Texas Wine Month- Plant! Baby, plant!!!

Welcome to Texas Wine Month!  The most important thing for you to know about the Texas Wine Country is that there is a shortage of grape vines growing in Texas soil.  Texas needs more grape vines!  We have many great grape growers working hard and supplying great raw materials for the talented winemakers.  I want to encourage them and thank them for hard work they are doing.  Working outdoors in Texas is not easy, the heat alone keeps many indoors.  Add to this the other weather challenges, the pests, wild life and more.  I admire you strength, determination and true grit to do the work it takes to grow vines here in Texas.  You are doing a great job!  We are tasting better wines every vintage.

The simple math is that today we may have five thousand acres under vine and the current estimate on demand is that the wineries can sell as much wine that would come from eighteen to twenty thousand acres of vines!  Even if these numbers are a little high you can see there is still a great need for more grape vines growing in Texas soil.  So, this Texas Wine Month I call you to drink more Texas wine, visit Texas wineries, thank the wineries for the wine they make, thank the growers for the grapes they grow AND encourage all of them to plant more vines in Texas.  Plant baby! Plant!!!

Shiraz, MESSINA HOF, “DOUBLE BARREL” Cedar Crest Vineyards, Texoma, Texas

The vines that grew these grapes are in The Cedar Crest Vineyard which was planted in 1988; making them twenty-one years old in 2009 when the grapes were harvested. This wine is an example of what can be made from fully mature vines in Texas! And, it is delicious! The vineyard is owned by the Lattimores (supporters of the Grayson College – local Enology and Viticulture programs). The elevation is at 619 feet with sandy-loam soil just 4 miles south of the Red River; the Oklahoma and Texas border, in the heart of the Texoma AVA.

• EXPRESSIVE
• Black Cherry
• Black Currant
• Juicy Cherry
• Ripe Blackberry
• Raspberry
• Charred Barrel
• Earthy
• Long Finish

The quality and character in this wine always makes me wonder why there are not many more GREAT Texas Shiraz? 90% Shiraz, 10% Cabernet Franc, 12 months in new French Oak and 12 months new American Oak.  Messina-Hoff Winery was established in 1983, Paul’s family from Messina, Sicily,  Merrill’s family from Hof, Germany. continuing a great family tradition of making great wines and sharing good times. A family and tradition that will continue with their son Paul Mitchell has just received a Wine making Certificate from the University of California, Davis extension program. Paul began apprenticing under his father, Paul V. Bonarrigo, as a child and teenager, and he grew up working in all of the areas of the winery. Read more at the Vintage Texas Blog.

And please reply to this blog;have you tried this Shiraz?

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