ddp

[This message has been edited by cecil77 (edited 9/30/2011 3:37p).]

senorchipotle, that seems to be an overgeneralized statement? Texas and CA both have a huge range of soil types. Also, from talking to several Hill Country wine makers none have ever mentioned such large hold times for their cabs. Most say 3-5 years. Meanwhile, many fine Napa cabs (at least according to Robert Parker) will last 15-30 years?

I'd be curious to the sources of your info. I'd be interested in reading them...

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there are places in texas which have terroir every bit as good as the best in france, you just have to know where to look.

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Maybe, but the climate is bass ackwards. The soil profile in regions of the High Plains is almost an exact copy of Barossa, Australia. However, you can't grow syrah in the High Plains that comes anywhere close to what they can grow in Australia. Part of the reason is that it is way too damn hot in most of TX to grow cabernet, syrah, and a lot of other grapes. Some of the warmer weather grapes like tempranillo, aglianico, tannat, and viognier show some promise because of their thicker skins and ability to deal with those warm nights. Another thing is we aren't near a large, cool body of water to help cool things off at night. Those cool nights are absolutely essential to produce world class wines.

Texas doesn't have a problem with getting fruit ripe; the problem is getting it to maturity. You can run the juice on a Texas grape, and it will be around 25-28 brix, which would indicate it's ripe. The problem is the seeds are still bright green, and when you press off that juice and leave the seeds in, you get a whole lot of tannin and green bell pepper flavors, which aren't good. Plus, there's no acid left in the fruit, and without acid, you don't have any age-ability, so you either have to acidify or drink it soon.

Another problem is trying to make a wine with new world flavors in a climate and soils that are 100% old world. It can't be done, and everytime someone tries do it, it's a massive failure.

Texas can produce some good, high quality wines. Becker's Viognier, Torre di Pietra's Petite Syrah (which fooled a lot of people at a recent tasting I attended), and most of the Inwood wines are pretty good, and show what you can do given the hand you've been dealt. To think that we can make a Napa cab in Texas, or a Bordeaux blend in Texas because we have the right soils is a bunch of poppycock.

It will be interesting to see how Bending Branch's Tannat turns out. Their CA grape wines have been pretty good, if a bit overpriced. In a couple of years we'll know...

Chipotle, that's a bold statement!   I'd love to try the best of the best TX wines though.   there might be a few areas in Texas that are suited to make good wine, but I would think those vineyards are rare.  I once found a Blue (maybe Bell) Mountain wine from the Davis mountains that i thought was pretty good.  Was it a Lafite?  Certainly not.  But it was decent.  Texas climate is so much more intense than France or Cal.  Heat causes grapes to grow faster and must be harvested early. They dont quite get the time on the vine to develop the flavors that other regions produce.  The rain can also wreak havoc on grapes.  I think the Davis vineyards stay a little cooler and dryer and could work out better than the central Texas grapes.  But like I said, certain grapes do better in certain climates. I think Inwood is playing it right by going with a tougher grape like tempranillo.

(and everything else Htown said)

[This message has been edited by Bsd (edited 9/30/2011 5:11p).]

Live in Texas so do not have a cellar. My neighbors swear by that Cakebread stuff

Cakebread is nice but for every day drinking at home, we buy Cupcake which is the ex wife (?) of Cakebread, delicious, and about $10.

cecil... yes, the cellaring times are pretty generalized as i said. but honestly, anybody who is planting red vinifera in the hill country either doesn't care about wasting money and/or doesn't know what the hell he's doing. the night time temp is too high anywhere in texas which doesn't have high elevation, i.e. the high plains, davis mountains, etc. so i didn't account for those guys trying to grow in the hill country, cause they'll never make a quality red vinifera wine there.

htown... actually, the high plains is closest in climate to rioja, but has soil more along the lines of bordeaux. that is why the syrah we do grow is more like the rhone valley than the fruity high alcohol stuff in australia. different grapes mature at different times, and the growing area in the high plains is pretty huge, so we have yet to know all the sub-climates which exist there and are particularly suited for each individual grape. subclimate is why they grow wonderful merlot/cab franc in pomerol, but not so great cab sauv. difference is, they've got over 500 years of experimentation on us. and all the red vinifera i've had from the high plains, which is pretty specific to very few growers granted, have had no problem with pH levels.

and yes, a lot of texas winemakers are trying to make new world wines while texas offers old world terroir.

