Kim McPherson

What do you do when one of the best winemakers in the state invites you to make wine with him and his daughter? You say, yes! Which is exactly what I did when Kim McPherson of McPherson Cellars suggested I join him and his daughter, Kassandra for a his first ever attempt at bottling a dry Chenin Blanc.

Truth be told, Chenin Blanc is more of a cool climate grape. World class wines are made with it in the Loire Valley of France. (You’ll also find beautiful examples of it from South Africa.) And while it’s origin in the rather cool, Maritime/Continental climate of the Loire Valley would make it an odd fit for Texas—particularly in the dry, red clays of the High Plains—for some strange reason, it grows almost like a weed here.

“It’s been like this since the first day Chenin was planted in Texas soil,” says McPherson. “It’s never failed.”

Chenin Blanc wines are more commonly associated as being slightly sweet with aromas of ripe pear, apricot and sometimes honey as is common with Vouvray wines from the Loire Valley of France. But the grape can also make beautiful, crisp, dry wines as you’ll find in Savennières wines from the Loire. And if you’re looking for a demi-sec (sweet) Texas version of Chenin Blanc, you’ll find a great example from Fall Creek Vineyards (~$7). But McPherson had his mind set on making a dry Chenin, one that would stack up well against his other award-winning lineup of white wines including the Les Copains white blend, Roussanne, Viognier and Albariño, which won a coveted double gold medal from the San Francisco International Wine Competition this year.

Kassandra McPherson

“The unfortunate thing is that Chenin has a bad rap,” says McPherson. “Somehow the public just doesn’t really like it. Which is sad because it just makes really nice white wine. Everyone makes it sweet, but in Texas, I think it should be more like a Provence-style white wine that’s dry and refreshing and BOOM—great!”

McPherson knows a grape grower in the High Plains, Joe Vasquez, who has a small plot of 28 year-old Chenin Blanc vines. In the past McPherson has used these grapes for blending with some of this other wines including his white sparkling wine made from 85 percent Chenin Blanc and 15 percent Muscat Canelli for a scoach of sweetness on the finish. But McPherson has always wanted to make a dry Chenin, and this year, the time was right.

So, I trekked up to Lubbock a couple of weeks ago to check out some of the madness that is grape harvest season in the High Plains and to try my hand at making wine. (Don’t worry, the reality is, I just watched and asked a lot of questions. Kim and Kassandra—a recent masters grad of the esteemed oenology program at University of California at Davis to match her father’s—did all the real work.)

I soon found that making wine is a lot more of a “hurry up and wait” process than you might think. First of all, you have to wait for the grapes to get to their optimum sugar levels, or “degrees brix,” the measurement commonly used in America. Once the grapes are ready to pick, you’ve got to line up a harvester and delivery time. In our case, the grapes were ready to pick, but the actual picking and delivery time changed three times over the course of three days for these grapes.

Chenin Blanc grapes after harvest

To put it mildly, it was a mess. In fact, we didn’t actually get the grapes in the tank until my final day. McPherson sped me to the nearby airport to catch my plane with just minutes to spare.

It was nearly 3 p.m. by the time the grapes hit the crush pad, and boy did they look baked and toasty in that hot metal bin that had been trucked more than half an hour from their vineyard in the hot August sun. But McPherson wasn’t worried. After more than 30 years in as a winemaker, most of which has been in Texas, he’s seen his fair share of ups and downs in harvesting. And despite the setbacks with the more than 6.4 tons this year’s Chenin Blanc harvest yielded, he was ready to roll his sleeves up and do what he does best: make really good wine.

Without getting into the piddly details, here’s how the process went. The grapes were all poured into a large outdoor tank and fed up a conveyor belt into the “crusher/destemmer,” which does exactly what you might think: crush the grapes, take out the stems and leaves. The grapes are then pressed to separate the juice from the grape skins and voila, you have wine!

