Posts Tagged honey

http://www.wacowinery.com

Tehuacana Creek Vineyards and Winery, also known as TCV, is located in Waco and is owned by Ulf and Inga-Lill Westblom, both originally from Sweden. Ulf is also the winemaker. They started planting the first of four vineyards in March 1997 and the winery opened to the public in 2006. To help others, including myself initially, Tehuacana Creek is pronounced like “To-walk-in-a-Creek.” The name of the winery comes from the creek which runs on the border of their land.

When I visited, Jenny greeted me on my way up to the winery. Inside were the Westbloms but Jenny handled my tasting. Tastings are done while standing at the tasting bar and the tastings are free for all available wines. I was able to taste nine wines when I visited the winery. The wine bottles are corked and the wines are poured from the bottle. You can buy food while at the winery which you can enjoy while drinking their Texas wine.

In addition to information from Jenny, Ulf also talked with me and gave me a history of his wine making and the winery. Ulf explained how he came from a wine making family. Not professionally, but his mother made apple wines and his grandfather made barley wine. So it was just a natural while he was in college in Europe he made his first wine in 1974. In the tasting room, he still has the very last bottle of the very last wine he made in college unopened. It was called Krökarvin. Ulf said every time someone who understands Swedish comes into the winery and sees the bottle, they start laughing because they know what it means: “Wine to get drunk on.”

Tehuacana Creek Vineyards and Winery uses about 75% Texas grapes. The first varietal grown was Norton and they were the second Texas vineyard to plant Norton in 1997. They followed that by planting Blanc du Bois and Black Spanish which they use to make a port. The winery has two acres of vineyards where they also grow Favorite, a clone of Black Spanish, and Herbemont. Tehuacana Creek Vineyards and Winery makes over 18 different kinds of Texas wines, all blends. When the wine is oaked, they use American oak barrels.

Both Ulf and Inga-Lill have 35 years of experience of being semi-professional wine tasters by being wine judges, wine critics, and teaching wine courses. Their philosophy on creating their wine blends come from the consumer point of view and they would never blend anything they wouldn’t buy themselves.

Tehuacana Creek Vineyards and Winery also makes Mulsum which is a white wine sweetened with honey made from a 2,000 year old Roman recipe and it is their number one seller. During the holidays, a warm Swedish Glögg is made which is very popular. The winery produces about 500 cases of Texas wine a year.

Free tours are available of the production facilities in the nearby building. There is a nice gift shop and in fact I bought two waiter’s corkscrews which I had been looking for. There are also jams and cheeses available in addition to wine accessories and other gifts.

Tehuacana Creek Vineyards and Winery has a wine club. They also hold wine tasting classes and wine tasting gourmet dinners.

Live music events are held at the winery in addition to private parties. They plan on building a bigger tasting room and event room for weddings and parties.

If you are in the Waco area, you will not regret stopping by and visiting Tehuacana Creek Vineyards and Winery.

One of the best things about Texas wines besides visiting Texas wineries is drinking the wine and especially enjoying the Texas wine with other people. This post is about two events we attended this past weekend which hold true to that principle.

Texas Wine Release Party

You may have read about our recent experience in bottling wines at Caldwell Family Winery & Vineyards. Chris Caldwell told us at the time he would be having a release party and we were hoping we would be invited. After all, we helped bottle two of the wines.

We did get our invitation along with quite a few other people. According to the tasting menu sent in advance, there would be free white and red wine flights with two wines each. You could also purchase an Eaglefire wine by the glass or bottle. A silent auction would also be held for a 6 liter magnum of their 2010 Eaglefire Muscat Blanc, which was a 2010 Houston Rodeo International Wine Competition Gold Medal winner.

The release party started at 6:30pm on Friday and we arrived around 20 minutes later. We didn’t know what to do since it was our first release party, so we ended up standing around until Chris Caldwell saw us and welcomed us. As we learned, it was their first release party too. A table was on the side with bread, cheese, and pita chips which Gloria fell in love with. At the rear of the room was the tasting table where Chris’s wife Yoli was doing the pouring.

