Texas Special Report: A Declaration of Wine Independence

Texas winemakers declared independence four years ago when they wrote tighter regulations on what it means for a wine to be Texan. This move to self-reliance in grape sourcing has unleashed a wave of exploration and creativity within the stronger borders of those new rules.

This tasting report delves into the fruits of that declaration of independence, with tasting notes and scores on 263 Texas wines accompanied by reporting gleaned from my weeklong visit to the Texas Hill Country. There were many exciting highs to share, yet more than a few underperforming wines that show Texans are still sorting out the best regions, grape varieties and winemaking skills needed.

The new rules keep most out-of-state grapes and bulk wine out of Texas wineries, at least for those who want to label their wines as truly Texan. Previously, winemakers could freely import California grapes or bulk wine, bottle it there and sell it without disclosing the source to buyers.

“Attitudes and minds have shifted greatly in the state from where they were 10 years ago,” said Chris Brundrett, the cofounder of William Chris Wines, which is based in the Texas Hill Country AVA. He is one of the most visible and growth-oriented grower-vintners in the state.

“A couple of the biggest producers were totally against it,” he said. “Yet the worst feeling was when a customer felt duped, when they found out after the fact that they weren’t drinking Texas-grown wine.”

Today, any Texas wine labeled with an American Viticultural Area, a Texas county or a vineyard designation must be made from grapes grown only in that location. Many of the first wines bottled under the new rules are now ready to buy and drink.

We tasted dozens of varietal wines and blends, predominantly reds but with an eclectic mix of whites and other types. While almost half the wines earned low to medium scores – from 80 to 90 points on our 100-point scale – the other half were well-made, high-quality wines that any experienced wine drinker might enjoy.

A handful of wineries really stood out, including but not limited to Calais, Robert Clay, French Connection, Uplift Vineyard and Pedernales, earning scores of 93 to 96 for a range of wine types – cabernet sauvignon to mourvedre, montepulciano and tempranillo.

The Calais reds really won me over as someone who cut his teeth on Napa cabernet. The Calais Cabernet Sauvignon Texas High Plains Cuvée de L'Exposition Clone 47 Navarra Vineyards 2020 earned the highest score in this report. It feels silky, delicate in texture and offers pretty, intricate floral and red currant flavors that are enticing and delicious. I was surprised, though, to see alcohol numbers of 15 percent to 16 percent in this and a couple of other outstanding Calais reds, because they don’t feel heavy or hot, just relaxed, layered and mouth-filling.

French Connection is a sister winery to Calais, focusing on Rhone varieties, of which the French Connection Mourvèdre Texas Dell Valley Vineyards 2021 is a stunning example. It’s exciting because the meaty, plummy, chocolaty flavors, great depth and length show how amazingly well this traditional grape of France can perform here.

Among several wines made from Spanish varieties, the Pedernales Tempranillo Texas High Plains Lahey Vineyard 2020 was the most memorable. It stands out from the pack of generally more burly, mouth-puckering tempranillos for its elegant texture, fresh flavors and soft, powdery tannins.

Winemaking is hardly a new thing in Texas, since its history dates to the 1600s when Spanish missionaries planted vitis vinifera grapes in what is now western Texas to make wine for church communion services and drinking. A few grape growers, winemakers and grape breeders kept at it until Prohibition made wine illegal in the United States from 1920 to 1933.

But the Texas Wine Growers date the beginning of today’s wine industry to the 1973 founding of Fall Creek Vineyards in the Texas Hill Country just west of Austin, and Llano Estacado Winery in 1973 in the Texas High Plains around Lubbock. The High Plains count more acres of grapes, but the Hill Country around Fredericksburg is the tourism hub, within a one-and-a-half hour’s drive of Austin and San Antonio, and just five hours from the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.

Fredericksburg is a bustling, handsome small city with a broad main avenue lined with Victorian era buildings that are packed with wine bars, good restaurants, fudge stores and Western wear shops. That’s where we stayed during our week of tasting and reporting.

