We first met Phil Price in 2016 when he moved to Texas to be an assistant winemaker at Fall Creek Vineyards. He soon volunteered to be a judge at our Texas Wine Lover’s Battle of the Texas Mourvèdre 2017. Phil is now the head winemaker at the new winery Friday Mountain, and it didn’t take long for Friday Mountain to win the Top Texas Wine award at the 2026 Houston Rodeo Uncorked! International Wine Competition for its 2020 Frenchman’s Corner Mourvèdre. And we hear there is still more news coming from Phil. This month, we are proud to welcome Phil Price as the featured Winemaker Profile.
- What did you do before becoming a winemaker?
I was a student studying (plant) ecology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
- What is the toughest challenge about being a winemaker in Texas?
The weather is by far the biggest challenge. Its challenges are compounded by logistics and isolation from supportive winegrowing infrastructure. Every year is wildly different here.
- Is winemaking an art or a science or both?
I think of my winemaking style as the art of delicious storytelling through one’s experience with the corked time capsule of vine-crafted organoleptic observations.
- What is your favorite food and wine pairing?
Syrah and all the cheese, please! Especially aged cheeses with crunchy tyrosine crystals.
- If you didn’t make wine, what would you do?
I’d want to curate a botanical garden or nursery.
- What first attracted you to winemaking and how long have you been doing it?
As a budding ecologist, vineyard management was an attractive application of knowledge to the 20-year-old me. In 2007, I planted two acres of French-American hybrid varieties on our family farm in Tennessee, and I made wine for the first time in 2008. Furthermore, I loved the communal aspects of the uncorking process.
- What is the most common question you are asked as a winemaker?
“Why are you here?”
- After a long day in the winery or vineyard, what do you do?
I enjoy the still silence as the golden hour overtakes the foliage. My pups sniff across the hillside and the whispers of ice-cold carbonation gently serenade the ears.
- What’s the greatest part about being a winemaker?
Winemaking enriches and celebrates the seasonality of life.
- What is your winemaking philosophy, that is, what are you trying to achieve with your wines?
Once the cluster is cut, my goal is to preserve the magic by maintaining a safe and balanced ecosystem for the microbial flocks. Minimizing inputs, fining, and filtration, so that the wine is loyal to the loam.
- Anything else you would like to add?
Ecce quam bonum!
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