We started with the white of course and had the Muscat Blanc which we had previously bought and loved. Since we didn’t know anybody else at the party, we stood around looking for someone for which to start a conversation. While doing so we moved on to the next white wine, their Blanc du Bois, another Texas wine. They also had a mead wine which had previously been made but never sold which was actually pretty good.

After we finished the two flights of wine, we decided on a glass each. My glass was poured and it was a very generous glass. One guy who was standing nearby said, “I want one of those too!” He looked like fun so I made a note to try and talk to him and his partner later.

We then headed to the table which had the silent auction items. One was the aforementioned 6 liter magnum and the other two were cases of wine. The labels from the Caldwell Family Winery & Vineyards white wines are actually from art drawn by Chris Caldwell’s children. The art was behind the silent auction table so it was fun seeing what inspired the actual label.

There was already one bid on the 6 liter bottle so I was prodded by Gloria to bid higher which I did. We would occasionally check back through the night and raise the bid.

I saw the opportunity to speak to the guy who made the generous glass comment and I’m glad I did. His name was Steven and his girlfriend is Amanda. It turns out that Steven is a sommelier and will be general manager of a restaurant opening on July 18th in Houston: Sorrel Urban Bistro (http://www.sorrelhouston.com). Note: unpaid plug. Besides having daily fresh fruits and vegetables, they will offer Texas wines. That news piqued our interest. Steven will be serving some Caldwell Family Winery wine in addition to some other Texas wines. We had a great conversation with Steven and Amanda during the night and promised we would definitely visit the new restaurant.

We went to visit the silent auction table again and my name was still the high bidder. Steven said the bottle would look great in his restaurant so I urged him to bid higher so he could get it, but he didn’t. As it turns out, the magnum was one of two bottles Caldwell Family Winery produced and that Gold Medal winning Texas wine was their first commercial wine.

While standing at the table, Chris Caldwell’s partner, Doug Webb, arrived who unfortunately arrived late because he had to be with someone at the hospital. His wife was helping Chris’s wife pour wine and we learned they have nine children.

Chris introduced us to Doug and they are both excited to start thinking about building the tasting room in Fredericksburg where the family owns 82 acres across from Grape Creek Vineyards. The plan is to start with the tasting room, then an underground cellar while production is still done in Houston, and then move production of their wine there. As mentioned in our previous blog post, Chris is insistent on eventually getting to 100% Texas wine. Doug said he was hoping to run the tasting room as that is where his previous experience would be helpful. Chris was really happy with the night saying they may have more investors lined up which will make opening the tasting room even more possible.

During the evening we also met Fritz Westover, who is the viticulture advisor for the Texas Gulf Coast region which includes the areas east of Austin and south of Tyler. In simple terms, he helps people with their vineyards. He and Chris were excited about a palette of Blanc du Bois grapes which had just come in and we got to taste a grape. It tasted like a regular grape to us so it is impressive what a winemaker can do with them.

The release party was supposed to finish at 9:30pm but we ended up closing it down with a few other people at 10:30pm. Oh, and I couldn’t convince anybody else to bid on that 6 liter magnum of wine (LOL) so after getting Chris and Doug to autograph it, I happily took it home where it will make a nice addition to our bar.

Private Texas Wine Tasting

We joined Messina Hof Winery & Resort‘s VIP club earlier in the year. One of the benefits with being a VIP member is you get a private wine tasting and tour for 20 people. We arranged our invitation list and the tasting was scheduled for 1:30pm on Saturday. We arrived at the winery and shortly thereafter everybody arrived on time.

We waited for the tour to start in the wine bar, and Mike, one of our favorite tasting people at Messina Hof, said it was time for our tour which he would give. Mike is a great guy and a lot of fun, so we knew everybody would have an excellent time.

Mike took us outside and gave a little history of Messina Hof and the retail building which we were just in. We then went to the nearby Villa which is Messina Hof’s bed and breakfast building where ten rooms are available for a romantic stay. We have stayed there before and highly recommend it.

After the villa, we visited the vineyard of Black Spanish grapes where we got to taste some of the soon-to-be-harvested grapes. The production facility came next with the crush pad and back inside a cool building where the bottling is done.

