Posts Tagged Twitter

http://brennanvineyards.com

Brennan Vineyards is located in Comanche and Pat and Trellise Brennan are the majority owners. In 2002 a five acre vineyard was planted and the winery opened in 2005. Today they have three vineyards with a total of 37 acres. They grow about 12 different kinds of grapes and sell some grapes to other Texas wineries. Some of the grapes grown are Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Viognier, and Nero d’Avola.

As we drove to Brennan Vineyards, I received a message on Twitter from Todd Webster (@txviognier), winemaker at Brennan Vineyards. He said if we were coming up a certain road, make a short trip and we could see their biggest vineyard. We did so and it was the biggest vineyard we have seen so far. We learned later from Todd they mechanically harvest their grapes which makes sense with the amount of vineyard acres.

Upon entering Brennan Vineyards, you encounter a campus comprising three buildings. The first building is the historic McCrary House tasting room and gift shop built in 1879. The center building is the winery and the last building is the Austin House Events Center. The events center was built in 2006 and has 3,700 sq. ft. with a patio and outdoor fireplace.

We entered the tasting room and Tina Marken, Hospitality Director, was behind the tasting bar. Since Todd Webster was expecting us, she texted him to let him know we arrived. As we were waiting for Todd, Tina started us on a tasting.

Tina Marken

All tastings are complimentary and you can do a tasting while sitting or standing at the bar. Tastings are poured from the bottle. There is sometimes a limit to the number of wines tasted but usually it is whatever they have opened. Crackers and chocolates are provided during the tasting to cleanse your palate and enhance your tasting.

Brennan Vineyards try to use 100% Texas grapes if they can. If they are unable to, the grapes come from California. Brennan Vineyards uses both corks and screw caps. Two types of labels are used: Austin Street and Brennan Vineyards. Austin Street is for their value line and the premium line is Brennan Vineyards. The Brennan Vineyards line uses 100% Texas grapes. The Brennan label also used to be straight varietals until the introduction of Buffalo Rhome. Brennan Vineyards produces about 5,000 cases of wines a year.

Soon Todd Webster arrived and we got a chance to meet in person. He took over our tasting and was able to provide insight into the wines he had made. As mentioned previously, his Twitter handle is @txviognier which makes sense since Viognier has been Brennan Vineyard’s signature wine since they opened in 2005.

Todd Webster, Trellise & Pat Brennan

During our tasting Pat and Trellise Brennan arrived in the tasting room so we got a chance to meet them. They, like most people in the wine industry, were very nice. We finished our tasting after Todd introduced us to a couple of his latest wines, Dark Horse made with Nero d’Avola which was bottled in March 2012 and Lily which is a White Rhone style blend with 53% Roussanne, 25% Viognier, and 22% Grenache. Since Grenache is a red grape, after they harvested, it went directly into the press so they got white juice out of it. As with the other wines we tasted, both were very good.

A question came up prior to our visit to Brennan Vineyards and now we had the perfect person in Todd to answer it. We had tried a Cabernet Sauvignon elsewhere but were then told it was mostly Cabernet Sauvignon but had a tiny bit of a few other grapes. We asked what percentage of grapes the single varietal wine has to be in order to call it just that variety on the label and the answer is 75% in Texas. The percentage is different in other states.

Tours are available at Brennan Vineyards so Todd then took us on a tour of the campus. We went first to the winery where we saw the production facility with the stainless steel tanks and the laboratory. We learned that the bladder press is used for two hours with the white wine program but the red wine program only uses about one hour.

Todd Webster in barrel room

We then went to the barrel room where their Texas wine is aged. We learned due to requests, Brennan Vineyards will be making a Chardonnay soon and will be making it buttery and oaky, but not with too much oak. Speaking of oak, we learned from Todd that a barrel usually loses 50% of its oak the first year, 30% the second year, and 20% the third year. The fourth year will then be neutral with no oak and primarily used for just storage. They can add oak chips though at that point to get the oak flavor again.

One interesting thing we haven’t seen before is Brennan Vineyards stores their barrels at a slight angle so the bung hole (the barrel hole) isn’t directly on top of the barrel. The reason is because they do not top their barrels with the wine. If they top the barrel and leave the barrel upright, they end up losing wine every month because of evaporation and have the chance of oxidizing the whole barrel. Rotating the barrel helps prevent that and they do not open the barrel during the year.

We then went to the events center. The basement of the events cellars is where the many cases of wine are stored. Upstairs in the building is the large room with tables set up for events such as weddings, live music, and other special occasions. Wine dinners are held the second Friday of each month except August. A balcony overlooks one of the vineyards along with Pat and Trellise Brennan’s house nearby.

We concluded our tour and returned to the tasting room. There is a gift shop present with clothing and wine accessories. A wine club is available from the winery.

It was a pleasure to meet Todd, the Brennan’s, and Tina and we had a wonderful time visiting Brennan Vineyards.

