| Wine Tasting Deep in the Heart of Texas | | | | By: Eve White |  Page 1 of 3 next >> |
It began as a casual invitation to attend a Texas wine-tasting for a reunion, of sorts, with some old high school friends. How could I resist? So, with my 4-year old son properly ensconced at his trustworthy godparents, I set off from Los Angeles to Texas to attend the largest wine festival in the Southwest – The 18th Annual GrapeFest and People’s Choice Wine Tasting Classic in Grapevine.The festival, voted one of the top 100 events in the US and Canada, spans four sweltering days from September 9 – 12, attracting over 241,000 people to charming, downtown Grapevine, Texas, extending 8 city blocks on Main Street filled with arts & crafts, rides, food, music, beer and wine, making for a great festival experience with WINE as the theme, but fun, friends and family as the focus.
With a healthy variety of live music emanating from 3 stages, we began our introduction to GrapeFest late on Friday night for a flash-back of groovin’ tunes with the 70’s cover band Le Freak. It was a little late to be starting the evening, by my 40-something standards, but apparently not too late for the throngs of Texans meandering down Grapevine’s Main Street, poking their heads into retail booths, listening to good music and sipping cold beer and Texas wine, including the popular “sweet wine” preferred by many locals. Yes, Texas is a culture bred on hot summer nights, cold beer, soda-pop and sweet tea – and with a climate hot enough to discourage almost any right-minded cowpoke from sipping a big, tannic red wine, it is understandable. I knew, however, that another world beyond those residual sugar blends existed in Texas, and I was determined to find the ‘sweet spot’ in Texas wines that wasn’t so - well….sweet!
On Saturday we plunged head-first into the GrapeFest experience during the mid-day heat determined to “Savor the Flavor”, the theme of this year’s event. Armed with sunscreen and wine glasses, we diligently marched forward on a quest to soak up all that GrapeFest had to offer. And the first stop (Ahhhh…air-conditioning!) was Su Vino Winery, a new concept in wine as entertainment, where custom winemaking is the order of the day, with an impressive array of varietals from around the globe. We tasted the Oregon Pinot Noir, California Sauvignon Blanc, and my Texas friends loved “Summer Rain”, a proprietary sweet, white wine, while I preferred the Cab/Merlot blend which was quite quaffable. Other varietals didn’t make the mark, the Australian Shiraz was woody and bitter, Pinot Grigio was unpleasant, but all in all – what fun! The concept is simple. Sample and select your “batch” from the tasting bar, then, create your own labels, bottle your wine (1 batch = 30 bottles), take it home, age it and drink it. Voila! Your dreams of becoming a winemaker have finally come true, without breaking the bank! Though doubtful your wine will become legendary, it still seems like a lot of fun.
Leaving the comfort of cool air behind us, we were quickly back on our festival mission, strolling down crowded Main Street searching for our favorite fair foods (think…nachos, tacos, and the newly discovered, Spudzilla - a ribbon cut potato that was divine) – and definitely a little more wine! We found some shade from the blistering Texas sun, and gathered with food in hand on the lush green lawn of the stately JE Foust & Sons Funeral Home, est. 1880, with several other festival-goers, reclining under the shade of a cottonwood tree to enjoy a moment and take it all in, while a whimsical scarecrow on stilts entertained the young and old alike, and a 12’ tall cowboy (on stilts) proved everything IS bigger in Texas.
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