The next part was what everybody was waiting for, especially after being in the heat for a little while, and that was the wine tasting. We sat in a private room and Mike gave us an introduction to the four wines we would be tasting. Before tasting each white or red wine, he instructed us on how to properly taste including trilling for white wine and clucking for red wine.

We were able to taste a Paulo wine and then finish with a Tawny Port. During the tasting a fruit and cheese tray was available for everybody to eat. At the end of the wine tasting, everybody was able to keep their Messina Hof wine glass.

We were thanked by everybody who joined us and they all said they had a great time. It looks like we had chosen the perfect wine drinkers to join us.

The Vintage House Restaurant, which is also part of Messina Hof Winery & Resort, beckoned some of us and eight of us enjoyed a late lunch. Overall, it was a great day and we look forward to doing it again next year.

There has been a lot of discussion lately on Texas wine competitions, the best Texas wineries, and so forth. Since we have visited over 100 Texas wineries, we decided to put together a quick list of the first TX Wine Lover awards to highlight the Texas wineries we feel is best in a certain category. Please realize these awards include only the wineries we have visited. We are also going by memory, some of which is over a year ago, so we apologize if we may have misplaced a winery with the same characteristics as one discussed. The next time we produce an awards list and have visited more wineries or re-visited favorites, the list may change.

Best Tasting Room

Flat Creek Estate (http://www.flatcreekestate.com). This tasting room is reached entering the winery from a top level and taking a set of stairs down. The tasting room has tables where you taste instead of standing uncomfortably at a tasting bar. A person helps you select which wines to taste. If you want to enjoy the fresh air, you can exit the side door to an outdoor patio where you can enjoy more wine.

Most Unusual Tasting Room

Fawn Crest Vineyards (http://www.fawncrest.com). The tasting room is actually in the owner’s house and is in the bar area. It is a nice pleasant experience but not your usual tasting room.

Best Wine Tasting for the Price

Colony Cellars (http://www.colonycellars.com). The best wine tasting for the price is obviously free. Most wineries now charge a fee and if you want the better wines it is kind of expected to have to pay a little. If all you care about is getting the most tastings for free, then Colony Cellars is the way to go. There you can get 12, yes 12, tastings for free. And they’ll even throw in some crackers to help you cleanse your palate during your tasting.

Best Palate Cleansing Food

Cross Timbers Winery (http://www.crosstimberswinery.com). Cross Timbers Winery in Grapevine gives cheese and crackers during your tasting. It helps make the transition between wines a little easier.

Best Live Music

Torre Di Pietra Winery (http://www.texashillcountrywine.com). A lot of wineries have live music happening most weekends so it is tough trying to decide on the best, especially since we haven’t had the opportunity to listen to a music event at every winery. Most wineries seem to have their music events Sunday evenings which makes for a nice end to a weekend, but a little tough to get up the next morning to go to work. However, Torre Di Pietra Winery has music every Saturday during the day, in addition to an occasional festival.

Best Events

Messina Hof Winery & Resort (http://www.messinahof.com). Messina Hof always seems to have something going on, whether it is festivals, dinners, wine bar events, and even wine classes.

Best View

Driftwood Estate Winery (http://www.driftwoodvineyards.com). There are some beautiful wineries with views but we believe Driftwood has them all beat. You have to drive up a dirt road to get to the top of the hill where the winery is but once there, the view overlooking the valley and surrounding hills is breathtaking, especially at sunset.

Best Vineyard Next to a Winery

Tara Vineyard & Winery (http://www.tarawinery.com). A lot of wineries get their Texas grapes from the Lubbock area or other parts of Texas. Most wineries, if they are able to, have at least a little vineyard near the winery. A lot of vineyards look great next to the winery, especially during the summer when the grapes are growing. This award is a tough one to call. Enoch’s Stomp Vineyard and Winery almost took this one with its winding road up through the vineyard to the winery. However, we like the view of the vineyard at Tara Vineyard & Winery. The view from the entrance with the vineyard leading up to the old beautiful home nestled among the vineyards is a great sight to see.

