Grape News for East Texas
By Tom Geddie
Help Texas farmers by sipping a glass of wine or buying
a bottle or two. That’s the message pushing the state’s winery and vineyard
“explosion” that is arriving in East Texas.
It’s not about cheap, off-the-shelf package store wine;
rather, it’s about the total experience of exploring which kinds of wine go
with which kinds of foods in friendly, down-home, but somewhat elegant
environments.
It’s also become a $200 million-a-year business since
the state legislature created the Texas Wine Marketing Assistance Program in
2001. The Texas Department of Agriculture program promotes wine made from
grapes grown in the state.
While most of the growth has been in the Hill Country,
far West Texas, the South Plains, and North Central Texas, both vineyards
(where grapes are grown) and wineries (where wine is made and, often, sold)
are also now in East Texas.
The newest winery in this area is Savannah Winery in
Canton, which is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Monday on
Highway 64 at the foot of The Mountain on the First Monday grounds.
Flo and Ed Pickett opened the restaurant in October and
began serving wine in December once they met licensing requirements. By Ed’s
count, Savannah is the114th winery in Texas.
“This is Flo’s passion, making wine and cooking,” Ed
said. At a friend’s urging, the couple visited LouViney’s winery in
Winnsboro and decided to open their own place.
In addition to a changing menu that includes roast
beef, pork roast, sandwiches, cheeses, fruits, and chocolate from Calico
Chocolates in Grand Saline, Savannah serves five varieties of LouViney’s
wine, and five Brushy Creek wines from Alvord, Texas, all created by
LouViney’s, as it goes through the lengthy process of making its own wine.
“We will not grow grapes, but will get liquid
concentrate from vineyards and make our own wine,” Ed says.
Savannah has two 265-gallon tanks that each will
produce — in 30 to 90 days, sometimes a year, depending on the kind of wine
— about a thousand bottles of wine under their own label.
Flo and Ed hope to help establish tasting tours of East
Texas wineries and even hope to host a wine festival in Canton sometime in
2008 or 2009.
LouViney’s opened its first winery in Winnsboro in
August 2005 and opened a second location in Mineola in the fall of 2006.
Both locations are open 4-9 p.m. Thursdays and noon to 10 p.m. Fridays and
Saturdays; reservations are encouraged.
Nancy Briggs and her twin sisters Susan Jones and
Susann Briggs own the winery and vineyard named for their mother.
“Susan and I made homemade wine for several years and I
bought property out here eight years ago,” Susann said. “We decided to plant
some grapevines just to make wine. Then we bought another 10 acres and took
grape-growing classes at Grayson County College and met some other winery
and vineyard owners and decided to go ahead.”
LouViney sells whites, reds, and blushes from its own
vineyard and from Homestead, Ivanhoe, and Wells Manor. Its menu includes
brushetta, stuffed mushrooms, smoked salmon wrap, stuffed grape leaves,
chicken curry wrap, chicken tortilla wrap, spring mix salad on crispy pasta,
bread basket with three cheeses, tea, coffee, soft drinks, and bottled
water.
“People come in here for the food and atmosphere. They
come to learn about the wines and to have a good meal,” Susann said. A
portion — but certainly not all — of the customers are people who moved to
the area to retire, loving the quiet of East Texas but also wanting certain
big-city touches.
Susann said growing wine is “like a science project.”
“Watching the plants grow and the fruit mature,
checking them for acids and ph, knowing when they are ready and the flavors
and colors and different growing conditions all are part of the process,”
she said.
All grapes are subject to a variety of diseases; in
East Texas, one of the biggest villains is Pierce Disease, which exists from
Florida around the Gulf Coast and as far north as Little Rock and along the
Red River. The disease has spread into Southern California. (Many vineyards
plant rose bushes at the ends of rows to act as early warning signals for
diseases, since the roses are even more sensitive.)
“We can produce a lot of crop in a small area, which is
good for farmers,” Susan said. “Opening up wineries in a dry county helps
Texas agriculture, helps the small farmer.
“The demand has gone up for the grapes and we’re
helping create demand for Texas agriculture. Texas is one of the leading
states for wine consumption but produces only five percent of what’s
consumed, so we’re missing a large target,” she said.
