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You
know what’s fun? Besides listening to Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach speak-
fun is drinking a nice, refreshing, Texas wine on a Saturday afternoon while preparing
for the coming workweek. Maybe that’s not the waterskiing on Lake Travis fun that
you were envisioning. But if we add that you’re drinking this extraordinary glass
of wine straight from the stainless steel tank where it’s aging at the winery
where the grapes were crushed, then the event becomes significantly more exciting.
Fun is having this drink while the winery’s owner explains his methods, his materials,
his passions. That is fun as my wife and I might define it, and exactly what we
did on a recent Saturday afternoon.
Texas,
if you have been paying attention, is this country’s fifth largest producer of
wine. With 180 plus wineries, choosing a couple to visit can prove slightly more
complicated than you may think. Living in Austin
can sometimes further cloud the decision since the Hill
Country is home to many of the state’s wineries, several of them clustered
around highway 290 in the Fredericksburg
area. Although, making the choice of which to visit first became much simpler
when my wife, a college-educated, classroom teacher and artist chose Grape
Creek Vineyards because the wine’s label looked “cute”. |
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Grape Creek Vineyard,
approximately 10 miles east of Fredericksburg,
rests, like so many of its neighbors, on a beautiful expanse of land that is awe-inspiring
even during the slight decay of a late Autumn. The winery’s owner, Brian Heath,
and his companion Jennifer Evenson welcomed us as we walked around back of the
tasting room. (We discovered later that this area was the official “red” tasting
location-the winery being of a size to warrant a second room for the whites and
those reds not quite in the meaty, heavy hitter category). Like so many
of his colleagues across the country, Mr. Heath came to the wine
industry after years in the business world. But, possessing both a predilection
for the wine trade and a desire for a new direction, he also came equipped with
a pre-penned business proposal when a Hill
Country winery came up for sale in 2006.
Heath knew, from the outset,
what he wanted by purchasing the winery. For himself, at least, there is much
more to the wine business than crushing, aging, bottling and selling grape juice;
he wanted to create an “experience that’s centered around wine.” From this vision,
Heath has managed to produce a sort of wine theme park replete with tasting rooms,
wine-related merchandise such as t-shirts, books and snack foods and even a red
trolley for carting visitors around the property to inspect the storage tanks,
the oak barrels and, of course, the vineyard which literally surrounds the facilities.
The effect is one of immersion in the wine culture.
As we sat and spoke
that Saturday afternoon, I noticed that many people had already discovered the
quiet pleasure of an afternoon spent with a fine Texas wine. Each tasting room
teemed with small families or couples out for the adventure of the new and, perhaps,
the unexpected. I mentioned that the place seemed lively, even crowded. Heath
responded with, “We’re usually much busier. This is pretty light.” Evidently,
I was the novice in the room; the green grape on a matured vine. |
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| Later, Mr. Heath
loaded us into his pick-up and we headed out to the storage areas. As his website
maintains, there is an underground facility that may or may not be the sole subterranean
storage room in the whole of Texas wineries. Filled with double layers of French
and American oak barrels, much of the vineyard’s red wine was patiently waiting
its turn at the bottling machine-some destined for release in a few months, some
still needing another year or more. Anticipating production growth, several new
casks stood at the ready, plastic-wrapped and waiting for the next vintages of
red wines that Grape Creek will produce this next season. Even with twelve constant,
annual varietals, Heath is looking to increase the winery’s production. At least
one blend will highlight an Italian varietal in keeping with the “Tuscany in Texas”
theme.
Standing in the chilled warehouse where the vineyard’s white wines
are stored and aged, I had the feeling that I was participating in something inherently
unique. As Mr. Heath poured out samples of a few different white wines I was impressed
by his excitement and enthusiasm for his product, his business. Each cask’s offering
brought its own tale of odyssey, risk and accomplishment. Each sip provoked smiles
and raised eyebrows all around. However, not every wine was ready for inspection.
Of one sampling, a merlot that had only had a few months in the cask, Heath took
a sip, declared it “way too young” and with that, slapped the remainder of the
liquid into the room’s sink.
Grape Creek Vineyards is an extraordinary
winery in an area of the state that is already well known for this
business. In fact, Texas is quickly becoming
one of this country’s greatest wine producing states with many wines far superior
to those offered from other states with much longer grape producing histories.
Grape Creek illustrates that effort as well as any winery. It is Brian Heath’s
efforts, along with his wine-maker Jason Englert, that are undoubtedly the reason
for this achievement, although, we shouldn’t be surprised by this success. As
Ms. Evenson stated, “Brian can turn any business into a great business.”
So,
sometime soon, find the time to visit one of our wineries. Find one with a cute
label and give yourself plenty of time to explore and enjoy a uniquely Texas product.
Trust me- it’ll be fun.
Copyright Byron Browne
Notes
From Over Here
December 6, 2009 Column
Byron Browne can be reached at Byron.Browne@gmail.com
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