The Wine Broad's Board

Tasting in Texas

While visiting my in-laws in Texas, my husband and I embarked on a little wine tasting excursion to the Hill Country (aka, the Texas equivalent of Napa Valley). Maybe I’m spoiled living in Sonoma County (OK, not maybe: I am spoiled), but the experience was pretty odd. The first winery we visited (Stone House) had some very nice wines—a well-made dry sparkling wine, a tasty Tempranillo, some very good Shiraz wines. The odd part? They’re all produced in Australia. Stone House produces only two Texas wines—both made from Norton (and if you’ve never tried Norton, it’s definitely an acquired taste).

During the tasting, one single-vineyard Shiraz we sampled was obviously corked. I politely told the guy behind the bar, and he commented: “I’ve never really liked that wine.” Hmmm.. maybe that’s because the wine is corked! Did he open a new bottle of wine? Nope. I’m sure that, as soon as we were out the door, he continued pouring samples from that same bottle—which, by the way, was not cheap at 40-plus bucks. Crazy. The tasting room fees also seemed a bit steep: $5 for the standard tasting, plus an extra $10 for reserve wines and an extra $5 for two additional port-style wines. (And don’t expect anything to be knocked off the tasting fee if you buy a few bottles to take home.) Do these folks know they’re in Texas?

The second winery we visited—Spicewood Vineyards—offered more of a Texas experience. All of their wines are made from estate fruit—that is, unless a particularly crappy growing season, complete with hail, wipes out most of their grapes. That’s what happened last year, so the winery is buying some grapes from California to help get it through the rough patch. Spicewood makes a nice Sauvignon Blanc from local grapes, though they had to release the 2007 vintage a bit early since they had no 2006 left to sell. Our final stop was recommended to us by the tasting room manager at Spicewood. The winery—I’m not naming names to protect the guilty—was in the process of building a new log-cabin-style tasting room, but in the meantime, visitors sample wines in the cramped, musty-smelling production building. I’m a big fan of funky, low-key tasting rooms, as long as they’re pouring some good wine. But I can honestly say that these wines were, across the board, the worst I’ve ever tasted. They weren’t just bad: They were infected with something—some kind of bacterial flaw? Each of them had the same bizarre, disturbingly awful aftertaste. My husband and I exchanged astonished looks as the couple next to us complimented the hideous Muscat we’d just tasted. Could they have been serious? It was all we could do to keep our exclamations to ourselves until we peeled out of the parking lot. In a word: yikes!

Too bad we had to end our mini winery tour on that note. There’s no excuse for serving corked or flawed wines to tasting room visitors, even if they’re “just” locals. Winery owners (not only in Texas, but all over the country): Please train your tasting room employees (or, if you’re doing the pouring, train yourselves) to detect common wine flaws, and to taste every new bottle before pouring it for potential customers. Sure, dumping a bottle of wine down the drain costs money, but is it really good business to serve spoiled wines and hope nobody notices? That’s a rhetorical question, you know.

Not the Same "Auld" Bubbles

Well, it's almost New Year's Eve, and you may still be wondering what you're going to drink when the clock strikes 12. If you're looking for something different this year, why not go for a sparkling Gewurztraminer or sparkling Chambourcin? No, really! Is there some kind of law that says you have to drink Champagne on New Year's Eve? For recommendations, check out my column on Wine Review Online.

Happy New Year! And stay tuned for a report on wine tasting in Texas...

Time To Give

I wish I'd known about Menu for Hope sooner, so I could have rounded up some prizes to add the raffle. But, it's not too late to give! This worldwide wine- and food-blogger fundraising effort is offering some amazing wine-y and foodie prizes, which could be yours for the price of a $10 raffle ticket. Just select the prize or prizes you want to win, and donate $10 to the cause. For details, visit http://chezpim.typepad.com.

Repeal This

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition: Let’s get drunk!

On this day in 1933, the nation’s decade-plus dry spell officially ended. Of course, the “dry” part never really began, since Americans could get all the wine, beer and other booze they wanted through the miracles of bootlegging and home winemaking/distilling/brewing. As someone who grew up in the ‘70s, it’s hard for me to imagine that there was ever a time in U.S. history when drinking anything stronger than milk was illegal—yet, there are plenty of wine-industry veterans who remember those days.

Early on in my wine industry career, I helped put on an “Anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition” event hosted by Wine Institute. My job: dress as a 1920s flapper and check in guests at the door. (Don’t laugh, it was kind of fun—I got to wear a cool vintage dress rented from the costume department of San Francisco’s ACT Theater.) One of the highlights (aside from Robert Mondavi winking at me and calling me “sexy,” and another ol’-timer commenting that ladies in the ‘20s were more flat-chested than me—but that’s another story) was listening to guys in their 80s reminiscing about the good old days. That’s right: the good old days! Despite the underground nature of the industry, the wine biz was actually booming during Prohibition--at least for some producers.

Probably the biggest effect of our nation’s failed experiment in temperance was the near-disappearance of Eastern wineries. Before Prohibition, Ohio was the hub of the U.S. wine industry (no kidding!). But by the time of Repeal, many of those wineries had gone under, and the wine industries in those Eastern states are only now starting to re-emerge. There are some really good wines coming out of states like New York and Virginia these days, but imagine how much better they’d be if the industry hadn’t been put on hold for several decades!

Another lasting effect of Prohibition was the change in Americans’ wine preferences. Before Prohibition, dessert wines were Americans’ grape-based drink of choice, but by the time of Repeal, they’d gotten used to drinking dry European table wines. Wineries that managed to survive Prohibition had to switch gears pretty quickly to stay in business.

Fascinating stuff, this.

So, as we mark the 74th anniversary of Repeal, pop a cork and raise a toast to all the great American wines at our disposal. Unlike your grandparents, you won’t even have to worry about getting tossed into the Paddy wagon for it.