QBCade said:

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Bday dinner lineup

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Happy birthday old man!

Happy bday !

I've made some runs to the recycle center with entirely embarrassing numbers of empties, but that takes the title.

WestUAg said:

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BSD and I had some wine last night.

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My kinda party

BSD said:

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QBCade said:

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Bday dinner lineup

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Happy birthday old man!

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Muchas gracias

Hell yea

htxag09 said:

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Last bottle got me twice today….the New Zealand Sauvignon blanc and the Paso Robles mystery bottle….

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Mystery was Dauo I believe?

Very interesting article about Dan Gatlin (long and a bit rambling as it's a conversation) that covers a lot of what Dan has learned in his lifetime in wine and 45 years of wine making. The conversation is just after Dan hosted a tasting/discussion for the judges of the Texas International Wine Competition. This has become an annual tradition. The judges were from all over the place including many from Europe including several Masters of Wine.

Dan Gatlin: Clones and Concentration. A Different Philosophy From Terroir-Based Explanations of Wine Quality

cecil77 said:

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Very interesting article about Dan Gatlin (long and a bit rambling as it's a conversation) that covers a lot of what Dan has learned in his lifetime in wine and 45 years of wine making. The conversation is just after Dan hosted a tasting/discussion for the judges of the Texas International Wine Competition. This has become an annual tradition. The judges were from all over the place including many from Europe including several Masters of Wine.

Dan Gatlin: Clones and Concentration. A Different Philosophy From Terroir-Based Explanations of Wine Quality

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Interesting stuff ... thanks for sharing.

A lot of it was over my head but I still learned from it. I guess his main point is that Texas farmers and wineries need to reduce their yield per acre to improve quality?? Stop overproducing and start aiming for quality at a higher price point?

They've been needing to do that for the past decade. A few are listening.

QBCade said:

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WestUAg said:

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BSD and I had some wine last night.

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My kinda party

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You should come down someday. But since you're not acclimated to Texas anymore, I'd suggest only visiting during November-early March.

Btw, WestU also cooked up a nice batch of steaks that night. It was a damn fine evening!

Yes, yield is the main thing. Some of it is old cotton farmers wanted to grow as much cotton as they possibly could, after switching to grapes it takes different mindset. Also, others have insisted that $20 wine is all Texas can make so don't attempt anything else. And stating clusters/vine makes it easier to understand, as it takes spacing out. I mean, you could grow one vine in the middle of an acre with 100 clusters on it and the tons/acre would be low!

Clonal selection is really important as well. And vine orientation, east/west so the sun travels down the row as opposed to across. Last time I was in Napa it seemed like many new plantings were cross Valley, so maybe Napa is changing as well.

This section confused me a bit:

"We just have to convince growers to stop flooding the market with 10 tons per acre and putting it in every Chevron and every Shell, I mean, it's just flooded the market to a point where that's the only thing people think Texas wine is, cause it's everywhere."

As a consumer, I would argue the opposite ... Texas wines are often difficult to find outside the wineries themselves. Becker shows up in some restaurants ... I know Cabernet Grill in Fredericksburg has a large collection of Texas wine, Pearl & Vine in Katy carries a few, too ... but even in stores like Total Wine you aren't seeing a big selection outside of a couple of wineries.

Or am I misunderstanding his point?

Yes he may be overstating, but the point is not making "gas station wine". And you do see it a gas stations, at least around here.

cecil77 said:

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Yes he may be overstating, but the point is not making "gas station wine". And you do see it a gas stations, at least around here.

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Gotcha ... thanks.

Thanks for sharing.

I really enjoy all of the mid and upper tier wines we get from Inwood, but always go back and forth on keeping the membership because we really don't care for any of the Illumina offerings that make up most of the allocations.

FTAco07 said:

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Thanks for sharing.

I really enjoy all of the mid and upper tier wines we get from Inwood, but always go back and forth on keeping the membership because we really don't care for any of the Illumina offerings that make up most of the allocations.

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Same here. Hang tight there's an evaluation of the clubs going on. You can always contact Spencer and ask to keep just the Proprietor membership. And with a case discount of 25% just buying by the case is always an option.

(I do drink the Illumina CF, though))

Ha, the Cab Franc is the only one we will drink as well.

We opened a Texas wine last night (2019 Calais Cabernet Sauvignon) that was good but relatively expensive for what it was. That's my biggest complaint on Texas wine is that it is hard to find wines that excel from a QPR standpoint. The good ones are more expensive than similar wines from other regions, and the bad ones tend to be awful. We ended up getting a shipment from Invention Vineyards due to forgetting to cancel, and both reds we've tried tasted altered. I want to see Texas wineries do well and agree that there is a long way to go to get there. Sometimes I wonder if the issue is with grower mindset as Cecil mentioned or just reflective of the collective tastes of consumers in the region.

It's demand driven. Too many people want Texas wine, and there isn't enough acreage under vine to get the yields down to make quality wine. The only real solution is to plant more vines and grow them to 3-5 tons/acre.

100% agree. We went to Calais last year? Had all of his white and red BDX blends. They are pretty damn good for Texas grapes, but if you put his red BDXs against the same price point in actual Bordeaux it's not even close.

That said, his white bdx was really well made and I would buy it again.

I have had a few decent Tempranillo's from Texas wineries and some decent Rhone white blends.

There is a lot of below average wine and the average consumer doesn't know good wine.

Other wine regions have figured out how to make $20 wine that is high quality. Barbara d'Asti / Alba in the Piedmont, Campo de Borja in Spain, Alsace in France, and Ligure in Italy all come to mind. From a size perspective I'd be shocked if any of them had more acres in production than Texas.

They likely have government subsidies and they build communal facilities to process the grapes into wine so it's less capital intensive for each winery to build their own means of production.

I'm sure that the communal processing facilities have something to do with keeping the costs down. I also feel like growing grapes 300 miles from where it is made and marketed adds a significant cost to Texas wineries that other regions don't have to contend with. The euro equivalent would be taking grapes from Burgundy and trucking them to Brussels to be turned into wine.

jh0400 said:

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Other wine regions have figured out how to make $20 wine that is high quality. Barbara d'Asti / Alba in the Piedmont, Campo de Borja in Spain, Alsace in France, and Ligure in Italy all come to mind. From a size perspective I'd be shocked if any of them had more acres in production than Texas.

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There's roughly 12,000 acres under vine in Texas, depending on your source. By comparison, there's 34,000 planted to Barbera alone in Piedmont, and roughly 15,000 planted in Campo de Borja. And how many people do you know that are looking for either of those wines as compared to Texas wine?

Wine prices roughly follow yields worldwide. So no, there's not many $20 "quality" wines out there, regardless where they're produced.

Wine pricing includes production/marketing costs, traditional profit levels, and perceived quality due to location.

Roy Piper has had some interesting articles, blaming absurd Napa prices not just on increased production costs, but producers insisting that they should continue to get a higher return than the market support.

As to the better Texas wines being more expensive than wines of similar quality from traditional places, there's some truth to that, but it's not a given. We've had many tastings with wines of similar price to ours and often times are preferred to similarly priced wines from Napa or wherever.

Ben does make some good wines and I buy them. Though I was disappointed in the latest couple , Gravitas and the Narra Vineyards Clone 47.

My experience is that price is generally a good indicator of quality level. Similar to the old saying about horse races, "the race doesn't always go to the fastest horse... but that's the way to bet"

HTownAg98 said:

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Headed to Paris today to do a river cruise on the Seine, and then spending 3.5 days in Champagne. Only big house we're visiting is Moet Chandon; the rest are smaller producers.

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we expect a full report!