Best Entrance

Fall Creek Vineyards (http://www.fcv.com). If you have not had the chance to visit Fall Creek Vineyards, just go to their website and you’ll see right away why we think this is the best entrance to a winery. The tree lined road leading to the winery is a picture out of a book, especially when the trees are in full bloom. You’ll find yourself stopping at the entrance and taking a photo.

Best Prices

Fall Creek Vineyards (http://www.fcv.com). Most Texas wineries have to charge more for their wine since they make smaller productions. These are the prices we were used to until we arrived the first time at Fall Creek Vineyards and saw the prices of their wines. Even though they do make wines which cost more, you can still find a considerable number of wines under $10. A couple other wineries have been able to reach this price point, but we’ll give the nod to Fall Creek Vineyards where we first encountered great wines for under $10.

Best Restaurant

Messina Hof Winery & Resort (http://www.messinahof.com). Not all wineries have a restaurant, and for those that do, we have not had the chance to eat at every one. Savannah Winery & Bistro had very good food, but as far as atmosphere and excellence in food, it has to be Messina Hof. The atmosphere with the dining tables surrounded by the wine barrels is fantastic. If you want to really splurge, try the Chef’s Table where you will get a five course meal especially prepared for your likes and each course is paired with a different wine.

Best Gift Shop

Tie: Haak Vineyard & Winery (http://www.haakwine.com), Grape Creek Vineyards (http://www.grapecreek.com), and Torre Di Pietra Winery (http://www.texashillcountrywine.com). This category is so difficult to decide. Most wineries have some form of gift shop and it is difficult to determine the best gift shop. Ideally you want to have a gift shop where customers can spend time looking at the various items including tasting some jams, jellies, and salsa. You want to have useful items like wine accessories but not have too many items which are just plain unusual. These wineries have enjoyable gift shops.

Best Tour

Singing Water Vineyards (http://www.singingwatervineyards.com). If we have time and can catch scheduled tour times, we will take a tour. Even though we have been on quite a few tours, we seem to learn something new every time. We had a very interesting tour at Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards given by the owner Jeff Sneed, but we’ll have to give a slight nod to Singing Water Vineyards. The tour was given by an elderly gentleman from who we learned quite a bit about winemaking.

Best Place for a Wedding

Messina Hof Winery & Resort (http://www.messinahof.com). What would we look for in a winery to hold our wedding? It would have to have a beautiful location or multiple locations to select from. A reception area or restaurant would be necessary after the wedding. Even a place to stay would be great. But to top it all off, how about a famous winemaker who can even marry you? We’re then talking about Messina Hof where owner/winemaker Paul Bonarrigo can legally perform a marriage.

Best Landscaping

Duchman Family Winery (http://duchmanfamilywinery.com). Quite a few wineries are beautiful outside with the landscaping and grounds. We have to choose Duchman Family Winery as the most beautiful with a large fountain, benches, seating under big trees, etc. It is as beautiful during the day as it is at night with the lighting.

Best Fruit Wine

Sweet Dreams Winery (http://www.sweetdreamswinery.com). A number of wineries concentrate on making wine from fruit instead of just grapes. Interestingly, there are a large number of these wineries in East Texas. Hence there lies our favorite winery for fruit wines which is Sweet Dreams Winery. 90 percent of the wines they make are from local fruit and they make wine from almost any fruit you can think of.

Best Unique Wine

Rohan Meadery (http://www.rohanmeadery.com). There are wineries making wines out of a lot of different ingredients but we have to choose Rohan Meadery as the most unique as all their wines contain honey. They started with mead which is primarily made with honey and are starting to branch out with more traditional wine which still includes some portion of honey.

Best Wine Closest to Italian Moscato

Sister Creek Vineyards (http://www.sistercreekvineyards.com). By far Sister Creek has the closest thing to a sparkling Italian Moscato in Texas. Llano Estacado Winery has recently come out with their Moscato which is close but Sister Creek still holds the award. We pulled up to the winery and a member from another winery was there. When we asked why, the answer was they know how to make Muscat Canelli. Who are we to argue with the experts out there? Sister Creek Vineyards make a Muscat Canelli and a Muscat Canelli Reserve. You can probably find the regular Muscat Canelli in your local big liquor store, but not the Reserve. To get that, you will need to visit the winery.

