There is a great guest post on the VintageTexas website written by Dan Gatlin of Inwood Estates Winery. Mr. Gatlin has been in the Texas wine industry for 30 years, and has been involved in the wine business even longer. He offers a unique perspective into grape and wine production in the state.
Gatlin points out the great potential that Texas wine has to create old world style, terroir-driven wines. He says, "Like our European counterparts, our high-calcium soils yield earthier
wines that develop their complexity over time, and we will never be
known for the fat, round, fruit-bomb styles of the 'New World' that
typify California and Australia." I have to admit that I get excited thinking of Texas growing into a wine region known for producing a more "old world" wine here in the new world.
One of the many great points in this article has to do with the creation of wines that are true Texas wines, rather than California wines being produced in Texas. Here's a section of the article that really jumped out at me -
The ultimate vision shared by industry insiders and
our fans in the public is that Texas will someday ascend to an
authentic, peer-recognized, first-tier wine region similar to the other
famous regions we all know and love.This will never happen as long as so much
California wine is being sold by Texas wineries under less than open and
honest pretenses. This practice undercuts the very foundation of what a
wine region is: a place where grapes are grown and wine is made. A
regional industry riddled with lack of authenticity results in a public
reputation that it is phony and contrived, like a tourist-trap. The
authenticity question underlies 400 years of winemaking tradition and is
the basis for the famous “Appellation” systems that people respect. We
will simply never graduate to peer acceptance in the larger wine
industry without authenticity.
I think that this point is exactly right. Gatlin goes on to suggest that a good solution to the problem would be to emulate the model of second-label wines that you find all over Europe. The primary label would feature all Texas Appellation wines, while secondary labels would be made from excess fruit, or from fruit sourced out of state. There are already a few wineries who are employing this method with their wines. This solution would eliminate the confusion that the current system encourages, which is a topic that I plan to explore in more detail in a future post. Ultimately, Texas cannot develop a unique wine identity if the majority of the wines produced here are made from out of state fruit. This issue needs to be addressed, and hopefully sooner rather than later. Quality producers like Inwood are the key to the future of the Texas wine industry.
Gatlin talks about a number of other really interesting topics in the post, so I recommend that you read the whole thing if you have time.
I completely agree. This is part of the reason I don’t pay much attention to Texas wine (despite being a wine-loving Texan and blogger, who likes to blog about oddball wines, for Pete’s sake!).
I once bought and drank a bottle of Fall Creek Granite Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, all the while thinking I was tasting a Texas wine (and it was pretty decent). It wasn’t until I started prepping to write a blog post about it that I noticed all may not be as it seems. But they sure didn’t make it clear. The front label of the bottle had no appellation noted. On the back, there was lots of marketing language attempting to imbue the wine with a Texas sense of place: “near the landmark waterfalls of Fall Creek”, “our family pioneered winemaking in Texas”. Among all that I finally noticed the line: “American Cabernet Sauvignon”.
Now I get why some producers feel they need to do this kind of thing to keep afloat. But it sure does keep me from getting excited about Texas wine.
Yeah, right now they are labeling these wines as, “For Sale in Texas Only”, which I think only compounds the problem. It leads consumers to think that they are getting a Texas wine, when they really aren’t. These wines should be clearly labeled as not being Texas wines.
I will say that this all makes me appreciate the labels that are making concerted efforts to make Texas Appellation wines, and aren’t trying to obscure anything when they don’t. I know that Flat Creek has two labels, the main one being for their estate grown wines, and the second label being for the wines that don’t use Texas fruit.
Ben we just talked about this the other day. Interesting. I feel the same way. Texas will never stand out for their wines unless they start growing their own grapes.
Yep, it’s been a recurring theme for me here recently. I think this post by Dan Gatlin is one of the best treatments of the topic that I’ve read.