I was saddened to see last year that at the State Fair of Texas Wine Garden, Texas wineries had been nudged aside by supermarket wines that sponsoring supermarket Kroger wished to feature (which had nothing to do with Texas). The...
Kevin Buchanan reports over on Fortworthology that Times Ten Cellars has opened a Fort Worth branch "in the Cultural District near the West 7th development." It's another building rehab, like the old post office that Times Ten Cellars took over...
Foodies clearly want to see more locally sourced ingredients at restaurants. (See recent chat poll numbers here.) Why shouldn't that include wines? The point was raised at the recent GO TEXAN DrinkLocalWine.com conference at Le Cordon Bleu. Even though we...
The 2009 Texas Sommeliers Conference is going on today and tomorrow at the Four Seasons Resort and Spa in Irving. After so much fun yesterday at the GO TEXAN DrinkLocalWine conference, a bunch of folks are Tweeting as they go...
The GO TEXAN DrinkLocalWine.com gathering on Saturday culminated in a first-ever Texas Twitter Taste-Off. Our instructions: Sip. Tweet. Repeat. If you go up to the main Twitter Web site at www.twitter.com and search for #DLW09, you'll get to see the...
From the shameless publicity grab division (and it's working) comes this note from Jeff Crilley's daily tip sheet: KC Kronbach doesn't mean to whine, but the downtown Dallas winery owner is going to make sure that the next time there's...
Mid-August is an excellent time to polish your wine creds with two back-to-back conferences. www.DrinkLocalWine.com hosts a one-day conference 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 15 with an in-depth look at the state of Texas wines and winemaking. And the...
Sunset Winery in Burleson is looking for wine-bottling help Tuesday. They need help over three shifts: 9 a.m. to noon, noon to 3 p.m. and 3 to 6 p.m. It's work - no getting around that - but at the...
Since I'm all about local, including Texas wines, I feel kinda like a doofus for missing the reopening of Swirll Winery under new ownership in April, after closing in December. (See Kevin Gray's account on examiners.com.) I went to the...
There was a little bit of gold for Texas wineries in the 26th Annual Lone Star International Wine Competition, which was held on June 8-9 at the Grapevine Convention Center. Among the Grand Star winners (think best of show): Haak...
In the final GO TEXAN WineCast, Merrill Bonarrigo, co-owner of Messina Hof Winery in Bryan, talks about various port-style and dessert wines produced around the state. I didnt' know that Texas has one of only three madeira-style wine producers (Haak)...
Black Spanish is a grape I'm not familiar with, but after watching the fifth GO TEXAN WineCast, which was posted earlier in the week on YouTube, I want to find some. Franklin Houser talks about growing it at his Dry...
Tempranillo, a Spanish grape, is one of the most important up-and-coming varietals in the state, and Alamosa Wine Cellars' Jim Johnson tells why in this latest GO TEXAN WineCast. Not only does he give a feel for the lesser-known, big-red-wine-producing...
Kim McPherson is one of Texas' best winemakers, sired by Clint "Doc" McPherson, the man Kim affectionately and rightly calls the father of the modern Texas wine industry. Kim is also a character, and it's great fun to watch him...
These GO TEXAN WineCasts are great mini-lessons in the wines of the Lone Star state. In this episode Pat Brennan, owner of Brennan Vineyards near Comanche, talks about some of the lesser-known white varietals that are doing well in the...
In a bid to get folks more familiar with Texas wines, The Texas Department of Agriculture has posted the first of its six GO TEXAN WineCast videos. The idea is to tell people about the emerging varietals that seem best-suited...
Texan T.V. Munson played a pivotal role in saving the European wine industry after the devastating phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century. North American grapevines were resistant to the pest, and Munson, who had been working in Denison north...
Lee Fuqua writes to say that the four wineries within the Dallas city limits - Calais Winery, Fuqua Winery, Inwood Estates Vineyards and Times Ten Cellars - have banded together under a single Web banner: www.DallasWineTrail.com. Their inaugural tasting event...
The "Texas Two-Sip Tele-Tasting" put on by the Texas Department of Agriculture was so cool. Yup: TDA and cool in the same sentence. Here's how it worked. TDA sent 10 wines in nearly indestructible wrappers to a handful of people...
Yes, this past weekend I was on a whirlwind tour (no, make that a straight-line wind like freezing bullets) of the Texas High Plains AVA, which many experts believe is the state's best grape-growing region. With wind chill factors in...
Newsletter sign-up: 
Get Breaking News on your cell