Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Wine Awards Summary

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo performers have recently been announced and there are more wine events in the rodeo calendar. The next wine event is the very popular and already sold out Roundup and Best Bites Competition on February 22nd. After that is the Champion Wine Auction on March 1st. Of course during the rodeo, some of the award winning wines can be tasted in the Champion Wine Garden.

Since some of the award winning wines will be available during all three events, let’s take a look at the Texas wineries which were awarded the most medals during the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo 2015 Rodeo Uncorked! International Wine Competition. The Texas wineries which won medals can be seen on our website for easier readability. Medals were awarded based on the achievement of world-class standards in aroma, body, flavor, color, clarity, acidity, and balance.

Just looking at the number of medals awarded, Messina Hof Winery & Resort came away with 26 medals, the most by any winery competing. The 26 awards at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo included 5 Double Gold medals, 3 Gold medals, 18 additional medals, as well as 17 Champion awards. All wines which won medals by Messina Hof were Texas appellation.

These are the definitions of the Champion awards:

• Class Champion – the best of that variety or class from all entries regardless of appellation
• Texas Class Champions – the best of all Texas appellations in that variety or class
• Reserve Class Champion – the second best of that variety or class from all entries regardless of appellation
• Texas Reserve Class Champion – second best of that variety or class from Texas appellations

The next Texas winery with the most medals was Haak Vineyards & Winery with 14 medals. Haak had 1 Double Gold medal, 3 Gold medals, 10 additional medals, and 6 Champion awards. All wines were Texas appellation except for one which was an American Cabernet Sauvignon.

The third highest medal award winning winery was Grape Creek Vineyards with 11 medals. Grape Creek had 1 Gold medal, 10 additional medals, and 3 Champion awards. Here though the Texas appellation wines went down to only 6 of the 11 wines being Texas appellation, almost half of the awarded medals.

If we look at the next highest award winning medal wineries, the Texas appellations are greater, although there are fewer Texas wines awarded. There is no way to know if there were Texas appellation wines entered that received no medals, so we can only look at the medals given. Perhaps some wine competition in the future will only accept Texas appellation wines which might help establish how great Texas wines are.