Bending Branch Vertical Tasting Tempranillo, Newsom Vineyards

Texas Wine Lover was invited for this coverage. All opinions, experiences, and photographs are entirely our own.

What better way can you think of spending a sunny, hot July afternoon than sitting inside a cool winery barrel room sampling nine vintages of Tempranillo? That is just what a group of guests and I did on Saturday, July 15th. Bending Branch Winery held an amazing vertical tasting of Tempranillos produced with grapes sourced from Newsom Vineyards.

Bending Branch Winery is a boutique winery in Comfort, Texas, and one of the four that comprise the Texas Fine Wine collective. This award-winning winery was founded in 2009 with Tannat, Tempranillo, Petite Sirah, and Picpoul Blanc planted on the estate. Bending Branch has forged a path with inspiring techniques in wine production using Cryo-Maceration and Flash Détente to elevate the structure, flavor, and color extraction of grapes.

For those unfamiliar with Newsom Vineyards, this is one of the early Texas vineyards to plant Tempranillo. The Newsoms launched their journey into grape farming in 1986 with just two acres of Cabernet Sauvignon after farming a variety of crops over the years. This proved to be a successful venture prompting the family to expand over the years to farm nearly 150 acres with 19 different grape varietals. Their Texas High Plains location west of Lubbock is just 15 miles from the New Mexico border. With an elevation of 3,700 feet and red clay loam soil atop caliche limestone, they have ideal conditions to grow grapes. Every table held examples of the rock found on their property and Neal Newsom showed all a jar of the rich brick-red soil that nourishes their vineyard.

It was a treat to see both Neal and Janice Newsom at this event. They joined Dr. Robert (Bob) Young, the Bending Branch Winery owner and winemaker, and Jennifer Cernosek, the Bending Branch General Manager, who all shared their experiences and perspectives about the work that went into farming the grapes and producing the wines for each vintage. Understandably, every year brought new adventures in farming and wine production, and some years Mother Nature threw unique curve balls into the equation.

This tasting featured nine vintages starting from the inaugural 2010 vintage through 2019 plus a special release for attendees to experience. The top-notch High Plains fruit did not disappoint in the glass and the wines were all excellent and reflected the subtle nuisances of each harvest and the beauty of the fruit that year, as well as the various winemaking techniques employed to obtain the maximum potential of the fruit. The 2010 vintage featured tomato and spice notes on the nose and retained a nice deep brick-red hue with acids holding nicely. One could tell this was an aged wine, yet it drank well and had a subtle leather finish. The 2011 in contrast was very fruit forward with cherry notes dominating the palate. The 2012 vintage had leather, blackberries, and cherries on the nose and nice tannins. There was no 2013 vintage due to a very late freeze in May in the Texas High Plains that devastated the wine crops as the fruit was on the vines.

In 2014, Newsom Vineyards retrained the vines and was able to once again harvest Tempranillo allowing for a 2014 vintage. This wine had one of the darkest colored pours in the glass with rich deep plum color and concentrated fruit flavors producing a stellar award-winning wine that won Double Gold in two Texas wine competitions. (Note: all awards for each vintage are featured at the end of the article.) The 2015 vintage appeared to have higher alcohol on the nose with more earthiness and lingering tannins. Moving onto the 2016 vintage one noted more earthiness along with cranberries and cherries with a brick red color and stronger tannins on the finish.

Next up was the 2017 vintage with that same deep rich plum shade that the 2014 had. Both of these vintages shined with this deeper hue compared to the rest. This wine featured cherry and cranberry notes but was not as fruit-forward as the 2014. The tannins were very nice on the finish. Incidentally, 2017 was the year of Hurricane Harvey and although the storm clouds could be seen in the distance from Newsom Vineyards, the vineyard did not experience any rain from that weather event, and the fruit was not impacted. This vintage also had a higher ABV of 14.7%, similar to that of the 2014 vintage.

The 2018 vintage packed a lot of fruit-forward notes with a bit of smokiness on the nose. This was the last vintage to feature the Bending Branch label as the winery moved to feature a new label for these wines. This vintage had the highest sugar levels at harvest with 25 Brix and a 14.6% ABV with cranberry notes with strong tannins. The final 2019 Tempranillo featured cranberry and cherry notes and was very fruit-forward with nice smooth tannins. A vote was taken to see which vintage was most popular with attendees and the 2014 received the most votes, though the 2017 and 2018 vintages also appeared to be fan favorites. These three vintages were harvested with higher Brix and had the highest ABVs.

The special release tasting was not a Tempranillo, but a lovely 2019 Petit Verdot crafted from Newsom Vineyards grapes. This was another crowd-pleasing wine. With dark fruit-forward flavors and a lovely smooth finish, this wine found a spot in my cooler on the way home along with a couple of other bottles from the winery. I admit I had a hard time deciding between the 2014 and the 2018 as my favorite, but voted for the 2018 along with Neal Newsom. To be honest, this lineup was multi-award winning for most vintages, so there was no bad option. Dr. Young shared his enthusiasm for tasting verticals so one can only hope that there may be opportunities to taste other vintages of their library wines in the future. Experiencing an event like this allows one to see how different a varietal can taste given various aspects of both the growing year and wine production process.

By now there is little doubt that Tempranillo has found a lasting home and is well suited to grow in Texas. The list of each vintage with the various awards they have been honored with over the years is listed below for you to see just how well this winery has done with their Tempranillo from Newsom Vineyards.

2010: Gold/Texas Reserve Class Champion – 2014 Houston Rodeo Uncorked! / Silver- 2013 Dallas Morning News/TEXSOM International / Silver – 2013 Lone Star International / Bronze – 2013 Finger Lakes International / Bronze – 2013 San Francisco International

2011: Silver – 2014 Houston Rodeo Uncorked!

2012: Gold – 2016 Houston Rodeo Uncorked! / Gold – 2015 Lone Star International / Bronze – 2015 TEXSOM International / Bronze – 2015 San Francisco International / 92 Points – 2016 Beverage Dynamics / 85 Points – 2015 Wine Enthusiast

2014: Double Gold/ Best Texas Red – 2018 San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo / Double Gold – 2017 Texas International / Silver/Texas Class Champion – 2018 Houston Rodeo Uncorked! / Silver – 2018 San Francisco Chronicle / Silver – 2017 Lone Star International

2015: Gold – 2019 Houston Rodeo Uncorked! / Gold – 2019 San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo / Gold – 1029 Texas International / Silver – 2019 San Francisco Chronicle

2016: Gold – 2020 San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo / Silver – 2019 Lone Star International / Silver – 2019 San Francisco International / Bronze – 2020 Houston Rodeo Uncorked! / Bronze – 2020 Texas International

2017: Double Gold – 2021 San Francisco Chronicle / Gold/Top of Class – 2021 San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo / Silver – 2021 TEXSOM International

2018: Gold – 2022 San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo / Silver – 2022 Houston Rodeo Uncorked! / Silver – 2021 Lone Star International / Silver – 2021 San Francisco International / Bronze – 2022 San Francisco Chronicle

2019: Gold/Reserve Class Champion/Reserve Texas Class Champion – 2023 Houston Rodeo Uncorked!