Bingham Family Vineyards – Grapevine

http://binghamfamilyvineyards.com

Bingham Family Vineyards, a noted vineyard located in the High Plains, made news in 2013 when they purchased Pheasant Ridge Winery at an auction. Things have changed since then when they decided to build their own winery at the farm, and turn over Pheasant Ridge Winery to original Pheasant Ridge founder and winegrower, Bobby Cox.

Besides the winery being built at the vineyard location, they also announced they would be opening a tasting room in Grapevine in 2015. As the year progressed, a Grand Opening was held and the tasting room was opened in May. Kyle and Gracie Bingham will be managing the tasting room.

While Texas Wine Lover was attending Newsom Grape Day in April, team member Jeremy Wilson was able to purchase a bottle of the Bingham Family Vineyards Dugout and do a review. Now it was our turn to make a visit to the new tasting room.

I actually made two visits to the Bingham Family Vineyards tasting room while I was in Grapevine. On my first visit, I went alone soon after the tasting room opened in the morning. Tasting guide Niki was still setting up the tasting room and started me on a tasting. You can do a tasting while seated at the tasting bar.

There is a tasting fee for either Dry wines or Mixed Dry & Sweet wines. Each flight of wines has five tastes plus it includes the souvenir wine glass. Tastings and glasses of wine are poured from a tap system, which uses kegs of the wine. The system automatically cools, measures, and pours 1, 2, or 5 ounces of wine. The first wine I tasted was a white wine and it was not really chilled. Niki tasted it and agreed that was not correct. The previous day had thunderstorms, so she surmised that the power must have gone out in the tasting room overnight affecting the cooling of the automated tap system.

These are the wines that were available in the two flights.

Dry:

• 2014 Viognier
• 2014 Cloudburst (Trebbiano, Vermentino, Roussanne, Viognier, and Chardonnay)
• 2014 Sunset (Dry Rosé from Mourvèdre and Tempranillo)
• 2014 Turnrow (Mourvèdre and Tempranillo)
• NV Dugout (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc)

Mixed Dry & Sweet:

• 2014 Cloudburst
• 2014 Sunset
• NV Dugout
• 2014 Shortrows (sweet Chenin Blanc)
• 2014 Fine ‘n Dandy (sweet red blend with unknown grapes)

A wine club already exists and there is already a benefit to belong to the wine club as five varietal wines can only be purchased by wine club members. Those wines are:

• Chardonnay
• Trebbiano
• Vermentino
• Tempranillo
• Viognier

As could be expected, Bingham Family Vineyards will only be using 100% Texas grapes in their wines. All wines are estate right now except Dugout which has some Pheasant Ridge wine in it and the Chardonnay which came from Pheasant Ridge. Daniel Bingham is making the wines along with the assistance of Manuel Lechuga. Bingham Family Vineyards will be making 5,000 cases of wine in 2015 and plan on doing the same every year.

Cheese is very popular in the tasting room and a 1/4 pound of cheese can be purchased to eat while enjoying the wine. You can also pay a $25 fee for a wine and cheese pairing which includes five wines and five cheeses.

Bingham Family Vineyards is looking at doing events possibly with the art gallery located next door.

After a day of judging the 2015 Lone Star International Wine Competition, four of the judges, including Jeremy Wilson, visited the tasting room, and this time I was able to meet Kyle and Gracie Bingham along with their week old baby boy Jack. Every judge enjoyed the visit and gave the tasting room a Gold medal. 🙂

Some photos courtesy of Jeremy Wilson