New to the Site? Please be sure to check out the about page for more information.
Anyone who knows me, or at least has read the “About” page, knows that I am a Hospitality (Hotel and Restaurant) Management student. One of the aspects that I find most interesting about the Hospitality industry is travel and tourism. I love to travel, and one of the things that I like most about it is finding a place with so much character appeal that it makes you forget you’re a visitor while your there, and makes you feel like a local when you leave. To me, that is the embodiment of hospitality.
Only a very few places come immediately to mind as having done this for me, and Texas has definitely been one of them. Texas as a destination makes perfect sense, tons of culture, great weather, awesome people, but as a wine region it’s an oddity. They are the fifth largest wine producing state in volume, behind California, Washington, Oregon, and New York. The strange thing is, they are the only one of the big five that is not commonly available outside of the state. This makes Texas an undiscovered gem in the wine world.
There are currently eight official growing regions spread across the entirety of the state. The wines we’re talking about today are from the Texas Hill Country appellation and the Texas High Plains appellation. I’m a big advocate of unfamiliar and unusual grape varieties, but sometimes it’s nice to get back to the classics, hence, a merlot tasting.
Wine #1: Texas Hills Vineyard 2005 Texas Hill Country Merlot
This is a cool wine with a really unique background. It is one of the only official estate designated wines in the company’s line (they also have an estate Sangiovese Rosé and an estate red dessert wine), this means that the 
producer has full control of the winemaking process, from growing the grapes to bottling the finished product. This also means that this is not one of those wines that irritate me to no end that are made by a Texas winery using grapes from California. No, these grapes come entirely from the Texas Hill Country AVA. Located just South of the center of the state, this appellation is the second largest officially designated wine growing region in the country. It takes up around 15,000 square miles of land and is second in size only to the Upper Mississippi Valley AVA, which covers just under 30,000 square miles, and is actually the largest viticultural area in the world.
Because of its size, the Texas Hill Country AVA is a very diverse wine region with growing conditions that differ significantly based on the winery’s location. Texas Hills Vineyard, which is due West of Austin and right next door to Johnson City, is described by the winery as having conditions similar to the hills of Tuscany, with “fierce day sun and cool nights.” The family that owns and operates the winery were inspired by this similarity and decided to make all their wines in an Italian style. Texas Hills Vineyard was actually the first winery in Texas to release a Pinot Grigio and an Italian spirit supposedly runs through even their Bordeaux variety wines. Their wines are made as eco friendly and as free of pesticides as possible, and even their winery was constructed using green techniques. When I heard about Texas Hills Vineyard I thought they had a lot of potential but let’s see how their wine stacked up.
In the glass, this wine is a pure, medium red with a light viscosity. The aroma has very nice intensity with a great balance of red and black fruit with kitchen spice and earth tones. It’s actually kind of strange how diverse the nose is on this wine, at first I pick up on soft fruity tones like raspberries and almost a strawberry banana yogurt tone (fruit and a kind of tangy creaminess, probably from the American oak the wine is aged in), but then it moves on to cinnamon stick, dried fruit, and a very light burnt herb aroma. Very unique. At first sip, I pick up on some soft raspberry tones, and something that is distinctly menthol like (something that I would typically expect more in a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Cabernet Franc), then I get some kitchen spices and a faint herbal note. The acidity falls just a little flat on the mid palate and I notice the alcohol a bit more than I typically like to, but the wine is still pretty well balanced. It does have something about it that makes it feel a little disjointed, and I think that it may simply be that it’s five years old. Not all wine is meant to be aged, as a wine ages it can lose some of its fruitiness, and I would bet that this would have been awesome at three years of age. Overall, I really like this wine, I think it has a good complexity, depth, and uniqueness, and I would like to try another vintage to see how it drinks at a slightly younger age. If you’ve never had a Texas Merlot and you get the chance, I’d say this would be a good place to start.
86 Points and Worth Trying.
Wine #2: Becker Vineyards 2007 Texas Merlot
Our next wine comes from Becker Vineyards, a winery and lavender farm located in Texas Hill Country. Becker Vineyards is actually one of my favorite wineries in Texas. Their line of wines is expansive with traditional Bordeaux 
varieties, a number of Rhone wines, as well as a sprinkling of varietals from all over the world. Their wines have been featured in the White House, and are regarded as some of the best in Texas.
Their 2007 Texas Merlot comes from vineyards in the Texas Hill Country AVA as well as the select vineyards in the Texas High Plains AVA. The Texas High Plains AVA is another huge expanse of land, covering around 12,000 square miles, located in North Western Texas. The area is generally accepted as one of the best for growing grapes in Texas. High elevations (up to 4,000 feet), fertile sandy soils, warm and sunny days, and cool nights allow ideal conditions for grapes to reach perfect maturity while not becoming overripe. What we’ve got here is a wine from an awesome producer coming from some great growing regions. So how was it…?
The Becker Merlot has a thicker viscosity and deeper color than the one from Texas Hills Vineyard. The first thing that strikes me about the aroma is this very intense cinnamon Altoid aroma. This is very distinct and it just jumps out of the glass at you. There is also a faint herbal tone, some really dark plum and cherry notes, some very dark chocolate (like 90% cacao content dark), and this burnt crème brûlée and red peppercorn thing. Needless to say, the nose is very impressive and totally like nothing I’ve ever encountered before. I get the same unusual cinnamon candy quality on the first sip right away, then there is some strawberry and raspberry, some volcanic stone and milk chocolate, and a kind of exotic wood and raw sugar finish. It has good, ripe acidity with a very nice balance of sweet fruit and just powdery soft tannins. It’s lush, smooth, and it has really nice intensity and complexity. I think this wine is very nice, definitely unique, and something that for the $15 price tag is absolutely…
Worth Trying. 89 points.
Please Leave a Comment:
The Grapevine: Texas and merlot, two things that just make me think of BBQ. Dry rub or sauce? How do you B-B-Q?