Best Place for a Texas Winery Passport Code

Grapevine, Texas (http://www.grapevinewinetrail.com). If you want to collect some Texas Winery Passport codes, the best place to get a few is in the middle of Grapevine. There you can get a Texas Winery Passport code within walking distance from Homestead Winery, D’Vine Wine (as long as you do not have another D’Vine Wine passport code since they are all the same), and Farina’s Winery. If you feel like doing more walking, you can walk to Su Vino Winery and La Buena Vida Vineyards too.

Most Fun at a Winery

CrossRoads Winery (http://www.crwinery.com). We have had a lot of fun at different wineries but the most fun is when you can interact with the owners. To that end, CrossRoads Winery has to be our number one choice. We visited on a Friday night when they have live music. Darlene Leiker, co-owner, handled our tasting and she was a blast. When you get introduced to jalapeno shots by the owner, and so you don’t feel left out she does them with you, what a fun time! We’ll talk more in a future blog post about CrossRoads Winery, but briefly a jalapeno shot is a candied jalapeno pepper in a white wine shot glass.

Best Pourer

Lone Star Wine Cellars (http://www.lonestarwinecellars.com). Some pourers handling tastings just go through the motions to do the tasting and yet there are others who make your tasting really enjoyable. The most bubbliest pourer we have met is Rubye, an elderly lady at Lone Star Wine Cellars. The next time you’re in McKinney, call ahead and see if Rubye will be working.

Well?

So there is our first TX Wine Lover awards list. What are your comments or suggestions on our choices? Are there any other categories we may have forgotten? We’d love to hear from you.

When we first started this blog, we had no idea how often we would post about our visits to Texas wineries. Eventually we’ll run out of posts because unfortunately there are just so many wineries. At first we thought we would do five wineries per post but that is one long post. We seemed to have averaged one to three wineries per post. We then thought instead of doing let’s say two wineries per week, how about one every few days and in the end that would mean the same two a week. With more posts, it might make things a little more interesting to follow with the website. So we’re going to try one winery per post. If we don’t happen to have much to say about a winery, we may end up putting two in one post. We’ll see how it goes. As always, we would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

Rohan Meadery

http://www.rohanmeadery.com

Rohan Meadery is located in La Grange. We first came across Rohan Meadery when we were at the Houston Wine Fest. We had heard of mead, especially after attending the Texas Renaissance Festival, but had never tried it. We especially did not know it was considered a wine.

Before we continue, since we did not know what mead really was and to enlighten all of us, here is a little history lesson from Rohan Meadery.

Before grapes were cultivated for wine, before barley was malted to make beer, there was honey. Mead, also known as honeywine, is thought to be the oldest fermented beverage. Every European country as well as Ethiopia had a style of mead. With the advent of grape and barley cultivation and the rising prices of honey, mead fell into obscurity in the late 17th century. That is…until now.

We later volunteered to pour wines at Old Town Spring’s SpringFest Wine and Art Festival and Rohan Meadery had a table there. We met the owners John and Wendy Rohan and had a nice conversation with them. They said besides the original mead, they were coming out with some more traditional wine, but it still included honey. All of their wines, besides the original mead, include some percentage of pure Texas honey. After meeting them, we had to visit their winery, excuse me, meadery.

Rohan Meadery is easy to find. When we arrived, a group of people were just leaving with purchased bottles so they must have been happy. We went in and the group was just finishing up at the cashier, so we waited until they left before we did a tasting.

John Rohan served us because Wendy was busy with a birthday party. Right now they have four wines and are soon to have five. They did have the fifth wine previously but had run out and were finishing up a new batch.

You taste the wine by sitting at the tasting bar and the wine is poured from the bottle. Chocolate is available to pair with some of the wine while you are tasting. All wines are corked with a glass cork.

John told us the winery opened in 2009 and they had just expanded into the new building where we did the tasting. At the present, they are growing Black Spanish and Blanc du Bois grapes. We could see the vineyards as we pulled into the parking area.

No gift shop is present but the tasting room is spacious and able to accommodate a large group.

Overall, it was a very pleasant visit and we learned more about mead and wine made with honey.