How to Get Texas Wine into Restaurants

As all Texas wine lovers know, Texas makes excellent wine, but the hard part now is getting the rest of Texans who love wine to realize that Texas does make wine and then to try it. Some Texas wineries are in distribution so you can find those wines at supermarkets, liquor stores, and wine bars. You can find some Texas wine at restaurants, but that is often rarer to find. It can be frustrating when dining at a nice Texas restaurant serving Texas farm-to-table food and the wine menu doesn’t have a Texas wine on it.

What can we do about that?

Texas Wine Lover resurrected and enhanced an old campaign in May 2023 to let restaurants know that you as a consumer would like to see your favorite restaurant carry Texas wine. Our card is not just for restaurants though since businesses such as liquor stores and wine bars should also carry and serve Texas wine. As the card says: Support Texas Agriculture, Drink Texas Wine.

Download your card today and print it out. Then when you are at your favorite restaurant or other business, use it to encourage the business to carry Texas wines. The more the owners and managers see that folks are requesting Texas wines, the more we’ll start to see our favorite wines on the shelves and menus.

John Harvey, Texas Wine Lover’s Restaurant Ambassador, has worked hard for years to get restaurants to serve Texas wine and was instrumental in helping with the Texas Wine Lover Card. In addition, John researched and found restaurants that already served Texas wine. When we created the Texas Wine Lover mobile app in 2022, we added those restaurants to the app’s listings of restaurants along with a nifty filter to find only the listed restaurants that carried Texas wine. Other businesses in the Drink/Nightlife and Shop categories also use the same Texas wine filter.

John Harvey has also organized Texas wine dinners at restaurants that already carried some Texas wine. The goal was to both bring guests to the restaurant and also show the restaurant that guests will enjoy the Texas wine. Texas wine dinners that John organized were at King Ranch Texas Kitchen where 22 people attended and Gianna Italian Kitchen.

Recently, some Texas wineries created a similar program called #AskForTexasWines to help get Texas wines into restaurants. The program is similar in that the most important person to influence restaurants to carry Texas wine is you, the consumer, and frequent diner at restaurants.

Does this really work?

You may think your voice will not help influence restaurants to carry Texas wine. Texas Wine Lover follower Rick Heiman learned firsthand that it indeed does work.

He and his wife Laura have been dining at Main 101 Grill and Bar in La Porte, TX for over ten years. The restaurant is a classy but informal dining establishment with a nice ambiance and great food prepared by chef and owner Joe Bertuglia. Rick wanted to get some Texas wines into some of the restaurants they frequent, and Main 101 was the first restaurant he planned to work with.

Rick found that Main 101 uses the wine distributor Serendipity which does have quite a few Texas wines available. He prepared a brochure of all those Texas wines and visited owner Joe Bertuglia one afternoon. Rick suggested if he carried most of those Texas wines, he would bring guests to share those wines.

Main 101 asked Serendipity to bring the suggested wines to be tasted, and Rick and Laura were invited to the tasting. Joe Bertuglia ended up selecting three wines from Serendipity and went to another distributor, Maverick, for a couple of other Texas wines.

Main 101 then held a Texas wine dinner where Rick previewed the menu and offered suggestions. This is where Rick’s promise came in where he did bring guests to share those wines, and the Texas wine dinner was a success. With over twenty in attendance, one of the attendees was our own John Harvey, Texas Wine Lover Restaurant Ambassador, who had an excellent time. Each of the wine distributors had a representative present at the dinner and they introduced the wine with each pairing.

Joe is planning another Texas Wine dinner but wants to offer some additional Texas wines. He is now exploring some small Texas wineries to consider direct purchase of Texas wines. Rick shared the names, contacts, and wine offerings from three of his favorite Texas wineries as a starting point for Joe to consider. Another distributor, Republic, also carrying Texas wines has come to their attention. The process of exploring Texas wines continues.

Chef Joe Bertuglia says, “When you love Texas, and it is your backyard, you have the opportunity to showcase the wares such as its wineries; there is a certain pride that develops.”

Rick Heiman’s experience with Main 101 Grill and Bar may require more in-depth involvement than the average consumer, but it is a good example that a consumer can influence a restaurant to carry Texas wine which will be enjoyed by all that restaurant’s patrons.