LouViney plans to build a production facility in the
vineyard near Greenwood because it’s running out of space in its winery. The
new 2,500-gallon facility will more than double production capabilities.
The Kiepersol Estate Vineyard operates a restaurant and
a bed-and-breakfast on 33 acres near Bullard and a winery in the French
Quarter across from Broadway Mall in Tyler. The family planted grapes in
April 1998 and May 1999 and made its first vintage crop in 2000; return on
investment usually takes three to eight years.
Winemaker and estate manager Marnelle de Wet Durrett
grew up in Whitehouse “immersed in agriculture” and apprenticed at Trefethen
Vineyards in Napa Valley, California.
“It’s a way of life, a part of our culture and
passion,” she said. “I grew up in a European-style home and have been around
wine my whole life.”
The main Kiepersol grapes are cabernet sauvignon,
syrah, and merlot.
Marnelle acknowledged that wine is “an intimidating
drink” for some people.
“We try to make it less intimidating,” she said. “The
only way to figure it out is to open a bottle and start tasting wine, and
not being afraid you are going to do anything wrong.”
She recommended wine appreciation classes and formal
tastings.
“We want people to know what wine is. Wine is healthier
for you, better for you, and more enjoyable to drink than beer or apple
martinis. And it enhances food. We’re not in the business of getting people
drunk. We are in the business of helping people enjoy a nice wine with a
nice meal, and how it pairs together,” Marnelle said.
While LouViney and Kiepersol own both wineries and
vineyards, some prefer to stick with vineyards.
Grabowski Vineyard and Nursery has about 400
Pierce-resistant, native grapevines on three-quarters of an acre near
Chandler.
This time of year, Jim Grabowski prunes the vines which
will grow in the spring and ripen from June through August depending on the
variety. The vines are partially dormant this time of year; an unexpected
hard freeze could cause havoc.
Jim began the vineyard 17 years ago with a few plants
that he’s propagated. He opens it to public picking and sells grapes to
wineries and churches which make their own grape juice for communion.
Broken Wheel Ranch Vineyard in Edgewood started small
in 2000 and planted a large selection of wine grapes in 2005. Owner Kari Kay
produces organic seedless table grapes, grapes for jams and jellies, and
several wine varieties
“We plan to continue expanding each February until we
have a thousand grapevines,” Kari said. “A lot of vineyards are trying to do
that because it looks like it’s going to take Texas vineyards 15-20 years to
catch up with the demand from wineries. It’s such a booming business.”
Growing has it challenges aside from diseases and
fungi.
“We were doing gangbusters two years ago and survived
the draught because we had well water,” Kari said. “Last year we couldn’t
irrigate and lost 60 percent of our new plants.”
Replanting is difficult because people who sell the
rootstock have only limited supplies themselves.
“We can buy only 10 plants this year, and last year we
bought 300.”
Broken Wheel also opens for public picking for jams or
jellies or wines in season.
Other operations in the region include Los Pinos Ranch
Vineyards in Pittsburg, Maydelle Country Wines in Rusk, Paris Vineyards in
Paris, and Homestead Winery in Ivanhoe.
According to the Texas Wine Marketing Research
Institute at Texas Tech, Texas is the fifth-largest producer in the nation,
farming over 3,100 acres and producing 8.7 tons of wine grapes.
Paul Bonarrigo, chairman of the Texas Wine Industry
Development Advisory Committee, owns Messina Hof Winery in Bryan. He said
the industry has changed dramatically in 30 years.
“Texas was last in wine production in 1977. Now we’re
outselling Australia, we’re outselling France, and we’re outselling
California in new sales growth, and that is unbelievable.”
Even more unbelievable to people who haven’t heard the
story is Texas’ influence on the famed French wine industry.
Between 1880 and 1910, Texan T.V. Munson traveled all
over the state describing, classifying, breeding, selecting, propagating,
marketing, recording, and exhibiting the native grapes that have grown along
Texas rivers and streams for thousands of years. When the disease
phylloxerea almost destroyed French grapevines, Munson spearheaded the
shipment of three ship loads of resistant dormant stem cuttings from Texas
to France, where they were used as breeding stock for the rootstocks that
saved the industry.
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