It’s tempting to try and declare which wine types do best in Texas or which grapes to look for the most, but it would also be totally presumptuous, not to mention difficult based on our limited tasting and research. We can say that the largest category of samples we tasted was tempranillos, and three of these were among our 10 highest-rated.

We sampled 20 cabernet sauvignons but generally preferred the 20 or so Bordeaux-style blends, 12 of which got 90 or higher scores. One winemaker said that petit verdot is the best Bordeaux red grape to grow in Texas, while another said he would grow only merlot if limited to just one grape variety.

Rhone varietals and red blends also performed quite well. In fact, blends of different grape varieties, either traditional European-style blends or novel Texan blends like Becker Vineyards’ malbec with minor portions of tannat and petite sirah, seemed more consistently high-scoring than pure varietals in many cases. This makes sense when you consider that the often extreme weather conditions and varied geography in the state favor different varieties in different years.

So if a late spring freeze severely affects early-budding merlot, but late-budding mourvedre and tannat come through unaffected, a winemaker who relies on all three still has a couple of good, healthy option to make wine from.

“Blends are key here,” said Brundrett of William Chris, “because  we can make good wines every year, but it you want the ability to make great wines you should leave yourself some blending options.”

That approach has paid off for the William Chris brand, as its cabernet-based Enchanté and merlot-based Hunter red blends are two of the best known and best-selling wines in the state.

But every winery seems to have a different opinion about which grape varieties perform best, in or out of blends.

“There has been discussion over the years that mourvedre and tempranillo might be the leading grapes of Texas, but it’s not that simple,” said Sheri Pattillo, the marketing chief and co-owner of French Connection with French-born founder Ben Calais (who also owns Calais Winery).

The assistant winemaker for French Connection and Calais, Gina Ross, added: “Cabernet franc is the second healthiest Bordeaux variety here after petit verdot. And we don’t mess with malbec anymore.”

Tony Offill, the chief winemaker at William Chris, rattles off some of his best-performing varieties: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, tannat, grenache, syrah. He says tannat may be best in the Texas Hill Country, which spreads west from Austin, and mourvedre in the Texas High Plains, a five-hour drive northwest around Lubbock, where the vineyards enjoy higher elevation and a drier climate.

Our highest-rated tannats include those from Kalasi, Ab Astris, Bending Branch and William Chris. It’s a notoriously tannic grape variety, and the Ab Astris Tannat Texas Hill Country Estate Grown 2020 Is a good example of that – a big, peppery, beefy wine with muscular tannins. It’s punchy, edgy and dramatic like a cool-climate syrah.

Another standout winery, Uplift Vineyard, is hedging its bets, growing 13 different varieties in the Hoovers Valley district of Hill Country, where winemaker Claire Richardson makes a superlative roussanne white and a fresh-tasting Montepulciano red that asks, “Who needs pinot noir?” This is because pinor noir was about the only familiar variety we didn’t encounter in Texas. This land of droughts, floods, scorching heat waves, snow-pocalypses and hailstorms is too rowdy in most winemakers’ opinions for the delicate red grape of Burgundy.

However, that’s not necessarily true for the main white grape of Burgundy, chardonnay. Robert Clay winery, a tiny operation run by the father-son team of Dan McLaughlin and Blake McLaughlin just off the town square in Mason, Texas, makes mineral-rich, singular chardonnays in tiny quantities. A long-aged red wine from their cellar, the Robert Clay Merlot Texas Hill Country 2015, is supple, intricate and layered, sold only direct to consumer in tiny quantities.

Finally, to quench the thirst of Texans or any other wine drinkers in the long, hot summer months there is picpoul blanc. Several good examples of this refreshing, acid-driven, usually light-bodied and white turned up, the best of which in our estimation was Rhinory Picpoul Blanc Texas High Plains 2023.

Please check the complete list of tastings notes below this article to explore more Texas wines yourself.

– Jim Gordon, Executive Editor

Note: The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated by the JamesSuckling.com team. You can sort the wines by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name.