19th Annual GrapeFest

[Kevin72]

This is a wine festival designed in part to promote the Texas Wine scene and held annually in Grapevine, about halfway between Dallas and Ft. Worth.

Does heat stroke make wine taste better?

A brief rant before I start: I really, really want to know where the decision came from to have this the second week of September every year, when chances are we’d still be wallowing in customary late-summer heat. I understand not wanting to compete with the Texas State Fair, but why not wait until afterwards? Isn’t typically the wine harvest much later in the fall anyways? And it can’t be good for the wine to be sitting out in 96 degree weather.

Whew.

My wife and I went on Saturday afternoon, from 1-4 pm. Admission is $6 to the Festival. If you’re going to drink Texas wines, you need to bypass the concession coupon trailers set up right inside and find the Tasting Area, and admission there is a further $15. You can use coupons to sample wines at various stands throughout the festival, but you don’t get the range of Texas wines as you do at the Tasting. Tastings go for an hour and a half, then they clear everybody out and clean up or restock for 30 minutes, then let the next wave in. We attended the 1:30-3 Tasting.

Line to get in:

I’d advise waiting to go about 20 minutes into a tasting to avoid that initial rush. Once everyone was in and distributed, things calmed down. Wineries are arranged in booths together under various tents. Stand in line and get a little shot of wine. One set of booths really had it set up well so that you got into a big line, then just went down each winery and got a sample. All the other tents had it set up where you stood in line separately for each winery and things often got a little confused. You’re given a little scorecard to track all the wines you taste, turn in your votes for best when you leave.

Participating wineries: (Those with an asterisk are ones I tried)

Becker Vineyards

Bell Mountain Vineyards

Blue Mountain Vineyards

Chisolm Trail Winery*

Circle S Vineyards*

Cross Timbers Winery

CrossRoads Winery

Delaney Vineyards

Fall Creek Vineyards

Flat Creek Estate*

Haak Vineyards & Winery*

Homestead Winery

Kiepersol Estates Vineyard & Winery

La Bodega Winery

La Buena Vida Winery*

LightCatcher Winery

Llano Estacado Winery

Lone Oak Vineyards*

Los Pinos Ranch Vineyard*

Lost Creek Vineyard & Winery*

McPherson Cellars

McReynolds Winery*

Messina Hof Winery & Resort

Nashwood Winery*

Pheasant Ridge Winery

Pillar Bluff Vineyards

Piney Woods Country Wines*

Pleasant Hill Winery

Spicewood Vineyards*

Ste. Genevieve Vineyards

Texas Hills Vineyard, Inc.

Wales Manor Vineyard & Winery

Wichita Falls Vineyards & Winery

Highlights:

Circle S: A winery located in Sugar Land(?!), with grapes grown in Centerville and Tuscany(?!!). Their ’03 Sangiovese was the only wine they submitted. Really good stuff, but I’m curious now as to the proportions of Tuscan and Texan grapes, and if, in the long term, they’ll eventually go all Texan.

Los Pinos Winery: davebr wrote about them on the Touring Texas Wineries thread (link) and so I gave them a shot, trying their Cabernet Sauvignon. Full flavored, lots of body, lingering, pleasant aftertaste.

McReynolds Winery: Located in Round Mountain in the Hill Country. Tried their Chenin Blanc. I think Texas does whites quite well and this was a prime example.

Spicewood Vineyards: Another Hill Country Winery. I went with their Semillon Reserve. You can’t help but think of Texas summers when you taste this one; my first real understanding of terroir.

Last year we went to the Hill Country Wine festival in Fredericksburg and were not so impressed, but I was surprised at the number of good wines I tried at GrapeFest. But where do you buy the wines? I didn’t see anyone purchasing bottles at the Tasting, and wandering around Main Street afterwards, the winery we went into sold only its own wines. Maybe (probably, after a few shots of wine) I wasn't paying that much attention, but that could have been a little better advertised.

The festival itself has the usual attractions: ferris wheel, live music, souvenirs, fair food. There was a grape stomping competition:

Everybody, including the announcer, seemed a little worn out by the heat.

There were also live cooking demos. Here's a list for Saturday and sunday of participating chefs:

There’s some good shops in downtown Grapevine. We popped into a swank kitchen supply store, and a little further down was Main Street Bakery, a great little café.

They also have a branch opened in the Shops at Legacy in Plano. That would be my other tidbit of advise is probably just to skip the coupons altogether and go to the local food shops.

Overall, a good time. I'd be inclined to stay longer if the weather were more pleasant. Someone, please, put a bug in the planner's ears.

Edited September 12, 2005 by Kevin72 (log)

[fifi]

Thanks for that great report, Kevin. I agree with you about the planning of these things. I don't remember the dates but I went to the Messina Hoff thing last year and nearly died in the heat. We have some lovely weather later in the year. WHy they insist on doing this in the heat I haven't a clue.

With that rant over, Thanks for the tips on the various vineyards. I am an absolute dunce about wine. But I like to drink it.

Interesting that you say whites go down pretty well. I wonder why that is.

Do you have any notes from Haak? They are "down the road a piece" from me. I have always thought that a winery in Santa Fe is pretty strange.

[Kevin72]

I think I've only done Haak's whites, which are pretty good. They have a very interesting, almost tropical fruit flavor to them (guava?). They were a standout from the Fredericksburg wine tasting last fall, if I recall correctly. Quite a few Texas wineries, including those in the Hill Country, actually grow their grapes out in the panhandle.

The question of why whites do better is really much more about what's wrong with the reds in my opinion: we lack the climate and soil for them to really build up a nice, full body to them. Steurz's article in the Dallas Observer I posted a few weeks back really explores all the challenges to making great wine in Texas. Too many reds are all tanin and oak and taste "leathery" to me with no body whatsoever. Exceptions so far are Circle S, Los Pinos, and Lone Oak's merlots.

[Richard Kilgore]

Thanks for the fine report, Kevin. I have come to look forward to your reports and views on our Texas wines. And I am really pleased that you were able to make it to Grapefest. We'll have to equip you with some sunscreen and a few gallons of water next year.

[Alinka]

Thanks, Kevin. I like wine, but, like fifi, I am a "dunce" (new word for me, actually had to look it up the dictionary ). I wonder if we have a similar event here in Houston?

(By the way, sooo impressed with your Year of Italian Cooking )

[Kevin72]

Thanks, Kevin. I like wine, but, like fifi, I am a "dunce" (new word for me, actually had to look it up the dictionary ). I wonder if we have a similar event here in Houston?

(By the way, sooo impressed with your Year of Italian Cooking )

←

Thanks for the compliments! A quick Google search for Houston and wine festival turns up an online service called HoustonWine.com that promotes local tastings and festivals. Along the lines of what fifi said upthread, it looks like Messina Hof has a lock on a number of them and has various festivals throughout the fall, but it may be just for their own wines. There is something called the South Shore Dockside Food and Wine Festival which sounds along similar lines.

HoustonWine website

South Shore Dockside Food and Wine Festival link

Edit: Looks like it's not reserved to Texas wines, though.

Edited September 13, 2005 by Kevin72 (log)