Brennan Vineyards recently joined forces with Lost Oak Winery and McPherson Cellars to form 4.0 Cellars in Fredericksburg. Brennan Vineyards is on the Way Out Wineries wine trail.

I had the pleasure of attending the DrinkLocalWine conference 2012 held in Colorado. This was my first DrinkLocalWine conference and hopefully it will not be my last. I was interested in the conference when I saw the schedule and then have the chance to meet some of the people in person who I follow on Twitter. Of course the primary purpose of the conference is to make people aware of regional local wine.

The conference was held in a church at Metro State College Campus in Denver. The day before the conference I found the campus using my GPS just so I understood where parking would be the next day. On the morning of the conference, I volunteered to drive Olivia Wilder who was going to be holding her radio show during the Twitter Taste-Off, and had her equipment to bring. I got my car and then realized I had left my GPS in the hotel room. With the Sheraton Downtown being a maze of corridors and elevators, it would have taken some time to go back up to the room to get the GPS. Olivia was very understanding and patient when we got lost, but we eventually found the campus using the map on my smartphone. GPS’s are great, but sometimes you can depend on them too much.

We arrived in time for the start of the conference and the first seminar was titled “Colorado’s Terroir and the Challenges of High Altitude.” There was a panel of four people, like each of the following two seminars, and they discussed the problems with growing grapes in Colorado.

Most of the vineyards in Colorado are in the western part of the state. The biggest counties which produce the most grapes are Mesa and Delta. Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot are the most popular varieties grown. 2009 had winter damage and they are still recovering from it and as a result, some growers are downsizing or exiting the industry.

A big advantage of growing in Colorado is there is no phylloxera on the Western slopes. Pest control is usually not a problem in the vineyards. Colorado has low humidity which results in low disease problems whereas frost is the greatest concern. Most vines are also on their own rootstocks.

Vineyards are in competition for space though with more lucrative peach orchards. Panelist Horst Caspari, Professor and State Viticulturist at Colorado State University, even admitted if he wanted to make money, he would grow peaches.

The next seminar was “Local Food, Local Wine, and Why They Don’t Like Each Other.” The issue of trying to get people to drink local wine and food was discussed. Colorado has some of the same issues with local food and wine as Texas does. People want to eat and drink local but when they go to a restaurant, there are no Colorado wines on the wine list. René Chazottes, director of wine and master sommelier at the Pacific Club, said what is very true. A customer can go to a restaurant wanting to drink local wine. But if they are expecting a certain style of wine and the local wine is made in a different style, they are confused and they switch to what they know which happens to be non-local. Dave McIntyre of the Washington Post and co-founder of DrinkLocalWine made a good point when saying, “The wine has to be good no matter where it comes from.”

Evan Faber, Beverage Director at SALT, was very energetic with some of his ideas to get people to drink and eat local. Jensen Cummings, Executive Chef of Row 14 Bistro and Wine Bar, said most people who drink Colorado wine are people who come from out of town looking for something local. They need to get Colorado residents to learn to drink local wine.

The final seminar was “Consumer Perception of Colorado and Regional Wine.” This panel included “normal” consumers of wine which included Chris Anthony, professional skier, Jennifer Broome, KDVR-TV meteorologist and host of ” Explore Colorado,” and Jay Leeuwenberg, former NFL player. They provided their perceptions of why they may or may not drink local wine. There were a lot of great ideas to try and get residents to drink more local wine, but most people have made the same suggestions before such as festivals and using social media. Again, the pricing for local wine cannot be much more than other wines if it is desired to drink local wine.

Next came the Colorado Blind Challenge where three panelists were going to do a blind tasting pairing three Colorado wines with three California wines. As a surprise to us, they had found enough wine glasses in Denver and we were all going to do the blind tasting with the panelists. The first pair of wines were white and I correctly identified them as Rieslings. I was impressed even though nobody else was. The next turned out to be Viogniers and the last were Cabernet Francs. I’ll be honest that I didn’t get any pairing correct as to which the Colorado wine was. That is just how good they were. It was a fun time had by all trying to do the guessing.

After a nice lunch it was time for the Colorado Twitter Taste-Off sponsored by Nomacorc. 24 Colorado wineries had two wines each and we had three hours to taste as much as possible, tweet about them, and basically have fun doing so. The #drinklocal #colwine hash tags on Twitter were flying around during the tastings. It was an experience getting to taste and try to come up with roughly 100 characters to tweet about the wine. This was my first tasting of this kind and I had to use the dump bucket otherwise I would not have been able to walk out of the room. I still could not do the spitting part though and from looking around, not many others did either. Everyone then voted on their best white, bed red, and then either the people’s favorite or media’s favorite wine. Awards were then given to the favorite wines.

After a long day, another successful DrinkLocalWine conference was over. Everyone enjoyed themselves and I know for sure that if I can make it, I will be attending the next conference too.

