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Kim McPherson on the 2009 Texas Wine Grape Harvest

Alfonso Cevola has a short video of nice guy and wine maker, Kim McPherson.

What I’m Still Drinking: Kiepersol Estates Semillon

She shoots. We score.

I’ve written about my love affair with Kiepersol Estates Semillon 2007 before. It’s a nice soft wine with undertones of pineapple, mango, and grapefruit (Hi, Leslie!). Last month, D photographer Elizabeth “Spider Monkey” Lavin and I headed out to Kiepersol and spent the day picking grapes and watching the crew as they began to process the 2009 wines. If you haven’t been to the tasting room at Kiepersol which is just south of Tyler, you should go now–October is Texas Wine Month–and sip some wine  on the back porch. Better yet, you can read the travel feature I just completed with the details of the property’s bed and breakfast, upscale steak restaurant, and the best stocked bar between Dallas and Houston. It’s a great place to get away for a couple of days. Especially if you love good food and wine.

Kent Rathbun Does Something Texan at His “Texas Grown” Restaurant

The last time I was at Rathbun’s Blue Plate Kitchen, the lengthy wine list had only two wines from Texas. I don’t know if the list has been updated, but Mr. Rathbun is hosting a Texan wine dinner on Monday, October 19th with Dr. Richard and Bunny Becker of Becker Vineyards. Great menu with great wine. Jump for the full description and details. (more…)

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.

Save the Date: 26th Annual Beaujolais Wine Festival in Dallas

This event is always crowded and full of overly hyped wine, but lots of people love to toast the release of  Beaujolais Nouveau. This year’s fete is November 20th at the InterContinental Dallas. The theme? Bordeaux Meets Texas. Translation: Texas wines will also be served.

AND, as the press release says, “Miss Texas 2009 will be on hand for autographs and photo opportunities. Other highlights include a fashion show by Texas Top Designers, jugglers, mimes, dancing, a silent auction, and more.” (Guess her name isn’t important.)

Tickets are $55 per person; and parties of 4 or more are $50 each. Tickets at the door are $60 each. Call 972-241-0111 to order tickets or register online.

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…)

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…)

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 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)

Wonderful Weekend of Significant Wine Events in Dallas

There are two  significant wine conferences taking place in Dallas this weekend.The GO TEXAN Drinklocalwine.com event starts tonight with a dinner at Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts. On Saturday the all-day conference will feature 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 Taste-off, moderated by Russ Kane of Vintage Texas. Participants will taste some 40 Texas wines and blog or Twitter about them. Their votes will pick the conference’s favorite wines. I’ll be one of those Twittering fools (DSideDish). BTW, the event is sold out.

On Sunday, the fifth annual Texas Sommelier Conference (TexSom) kicks off at the Four Seasons in Las Colinas. The two-day event includes lectures and tastings with the nation’s preeminent wine experts. There are five classes on Sunday, August 16 (some tickets still available) and a grand tasting on Monday evening, August 17th.  A separate set of courses, designed exclusively for the trade and media, will take place on Monday. While the courses are conducted, a competition for Texas’ Best Sommelier runs behind the scenes. On Monday evening, the conference concludes with a Grand Tasting(a few tickets available), where wine professionals and the public come together to taste world-class wines and witness the drama and celebration surrounding the naming of Texas’ Best Sommelier 2009.  Last year’s winner is Scott Barber of Dallas’ Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek.  He dominated 24 other competitors and won the coveted title after a rigorous three-part examination involving wine tasting, service and theory. Once again, I will be a Twittering and blogging fool.

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

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…)

Kiepersol Winery In East Texas Celebrates The Opening Of Bushman’s Winery And Celebration Center

Friday, I told you about Kiepersol Winery in Bullard, Texas and  the lovely wines they make. Today, I offer a short video of a real East Texas gala: a few minutes of Asleep at the Wheel performing at the opening night party for Kiepersol’s new venue, Bushman’s Winery and Celebration Center. The evening was a showcase for Texas Wines—reps from Fall Creek, Grape Creek, Landon, Llano Estacado, Messina Hof, Red Road, Wichita Falls Winery, and the funny boys from Los Pinos were all there and pouring samples.  If you can spot me doing the Texas Two-Step on the video you will win dinner for two at any restaurant in town. Just tell me what color pants I’m wearing.