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...Bordeaux blend in Texas because we have the right soils is a bunch of poppycock.

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of course we can, and have. ever heard of magellan?

BSD... the thing about the davis mountains, and blue mountain in particular, is that there are a bunch of crazy ass hillbillies living there, and they live on the opposite side of the best vineyard sights in the region. this greatly deters would be growers from planting there. that, and the fact that they get a lot of spring hail, and that will wipe out a crop quicker than you can shake a stick at. so essentially the best place to grow is the high plains, cause the davis mountains is too much risk for the reward.

as far as harvest goes, there are a select few vineyards which do not harvest until the end of sept/beginning of october, which is directly in line with rioja, bordeaux, cotes du rhone, etc.



[This message has been edited by senorchipotle (edited 9/30/2011 10:23p).]

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of course we can, and have. ever heard of magellan?

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I have, and I liked it, somewhat. I've also had a lot of French wines for 1/3 of the price that were way, way better. Magellan is a good wine, though it's not $45 good.
Texas is never going to be able to grow those high quality bordeaux grapes because we don't get the hang time required for those flavors to develop. Texas goes from veraison to harvest in about 45 days, where that can be 3 months in France and California. Those cool nights in those regions are what produce world class wines.

Can Texas grow high quality grapes to make great wines? Possibly. However, we aren't going to be in the Judgment of Paris anytime soon. Grapes like tannat and Spanish and southern Italian varietals are showing they can handle the heat and produce good wines. Until those grapes are grown in larger quantities, we are going to be stuck with people trying to put a square peg into a round hole.

well, i don't think magellan can be fairly judged atm because the first vintage was made in '08, and the wine really need to age for a while. i've tasted it against some 2nd growths like calon segur and rauzan segla and it held up pretty well. only thing is, the mag was a bit thicker and inkier(which isn't necessarily a good thing, granted) because the cabernet crop got a lot of hail and thinned it out by ~25%.

is it mouton rothschild? not yet, but who knows, there's only been two vintages made thus far so we'll see!

does anybody know the best place to find cheap 10+ year old bordeaux in dallas? not premiere cru or anything, just some good cru bourgeois, etc.

cellar highlights:

Futo OV
Orin Swift Mercury Head (and plenty of Prisoner, Saldo, Palermo)
Blackbird Arise
Lots of Viader!!

Had a nice Far Niete Zin last night...we use cellar tracker to keep inventory as others have posted.

After reading this thread I have experienced a 5000% increase of my vina scientia. You guys have way too much free time.

[This message has been edited by OleDublinBobcat (edited 10/3/2011 10:41a).]

tasted saldo and prisoner for the first time last week, aggie mike. they were good wines, but i'm just not sure about this huge, high alcohol wine craze in the zins and rhone blends. a couple of them are even approaching 16%.

There are some nice wines in TX. Being from CA and growing up with a vineyard, there are differences. All personal taste.

Here is our cellar, house is for sale so if you buy the house I may throw in the wine....

Just for fun I wrote my own software. It's a work in progress... Here's the main screen:

I dig this thread. We've been steadily working our way around the Rhone's (grown an affinity for the GSMs) the past year or so and havent gotten bored yet. We've really been amazed by the quality of some of the lower (relatively) end stuff they've got at Spec's... Theres a $9 Perrin & Fils Reserve that drinks like $15. The Domaine Mourchon Tradition 2007 (mid-$20s) will give some Chateauneuf du Papes a run.

Rhones are a great value with some really nice wines, and the prices haven't gotten as silly as the CA cabs...

I really wish this forum/thread was around in '06 when I was working at Pisoni Estate (they also make Lucia and Lucy there.)

I still love wine but unfortunately since leaving the industry I just havent kept up with my cellar and don't drink near enough.

CellarTracker is a great tool. It's my go to for when to pop a cork and I also use it frequently when trying to find value retail buys.

