The statewide Texas drought and wildfires didn’t stamp out the desire to savor premium Texas wines at the second annual Houston Wine Festival last weekend.The two-day event, including music and food booths, featured 21 Texas wineries and a host of international wines as well.The popular Texas Hill Country, bounded by Austin and San Antonio, was represented by Grape Creek Vineyards, Texas Legato and Flat Creek Estates. The rest of the Texas wines represented the Piney Woods Wine Trail-east of Dallas-and Houston area wineries.“You don’t have to be a wine connoisseur to enjoy wine,” said Barre Bernhardt of Bernhardt Winery while passing out generous-sized samples of his awesome 2010 Pinot Grigio.“This wine is light and fruity with pineapple notes. But what wine tastes like is what your palate tells you; it’s all very subjective,” said Bernhardt, whose winery is situated in woodsy Plantersville, an hour and a half northwest of Houston.Although most Texans take great pride in harvesting home-grown grapes for their wine productions, sometimes weather conditions and disease force them to import grapes from California, Bernhardt said.“We’ve been producing wines for 20 years, but commercially for only six years. You can’t grow Pinot Grigio grapes in Texas because they’re susceptible to Pierce disease. So we get our grapes from California,” he said.By comparison, Red Road Vineyard and Winery in Naples, near Texarkana, buys some grapes from growers in nearby Arkansas. The winery produces both sweet and dry wines, including a 9-year, barrel-aged port wine. A featured festival favorite was Vingoles, a semi-dry blend similar to a Muscat white wine. This wine had a floral bouquet and lemon notes. The acid content felt especially refreshing beneath the hot Texas sun and temperatures hovering at 100 degrees.Red River Winery is an award-winning East Texas winery housed in a 1890s brick structure. A former icehouse, the winery has a tasting room near the town square. Check the web site for a schedule of days and times for public wine tastings. Meanwhile, Landon Winery in McKinney proudly boasted Texas grown grapes in its array of wine samples. Landon offered samples of its 2010 Viognier. The light, white crisp wine had notes of kiwi, pear and pineapple. Landon, which ages its wines in American and French oak barrels, is an award-winning winery in the far north Dallas hinterlands. Landon recently opened a second winery and wine tasting location in downtown Greenville. Gladys Haak of Haak Vineyards said she’s been making wine for the past 11 years. Her winery is south of Houston in the town of Santa Fe. Haak’s slogan offers “a taste of the old world in Galveston County” in all its wines.Haak’s signature award-winning semi-sweet Blanc du Bois is a must-have white wine. A floral bouquet of papaya and peach emanated from the sample she poured. It dazzled and refreshed the palate. This lightly effervescent wine had hints of apricot and pear notes. The finish was long and super delectable.“This wine is made from a French-American grape hybrid. It was developed in Florida to resist Pierce disease. Our wines are made with locally-grown grapes we buy from all over Texas. That’s how we made this Blanc du Bois,” said Haak.This year, for the first time-ever, Haak Vineyards reaped the benefits of great wine from its own crop of grapes grown on its Santa Fe estate. The result is an award-winning 2010 Estate Reserve Blanc du Bois. In fact, this wine qualifies for its own prestigious designation of origin (DO) so often used with European wines. Seventy five miles northwest of Austin is Texas Legato Winery. Samples of the award-winning Petit Syrah were plentiful. Notes of ripe red cherries and licorice wafted from beneath the covered stand. Sipping the dry, red wine conjured images of green forests, woodsy hamlets and wood-burning fireplaces.Lance Bledsoe, a member of the Bledsoe family that started Texas Legato, manned the stand. “We’ve been producing wines commercially for four years, and this Petit Syrah is a Malbec blend,” he said.“I really like this red wine, but in this heat we have to put a chill in it. We also make two white wines. Our semi-sweet wines are Peggy Sue and Sweet Surrender. Peggy Sue is named after my mom and grandma,” he said, handing out Petit Syrah Reserve samples, too.Bledsoe said he worked for his uncle at the Pillar Bluff Vineyards in Lampasas for nearly 10 years. It was there that he honed his winemaking knowledge and skills. In 2007, his family started their winery.“Our reserve is aged for two years in French and American oak. We use a synthetic cork because you can lose wine through oak corks,” he said.Wine stands sporting the names of nearly two dozen Texas wineries stood next to wine stands from Argentina, Chile, Spain, France and other countries. But wine aficionados didn’t shy away from trying wines from the Lone Star State.“I think Texas wines are now equal in quality to California wines. There have been a number of competitions statewide, and Texas wines have been picked as winners over California wines,” he said.Judging from the throng of wine lovers who waited in line at Sam Houston Park to sample Texas wines, it’s clear these wines have lassoed a corner of the national wine market. And organizers of the event couldn’t be more pleased.“Our first priority is to expose the ever growing Texas wine industry. Texas wines have been flowing since the 1900s, and it’s a proud piece of Texas history. So at the Houston Wine Fest, you’ll experience the best wines Texas has to offer,” said one HWF committee member.
