumers can visit each trail’s Web page to find trail descriptions, maps, upcoming events and other related links.

Texas is home to eight wine trails:
-Cross Timbers Wine Trail: www.crosstimberswinetrail.com
-Dallas Wine Trail: www.dallaswinetrail.com
-Fredericksburg Wine Road 290: www.wineroad290.com
-Grapevine Wine Trail: www.grapevinewinetrail.com
-Munson Wine Trail: www.munsonwinetrail.com
-Texas Bluebonnet Wine Trail: www.texasbluebonnetwinetrail.com
-Texas Hill Country Wine Trail: www.texaswinetrail.com
-Way Out Wineries Road Trips: www.wayoutwineries.org

Picking Grapes At Kiepersol Winery In Bullard, Texas

See those grapes to the left? Today, they will be mine. Our staff photographer, Elizabeth “Spider Monkey” Lavin and I are out in East Texas doing a feature on Kiepersol Winery. It’s harvest time and today, while Spider Monkey is taking pictures, I will be harvesting grapes. Twitter reports (DSideDish) to follow.

Texas Wine Events In Dallas: August Is Going To Be Fun

Texas has 177 wineries and 280 commercial vineyards. The folks behind GO TEXAN want to discuss them all. Hence, the GO TEXAN DrinkLocalWine.com Conference 2009, set for Aug. 14 & 15 at Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts Dallas. Plan to hang with local wine writers, food bloggers, columnists, sommeliers, producers, and growers.

The conference will include three seminars, focusing on trends in Texas wine, the distinctive grapes that Texans are using to make those wines, and how consumers can work to get more regional wines in stores and restaurants. The final event of the day will be a Texas Twitter Tasting, moderated by Russ Kane of Vintage Texas, where participants will “be able to taste some of the state’s top wines and blog or Twitter at the same time.” Full schedule here.

Then on Sunday and Monday, August 16 and 17th, the Wine & Food Foundation of Texas and the Texas Sommelier Association will host the Annual Texas Sommelier Conference (TexSom), at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Colinas.

The general public is invited to attend five classes on Sunday, August 16th and the grand tasting on Monday evening, August 17 where wine professionals and the public meet to taste world-class wines and witness the  announcement of Texas’ Best Sommelier 2009.

Each class offers at least six wines to taste and lasts one hour and fifteen minutes. Courses open to the public include: Pinot Noir, Sake, Austria, Rioja, and Northern Rhone.

Speakers include some of the nation’s top wine professionals: Master Sommeliers (MS), Certified Wine Educators, one Master of Wine (MW) and other respected wine educators.

A separate set of courses, designed exclusively for the trade and media, are offered on Monday. Click here to register for both the public and trade sessions.

Jump for schedule and more details. (more…)

Canary Cafe in Dallas To Close For a Few Days

Here is a song I’m hearing from many local chefs–they are touring Texs wineries. The lastest from Chef Gorji of Canary Cafe. He is closing the restuarant on July 3 & 4 to “research and select “Mediterranean Style” wines that compliment Canary’s menus and in preparation for our Texas Wine Pairing later in the month. We will reopen on July 7th and start our sixth year anniversary celebrations.” Never a dull moment around here.

Dallas’ Fuqua Winery Wins Gold

I just received a note from Lee Foster Fuqua on a big win for his Fuqua 2006 Tempranillo, (which also won at this year’s Dallas Morning News Wine Competition.)

The San Francisco International Wine Competition, the largest, most influential international wine competition in America, is judged by a prestigious panel of nationally recognized wine experts.  The 2009 competition has just been completed and our FUQUA 2006 Tempranillo won a DOUBLE GOLD Medal.

“This is really a big deal for us” said Lee Fuqua.  “Not many people ever win a Double Gold Medal.”  Gold medals are hard to come by.  Getting several panel members to agree to award a particular wine is difficult.  On those rare occasions when all five wine experts at the table judges a wine to be worthy of a gold medal, the wine is distinguished as a “Double Gold Medal” winner and is tossed into the “Best of Show” Sweepstakes award. 

Congrats Lee and Julia!!

The FUQUA Winery Tasting Room is open Saturday from 12:00 noon until 7:00 p.m. and Sunday from 12:00 noon until 5:00 p.m.  Tastings are free.  The Tempranillo is priced at $27.95 a bottle.  I am also a huge fan of their Unoaked Chardonnay.

Inwood Estates Vineyard & Winery Featured Tasting Saturday at Whole Foods Lakewood

Owner/Wine Maker Dan Gatlin of Inwood Estates Vineyards and Winery, located just outside of downtown Dallas, will be at the new Whole Foods in Lakewood tomorrow , June 20th, for a tasting and bottle signing event from Noon-3pm. Inwood Estates is known for making award winning Spanish style wine, including a white blend made with the Spanish Palomino grape, along with their flagship wine, a Tempranillo-Cabernet Sauvignon blend.   It’s an ideal opportunity to support one of our local wineries, and pick up a last minute gift for Dad.