Cecil, I popped one of the Del Dotto caves when I worked at Veritas in CS. Jealous you have some in your collection. Also did the '94 Guigal.

As far as Texas wines, it was a subject I was really passionate about when I first came back from California. For awhile it was a goal of mine to figure out a way to grow high-quality winegrapes in Texas.

I actually did a research paper on it in College. IMO, the most prohibitive factor is the most obvious one. Heat. A high quality wine grape (as has been mentioned) is a grape that not just ripens, but matures (get's plenty of hangtime.) You can grow grapes so fast in Brazil that you get three harvests a year, that doesnt mean they are suitable for making good wine though.

What makes California so exceptional is the marine influence. It is okay for a wine grape to be in an area that get's hot. I'll never forget my first time in Napa and sitting there looking at the thermometer during the middle of the day in October and it reading mid-90's and thinking "what the hell is so special about this place?" Well then the we eat dinner, the sun goes down and drive back over the hill to Santa Rosa where I was working and the temp drops to 58 degrees. That does a couple things. Obviously it limits the amount of hours that the fruit is exposed to heat which accelerates ripening. It also allows the acid levels to catchup with the sugars. One of the most basic principles in what makes a good wine is balance, primarily balance between acid and sugar. The cool air from San Pablo bay rolls into Carneros and then travels up the Napa Valley every night, allowing this to happen. The same phenomenon happens in Russian River, Anderson Valley, Alexander Valley, Sonoma Coast, all the Santa Barbara appellations every night.

One of the first Texas winemakers is quoted as saying, "In California at night all these things happen, the marine layer moves in, the vinyeards cool down etc. In Texas at night it gets dark."

We don't have the luxury of having an Ocean that drops thousands of feet just off of our coast as CA does. The Gulf doesnt exactly have the same "marine" effect as the pacific.

This was the primary question behind my paper in College. If we don't have this marine effect, what do we have that can act similar? Besides marine effect and moving north in latitude what is the other variable that can make the temperature cooler? Elevation.

I'll never forget going backpacking with the scouts in the Davis Mountains when I was young. During the day it was very hot... and dry. At night we all had to wear jackets and long pants (much like people in CA) and this was in July. The dry air does not hold heat, that combined with the elevation makes for a pretty cool night. Sonoma Coast cool? probably not but it doesnt have to be if you are not growing the same grapes as they are (which you shouldnt be.)

My theory was that the best place to grow grapes in Texas was not in the Hill Country (which despite it's name and touristy feel is not that high in elevation) but in West TX at several thousand feet. The high plains grapes grown around Lubbock take advantage of this to a lesser extent.

I took weather information from three established growing areas in the world (Barossa Valley, Australia; Southern Rhone, France and Jumilla, Spain) that are known for being relatively warm regions. I took the year-long average high and average low and compared it to Ft. Davis TX. It surprised even myself. The comparison was much more simlar than I thought it would be.

If you can drill and find a well for water, as some of the best vineyards in the world do, and do a geological survey making sure the soil is a good match (it is) then I think that is your best bet for making TX wine.

The problem is, who the hell wants to live out there? I don't. Now if I make oodles of money (ha) then maybe I'll pave an airstip out there and do it.

Anyway that was way longer than I wanted it to be. Just my $.02 on the TX wine industry and some of it's struggles.

Del Dotto: it's always fun to go there. It's even more fun when you wake up the next morning and realize you got so drunk in the caves that you maxed out your credit cards.

That's why their cave barrel tasting is called "Del Blotto"

To answer the original question, here are the top producers I own in my cellar in order of number of bottles purchased from each producer. All my foreign wines are about one bottle each so you won't see much more than Cali on this list.