Kiepersol Estates Winery In East Texas: My New Favorite Texas Wine

Kiepersol Estates Winery owner Pierre de Wet.

Last month D web editor Jennifer Chininis and I went to the Tomato Festival in Jacksonville, Texas. Somewhere between the Tomato Eating Contest and the Tomato Fight, we bumped into Whit (Jeroboam, Green Room, Gypsy Tea Room) Meyers, now brand manager of Virtuoso Selections, and his buddy Karl Newman, another longtime Dallas wino and former rep for Prestige and Pioneer. The four of us decided to ditch the festival and head north to Kiepersol Estates Winery, just south of Tyler. We spent the rest of the hot afternoon inside the cool tasting room with wine maker Marnelle de Wet Durrett.

I fell in love with the 2007 Semillon (even though Whit suggested the wine had “heavy hints of honeydew melon”).  The wine is soft and dry and compliments all of the Texas vegetables now in season.  Kiepersol Estates wines are made from the grapes grown on the wineries sixty acres. (For those of you scoring at home that translates into 100%  Texas grapes.) Owner Pierre de Wet gave us a mini-tour of the estate and some samplings from his private cellar.

Anywhoo, I tell you all of this because I am working on a larger story on Kiepersol and I am headed over to the winery tomorrow night for a big wine dinner and party. I think Whit is going to be there and if he is, you can be sure both of us will be twittering fools. Follow us @DSideDish.

Swirll Winery and Wine Bar Open Again in Downtown Dallas

Swirll Winery and Wine Bar recently reopened in its former location in the Davis Building in the heart of downtown. The new owner, K.C. Kronbach, has revamped 3,000-square-foot-space and plans to offer the “largest selection of Texas wines” and more than 30 varietals by the flight, glass, or bottle. At Swirll you can also craft and cork your own wine and customize labels. It looks like they have a small wine-friendly menu, too.

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!

GO TEXAN Winecast: Texas Port and Dessert Wines

In the sixth and final webcast, Merrill Bonarrigo of the Messina Hof Winery in Bryan, Texas, discusses Port, a variety native to Portugal, as well as other dessert wines that are thriving in Texas.(Lenoir and chocolate!) Go, Tanji. We’ll miss you.

GO TEXAN Winecast: Tanjie Talks About Black Spanish Grapes. I Write a Song About Tanjie.

This week’s GO TEXAN WineCast discusses Black Spanish grapes and features Franklin Houser of Dry Comal Creek Vineyards and Winery in New Braunfels, Texas. Black Spanish is a red-fleshed grape that is highly resistant to Pierce’s Disease, making it a good match with Texas’ hot and humid climate. It is not the best wine from Texas I have tasted, but it is a distinctive style and it will take the enamel off of your teeth if you don’t open it a day ahead.

Business out of the way: yesterday I had too much time on my hands late in the afternoon. Instead of taking it easy, I did something silly. I wrote a song for our GO TEXAN hostess, Tanjie Patton. Sing along to the tune of the Rolling Stones song about David Bowie’s wife—you know it–“Angie.” Jump and take your sense of humor with you.

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GO TEXAN WineCast: Week Number Two

I am going to be a team player here—I am proud to support The Texas Depart of Agriculture’s GO Texan program and all of our local, regional, and state producers. Therefore, I will post this video, excuse me WineCast, from GO TEXAN. The clip features host Tanji “Head Bobbin” Patton and Pat Brennan, of Brennan Vineyard’s in Commanche, Texas. Tanji, can you say Blanc du Bois? I like the way you say Blanc du Bois. And Egg McMuffin (greatest evah!).

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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Meet Tanji: She’s A Wine Reporter For GO TEXAN

GO TEXAN is going gah-gah over Texas wine making. Today the Texas Department of Agriculture is releasing a series of six short videos about different wine varietals in Texas, called the GO TEXAN WineCasts. Tanji Patton from goodtastewithtanji.com is the host. The first video stars Fall Creek Vineyards owner and friend of SideDish, Susan Auler. Susan and her husband Ed are royalty in the Texas wine making business.
(Watch Susan kick Tanji’s big jammy nose.)