Episode 26 - Texas

Howdy Partners! Welcome to another episode of th…

An episode of the The Make America Grape Again Podcast podcast, hosted by The Wine Monk, titled "Episode 26 - Texas" was published on December 30, 2018 and runs 22 minutes.

December 30, 2018 ·22m · The Make America Grape Again Podcast

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Summary

Howdy Partners! Welcome to another episode of the Make America Grape Again Podcast! This time around, we're looking at Texas, through the lens of the 2016 Petit Sirah from Grape Creek Vineyards, located in Fredericksburg, Texas. Texas actually holds a very special place in the history of wine not just in America, but in the world as a whole. It was in the high plains of Northern Texas (in what is now the Texoma AVA) where horticulturist Thomas Mundson used indigenous American varietals to create hundreds of hybrid grapes, as well as finding particular root stocks that were immune to the Phylloxera epidemic of the late 1800s. This saved the French wine industry (indeed, possibly most of the Vinifera wine industry worldwide) from total ruin. (I hope to go in depth about him in a future episode in a later season.) The History of Texas Wine begins in a similar fashion to other landscapes in the American Southwest, with Franciscan priests and friars planting Mission vines in the deserts near El Paso for use as the Eucharist. The industry grew, culminating in Thomas Mundson's heroic labors to save the industry as a whole. Yet Texas, like the rest of the United States, thanked its native son with the institution of Prohibition; one which still strongly affects the state today: a quarter of Texas' 254 counties still have Dry Laws on the books. (A few wineries did survive through this time, namely Val Verde winery, which made medicinal and eucharistic vintages.) The wine industry in Texas really only began to recover in the 1970's, with the founding of Llano Estacado and Pheasant Ridge wineries in what would eventually become the Texas High Plains AVA, along with the La Buena Vida winery in Springtown, Texas. The first AVA in Texas was the Bell Mountain AVA in 1986. With 436 Wineries and approximately 4,500 acres of vineyards total, the state of Texas is actually the fourth largest producer of wine in the United States. The problem is that most people do not know about this because Texas wine is not widely distributed, and shipping outside of the state is notoriously difficult for local wineries. Texas also has 8 AVAs, scattered across the state. As a note: Texas Wine Geek has a great explanation of what For Sale in Texas Only actually means. In short, while confusing as all hell from a consumer standpoint, it is crystal clear from the standpoint of federal legislation--something which arguably matters as much, if not more, from a wine sales standpoint. After all, you need your federal approval if you're going to sell wine at all, to begin with. In short, it is a wine that is probably made in Texas, probably from mostly Texas grapes. In this episode, we talk a little about what "For Sale In Texas Only" means, and a bit about the concept of terroir, as we drink this side by side with an Arizona Petit Sirah from D.A. Ranch. My friend Megan Looser (who is also a CSW) brought this bottle while on a recent trip to see her favorite band in concert.