Match Vineyards
Cameron Hughes 
Pott Wine
Myriad Cellars 
Rivers-Marie 
Realm Cellars 
Lancaster Estate
Quivet Cellars
Karl Lawrence 
Keating 
Wolf Family Vineyards 
Bedrock Wine Co. 
Lewelling 
Outpost 
Ovid 
Rudius
Seven Stones 
Zichichi 
Loring Wine Company 
Del Dotto 
12c 
Celler Joan Simó 
Scarecrow 
Saint Helena Road Vineyards 
Ridge 
Turley  
Detert Family Vineyards 
Drinkward Peschon 
Gamba 
Lamborn Family Vineyards 
Jean Edwards Cellars 
Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyards 
Andrew Geoffrey 
Bond 
Carter Cellars 
Beaulieu Vineyard 
Behrens & Hitchcock 
Bella Vineyards 
Girard 
Fantesca 
Provenance Vineyards 

water turkey... yeah, i know what you mean about not wanting to live in west texas. there are actually a pretty fair number of subsidies a person under the age of 35 i believe who could take advantage of them and with a little extra funding, make some plantings in some of the best soil the world has to offer. but the problem is, there ain't nothing out there. i've been out to the high plains and i'd be depressed if i had to live out there. i'd love to grow some grapes, but even if i convinced myself that growing grapes out there would be advantageous and rewarding, there's no way i could convince my gf to move out there.

Rubicon 07 x2
Caymus Special Reserve x2
Caymus 08 x1
Del Dotta 07 American Oak
Del Dotto 07 Cab
Del Dotta 09 French Oak
Del Dotto Rutherford Estate Napa 06
Stags Leap 09
few bottles of some random stuff.
Opus x1
Honig x6

Working to build up a strong 20 or so bottle collection of nicer wines.

[This message has been edited by coscaggie (edited 10/4/2011 1:43p).]

That's a very good list.

Honig is a really nice cab. Priced well ($40 retail) and good folks as well. At least it seemed so when we visited. I like the 2008 better than the 2007 but both were very good.

I'm getting five cases (at wholesale) for my daughter's wedding next March!

I've got one each Opus 06 and 07 right now and hope to hang on to them until they're ready in 10 years or so...

There are some great lists here. Thanks to everyone for sharing. I plan on picking recommendations from them.

My wife and I are fans of California reds in most shapes and forms. We've toured and tasted at a number of them listed.

I will second the Del Dotto experience. I woke up the next day with $700 on my Amex going, how did this happen?

Great business model.

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I've got one each Opus 06 and 07 right now and hope to hang on to them until they're ready in 10 years or so...

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I wouldn't hold onto the 07 much longer. While 07 made some extremely good wines, in my opinion, they aren't going to have the structure to hold up until 2017. I'm afraid you may be disappointed if you wait too long. Since you only have one of those, it's better to drink it young and have to let it breathe a little, rather than wait too long only to find out all the fruit have fallen out and you're left with boozy oak-flavored water. If it's drinking well now, find a reason to celebrate and pop the cork on that bad boy. The 06 should last a while though.

Opus has an aging chart: http://www.opusonewinery.com/The-Wine/Service-Storage-and-Aging/Aging

It seems to account for differing vintages. It will be interesting to see when they move the 2007 to the ready to drink status...

What do you think of their Overture? I've got one I want to try soon and will order more if it's good.

[This message has been edited by cecil77 (edited 10/4/2011 4:21p).]

I have not had it. Personally, I wasn't that impressed with Opus One when I had it. I've had better cab blends recently that I much rather prefer (Provenance To-Kalon, Spottswoode, Realm, D. R. Stephens, Lewis to name a few). To each his own though.

From what I've read aging is crucial to Opus, as in reviewers not caring for it young, but with some age it blossums.

But as you say, there is not "right" - that's why there's a bazillion different wines in the world. And so little time.

Last night we tried the 2006 Marietta Angeli Cuvee and it's quite good. Especially for the $30-ish online price.

As I said earlier, I typically age my Cali cabs 5-7 years but I'm noticing I'm drinking my 2007s recently as well. They just seem ready to go. The 2006 and 2008 wines will probably go the distance on my aging plans.

I had the Overture about 5 years ago and it was a decent wine. I can't remember the price but it wasn't the $20 they charged about 10 years ago so I passed. I like Opus but there are better Oakville cabs at 1/4-1/2 the price. But if you're buying...

opus one... if it can't last 15 years, the fruit just ain't that good. and it sure as hell ain't worth the price.

if you want something that will blow your mind for about the same price of a bottle of opus, try a vieux chateau certan from pomerol. you can get a 2005 for under 200. you'll never look at merlot in the same way again.