The next TXwine Twitter Tuesday will be held on Tuesday, May 8th, at 7pm CST. Normally TXwine Twitter Tuesday is held on the first Tuesday of the month so please make note of the date for May.

The wines of the new 4.0 Cellars will be featured and representatives and their winemakers will be available to talk about the new winery, its wines, and answer your questions.

Since we were fortunate to be there prior to its opening, I can attest the winery is a fantastic addition to the Fredericksburg growing list of wineries. Even though the next TXwine Twitter Tuesday is featuring one winery, it is in fact featuring the three wineries which make up 4.0 Cellars: Brennan Vineyards (Comanche, TX), Lost Oak Winery (Burleson, TX), and McPherson Cellars (Lubbock, TX).

Pick up your favorite wine from any of the three wineries and join us for the Texas wine chat and tasting. All three wineries have participated before in a TXwine Twitter Tuesday chat so it should be a very informative, fun, and lively chat.

Please see the Vintage Texas blog (http://vintagetexas.com/blog/?p=6219) for more information and we hope to see you online!

I have certainly enjoyed tasting and drinking Texas wine, my local wine, no matter where it may be made within Texas. When I get a chance to visit other states, I try to find nearby wineries to visit and sample the local wine from that state. Now I am getting the chance to taste some Colorado local wine.

DrinkLocalWine.com was created by Jeff Siegel and Dave McIntyre and an annual conference was started in 2009 and held in Texas. Every year the conference is held in a different state and this year it is in Colorado on April 28th.

On April 4th local wine along with DLW 2012 was discussed in the weekly Twitter #winechat. Since the monthly #txwine Twitter chat was merged with #winechat in April, I was glad to participate for both reasons. There were quite a few people discussing the upcoming DLW 2012 which made me even more excited to attend the upcoming conference.

A full day of seminars and fun is planned for the conference on April 28 at Metro State College in Denver with seminars starting at 9am. They include:

• Three Colorado and regional wine seminars featuring some of the top names in Colorado and national food and wine.
• Colorado’s Terroir and the Challenges of High Altitude
• Local Food, Local Wine, and Why They Don’t Like Each Other
• Consumer Perception of Colorado and Regional Wine
• The Colorado Blind Challenge where experts will try to tell the difference between Colorado and California wine in a blind tasting.
• The Colorado Twitter Taste-off sponsored by Nomacorc where you can sip and tweet wine from two dozen of the state’s best producers.

If you can get the chance to attend, please sign up to join the fun and learn more about local wine at the conference. If you are unable to attend, you can follow along on Twitter with the hashtags #colwine and #drinklocal.

For more information and to sign up, please visit http://www.drinklocalwine.com

I belong to the Texas Wine Lovers group on Facebook. I had been watching how Hi-Tek was arranging a #txwine Twitter tasting at GenuWine in Magnolia with Retreat Hill Winery for March 30th.

We happened to be in Retreat Hill Winery’s area the week before and stopped by to visit. Owner/winemaker Billy Cox was there serving his wines. There is a #txwine Twitter Tuesday scheduled for April 4th (Wednesday) where we are supposed to bring our favorite local wines, in my case Texas wines. Since Billy Cox is on Twitter, I decided to get one of his wines and ask if he could participate on Wednesday. He is interested and hopefully he will be online.

So when Hi-Tek arranged the #txwine Twitter tasting at GenuWine, I was interested since I already had some Retreat Hill wine. It turned out Friday night I was alone and I was trying to decide with a couple friends what to do. One choice was the GenuWine event and since they live in the Woodlands, we decided to meet there.

I arrived at GenuWine and my friends were already there along with Billy Cox. I met Hi-Tek aka Jim (@ctsv) and his wife Elaine (@IamAlyce). A projector was set up to show any tweets with the hash tag #txwine. GenuWine is a wine tasting room and it seemed very nice. There were not too many people there at 6:00pm but at the end of the evening, most tables were full. I definitely wish it was closer to where we lived.

First up was Retreat Hill’s Chardonnay. It was a nice start to the evening’s tastings. I asked Billy where the Texas wine grapes came from and he told me it was from the Fort Stockton area.

GenuWine serves many varieties of food and we enjoyed a nice cheese, fruit, and meat plate while tasting Retreat Hill’s wine. The last wine from Retreat Hill’s was a Merlot. This wine was made from grapes from Lodi, California.

The tasting was over and we decided to get a bottle of wine. Our sommelier mentioned his favorite Texas wine was 1836 from Llano Estacado. I had just heard about it a few weeks ago when I met one of Llano Estacado’s winemakers at a wine tasting. I decided to treat my friends to this blend of Texas wine which is made from mostly Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon with some Mourvedre, Carignan, and Grenache.

While we were enjoying the bottle of wine, live music had started which added to the ambience. After we finished the bottle of wine, it was time to head home and we all agreed we had an enjoyable evening. If GenuWine has any future events like this, we most likely will be participating. They do hold weekly tastings which also sometimes include live music.