26th Annual Lone Star International Wine Competition: Report from James Tidwell

Master Sommelier James Tidwell from Cafe on the Green at The Four Seasons in Las Colinas files this report:

This past Monday and Tuesday (June 8 & 9), 23 other Texans and I judged over 500 wines during the 26th Annual Lone Star International Wine Competition. I’m probably going to hear “It’s a tough job, but….” However, the sober and serious judges consisted of sommeliers (Paul Botamer of Fearing’s, Michael Flynn of Mansion on Turtle Creek, Hunter Hammett of Pyramid Restaurant, and Luigi Santos of Bob’s Steak and Chop House in Grapevine), restaurant owners, retailers, wine distributors and a number of wine writers and bloggers (Alfonso Cevola, Jeff Siegel, Renie Steves and Russ Kane), under the direction of Co-Chairs Barbara Werley MS of Pappas Bros. Steakhouse and Michael Zerbach. The wines were divided into over 30 categories and tasted blind. No, we weren’t wearing blindfolds. We were given anywhere from three to 12 glasses at a time with no knowledge of what we were tasting except the grape variety and vintage of the wines. Then, each panel of five judges would vote on whether each wine rated a gold, silver, bronze or no medal. Arguments insued, fisticuffs were avoided. At the end, 26 gold, 81 silver, and 172 bronze medals were awarded to wines from 14 states and several foreign countries. In addition, we voted for the Texas Rising Star Award which recognizes a white and a red wine from Texas wineries less than three years old. I would love to tell you the winners, but you’ll have to await the official announcement from the Texas Wine and Grapegrowers Association on June 19th. I will tell you that I learned one important lesson…Texas is producing some delicious wines. So, GO TEXAN.

Nice work TWGGA. Looking forward to the Drink Local Wine Conference in Dallas on August 15th.

UPDATE: Results were released late this afternoon. New this year was a category for Texas wineries that have been in business for three years or less.  Titled the Texas Vintner’s Rising Star Award, it was sponsored by owner and long time wine maker of Messina Hof Winery & Resort, Paul Bonarrigo.  It was awarded to recognize fine Texas wine made from new, up and coming wine makers and encourage more new wineries to enter their products.  There were six new wineries that fit the criteria.  An award was presented for the best red wine and the best white wine, which were judged separately on the final day of judging.  This year’s winners of the Texas Vintner’s Rising Star Awards were KE Cellars (Tyler) for their 4 U Syrah, 2007 red table wine and Enoch’s Stomp Vineyard & Winery (north of Longview) for their Blanc du Bois Off-Dry white, 2008. WAY TO GO EAST TEXAS!

1st Annual Dallas Wine Trail a Success

The first annual Dallas Wine Trail occurred last Saturday at Times Ten Cellars in Lakewood, with Calais Winery, Inwood Estates Vineyards and Fuqua Winery participating in the event to celebrate wine making in Dallas…yes Dallas.   Over 200 people stopped by the event tasting three selections from each of the wineries, along with complimentary pizza from Il Cane Rosso.  Each owner was on hand pouring their specialties, discussing their passion for the grape, and their commitment to making wine in Dallas…yes, Dallas. 

Texas has over 170 wineries throughout the state, with more popping up every day.  I hate to admit that I thought Texas wine was still in a development stage, so it was a pleasure to taste some of the award winning wine being made right in our backyard.  Follow the jump for more on the wineries.

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Sauvignon Blanc Tasting at Fuqua Wines

Did someone below just suggest Sauvignon Blanc as the perfect wine for salmon? Or not? Maybe Lee Fuqua knows. Tomorrow night his tiny winery is hosting a tasting of 12 Sauvignon Blanc wines from all around the world. The cost is only $24 per person. 214-769-1147.  Too bad we couldn’t hold our salmon tasting at Fuqua tomorrow. (Was that subtle enough?)

Hey Katy, Move Over. Here Comes the First Dallas Wine Trail

A group of local wineries have gotten together and created The Dallas Wine Trail. Calais Winery, FUQUA Winery, Inwood Estates,
and Times Ten Cellars have pooled their resources to raise awareness on local wine. On May 23, from 11:00 am until 5:00 pm, all the wineries will gather at Times Ten Cellars and start pouring. Each host will pour 3 wines. Did someone say Times Ten Cellars? Guess we can assume that you know who will be there slinging pizza with his portable pizza oven. The full details are below the jump.

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Dallas To Host The First Ever DrinkLocalWine.com Conference

Texas has 177 wineries and 280 commercial vineyards. The folks behind GO TEXAN want to discuss them all. Well, a good deal of them. Hence, DrinkLocalWine.com, a web site that “focuses on North American wine that isn’t made in California or the Pacific Northwest” is organizing a conference.  Last year the site hosted a Regional Wine Week forum and they got so much response from Texas, they decided to do their next one here in Dallas. The event will take place on August 15. Plan to hang with local wine writers, food bloggers, columnists, sommeliers, producers, and growers.

The conference will include three seminars, focusing on trends in Texas wine, the distinctive grapes that Texans are using to make those wines, and how consumers can work to get more regional wines in stores and restaurants. The final event of the day will be a Texas Twitter Tasting, moderated by Russ Kane of Vintage Texas, where participants will “be able to taste some of the state’s top wines and blog or Twitter at the same time.” Jeez, blog and Twitter at the same time? Would that be a Blitter? More details coming.

UDPATE: The conference is open to the public. There will be some kind of registration fee, but that’s still TBD.

FUQUA-Gate: Lee Fuqua Speaks

In case you’ve missed the thread about FUQUA Wines and where his grapes come from,  here’s the link. I just caught up with Lee who has been working 24/7 over the last five days. His head just cleared from a tasting last night that ended with a  smooth-drinking 1925 Haut-Brion.

Me: Lee, why didn’t you just make it easy on all of us and just answer the question?

Lee: I didn’t like the way the guy asked the question.

Me: Yeah, but it looks like you’re being a jerk too by not answering the question. Even I know your grapes come from California. What gives?

Lee: It’s not a secret and it’s not a big deal. All of the grapes are Tempranillo–the Texas grapes are from the high plains and the other fruit is from Santa Barbara, California. I’m a real person and I follow all of the rules. Every wine writer in Dallas knows what I use. I just don’t like the way the guy asked the question. It says on the front page of my web page what kind of grapes I use and it has said that for eight years.

Peace out. Men will be boys.