Nice Winery’s Texas Blanc 2015 Release

Nice Winery recently had a release party for their second vintage of their Texas Blanc, a Texas wine made with local Blanc du Bois grapes. Owners Ryan Levy and Ian Eastveld work with winemakers Ken and Marilyn Wuensche in making the Texas Blanc.

The first release of Nice Winery’s Texas Blanc received a Gold medal at the 2015 Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo International Wine Competition, so we were anticipating the second vintage. The wine is all natural and is never filtered, fined, or clarified. And it did not disappoint. I commented to Ken Wuensche how great the Blanc du Bois was and he said the most important part to produce a quality Blanc du Bois is getting the chemistry right.

The grapes were harvested by hand from two Texas vineyards: Honeysuckle Oaks in Cypress owned by Ken and Marilyn Wuensche and Alta Mira Vineyards in Anderson owned by Jon and Denise Bowden.

The 2015 Blanc du Bois grapes harvested from Alta Mira were transported to Saddlehorn Winery where they were crushed and pressed. The first year when we helped harvest, that process was done at the vineyard in a small press, so the equipment at Saddlehorn makes the job much easier.

If you would like to help at this year’s harvesting for Nice Winery at Alta Mira Vineyards, they will be harvesting on Friday, July 8, so please contact the winery. They will be having a BBQ lunch made by co-owner Ian Eastveld and of course great wine, and they would love to have you join them.