Lone Star wines are growing up

Houston Chronicle
Jan. 13, 2006 12:00 AM

HOUSTON - It wasn't that long ago that if you mentioned Texas wines in polite society, you got, at best, a polite "yeah, sure" or, at worst, an impolite guffaw.

Texas wines were always good for a laugh.

And had been for 300 years. The Franciscan friars who founded a mission in what is now Ysleta near El Paso in the late 1600s brought grapevines with them from deeper inside Mexico. That's a century before grapes were planted in California. But it wasn't until the 1970s that a few far-thinking pioneers really got serious about making wine in Texas.

With the infusion of capital and technology, the image of Texas wines as some kind of cocktail party joke began to change. By the 1980s, Texas wines were beginning to win medals in out-of-state competitions, against the best wines in the country.

Today, Texas is the country's fifth-largest wine-producing state, and the industry is a vital cog in the state's agricultural economy.

In fact, there are seven American Viticultural Areas in Texas. The largest, the Texas Hill Country AVA, is twice the size of New Jersey.

Yes, wine is big business in Texas now.

But how about the quality? Are Texas wines better now than, say, 10 years ago? Or even five?

Absolutely. I've been tracking these wines for 25-plus years, and their improvement has been impressive.

That's the good news. The bad news: Yes, there still are some bowwows out there. And some wineries still grow the wrong grapes for their areas. But both are slowly changing.

For the past eight years there has been a Texas wine judging held at the University of Houston's Hilton School of Hotel and Restaurant Management. Anywhere from 100 to 150 wines are sniffed, tasted and spit out by judges both in and out of the wine industry, with the help of the Hilton School's Kevin Simon and his efficient backroom crew.

This year some of the wines seemed to have turned the corner. As one judge told me, the top-end cabernets were the best he's ever tasted at the Texas Open Wine Competition.

When I asked him why the increase in quality, he said better winemaking, obviously, and the Texas vineyards are literally growing up. They're more mature, producing better-quality grapes.

I recently served a Texas wine blind to a couple of people well-versed in the vagaries of the grape. They both liked the wine a lot and thought it was French.

When I pulled the bag off the bottle and showed them a Texas wine, they were amazed.

And they weren't laughing anymore.

WINNING TEXAS WINES

Here are some of the winners in this year's Texas Open Wine Competition, held last month at the University of Houston's Conrad Hilton School of Hotel and Restaurant Management.

• Chardonnay: gold: 2003 Haak Reserve; silver: 2003 Llano Estacado Cellar Reserve "Mont Sec Vineyard, " 2004 Haak, 2004 Pillar Bluff

• Chenin blanc: gold: 2004 San Martino; silver: 2004 Llano Estacado, 2004 Fall Creek

• Sauvignon blanc: silver: 2004 Llano Estacado "Martin's Vineyard"

• Mixed white varietals: silver: 2004 Llano Estacado "Mont Sec" Viognier, Pleasant Hills Blanc du Bois

• Mixed white generic: silver: 2004 Llano Estacado "Signature White"

• Sweet white: silver: 2004 Haak Blanc du Bois, 2004 Flat Creek Muscato Blanco

• Roses, blush wines: gold: 2004 Haak "Nouveau Jacquez"; silver: 2003 Zin Valle "Rising Star" White Zinfandel, 2004 San Martino Rosado

• Cabernet sauvignon: gold: 2002 Flat Creek "Travis Peak Select," 2003 Becker Reserve; silver: 2003 Texas Hills "Arroyo Seco," 2003 Texas Hills "Newsom," 2002 Messina Hof "Paulo"

• Merlot: gold: 2003 Becker

• Bordeaux-style blends: gold: 2003 Becker "Claret," 2004 Llano Estacado "Signature Red"; silver: Circle S "Ilbello," 2003 Pillar Bluff "Iron Horse Red"

• Mixed red varietals: silver: 2004 Mesa Vineyards "Peregrine Hill" Pinot Noir, 2003 Messina Hof Cabernet Franc, 2003 Flat Creek Shiraz

• Red varietal blends: silver: 2004 Llano Estacado "Signature Rhone"

• Sweet red: silver: Pleasant Hill "Rosso Forte"