Well, not exactly. First, you have to let it has to ferment. And before that can happen, we had to separate any left over solids in the juice that weren’t caught in the pressing process. To do this, usually winemakers have to let the juice sit in a cold tank to let the solids separate.

Grapes in the crusher

Imagine a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. When you let it sit for a few minutes, you notice a foam start to separate and rise to the top of the glass. Or when a pint of Irish Guinness is poured, you watch as the creamy head begins to rise to the top. That’s what happens during the “cold soak” of grape juice for winemaking.

This process usually takes a few days. But not for McPherson. This year, he let technology do the work for him with an Italian designed “Ecoflot” from Della Toffola. This little pump enables the solids to clarify from the juice very rapidly. Like in less than an hour rather than a few days. With this year’s massive harvest, the Ecoflot allowed McPherson to save days of time in pressing and racking his wines to allow for more tank space with each new delivery of grapes. In short, he maximized his efficiency.

After using the handy little Ecoflot, a few adjustments had to be made to the juice including acidification and a little sulphur dioxide.

“I try to minimize these additions, but they’re just necessary to making wine,” says McPherson.

Note: Despite what some people may realize, the addition of sulphur dioxide and certain acids, such as tartaric acid, which is a naturally occurring acid in grapes, is a common practice in winemaking all over the world and has been for centuries. Sulphur Dioxide is actually a bi-product of fermentation from added yeasts. (Up to 5-7 parts per million.) It’s a topic to be discussed later down the line, but the big takeaway is, if you’ve been drinking any wine from your average grocery store shelf, it’s been adjusted with sulphur dioxide and some form or naturally-occurring acid.

Small beaker example of Ecoflot before the solids have separated

Five minutes after juice has been through the Ecoflot process

McPherson also added a few yeast nutrients to help spark fermentation with the addition of yeast. In this case, he added “Alchemy II,” a yeast blend from Scott Laboratories to formulated to work well with Chenin Blanc fermentation. From then, we just had to let the yeast and the juice do it’s work.

It’s been about three weeks since we set up our dry Chenin Blanc. After checking with McPherson yesterday, it turns out the fermentation is almost complete. From that point, he says he’ll probably let the yeasts “settle out” on their own and fall to the bottom of the tank. Over the next month he’ll stir these spent yeasts or “lees” to add a little creaminess and complexity to the wine before racking the wine, removing the yeast and fining the wine for clarity. By December, we’ll be ready to bottle and I’ll be back up to Lubbock to help make it happen.

To date, we’ve selected the bottle—a dead leaf green color like the kind you see with most Chardonnay wines—and we’ve decided to use the more efficient screw cap instead of a cork. We’ve even been able to determine a general $12/bottle price for the 400 cases we’ll be able to yield of this wine. The only thing left is to figure out a name for this Texas dry Chenin Blanc.

Any ideas?

We’ll continue with the final result in December…

- Jessica Dupuy

Tagged: Chenin Blanc, Ecoflot, Jessica Dupuy, Kim McPherson, McPherson Cellars, texas wine

In late July, Erin McKool opened a drive-through restaurant in Dallas called Start. For years, McKool had planned to open her own restaurant, but was never sure of what concept she wanted to undertake. Two-and-a-half years ago when the idea for Start finally came to fruition, McKool knew she had something spectacular on her hands. Start is a restaurant that is truly the first of its kind: a drive-through, slow food restaurant that utilizes local, healthy ingredients. McKool talked with TEXAS MONTHLY about Start, the Dallas culinary scene, and embracing an entirely new restaurant concept.

Erin McKool

Tell me how the idea for Start came about. 

I used to be a lawyer, and when I came home to raise my son, I started thinking about finally doing a restaurant. It’s been a dream of mine to start a restaurant, café, coffee shop, or diner for years. I’ve always wanted to own my own business. When I left my job in 2007, I had a concept in mind, but it wasn’t this one. This concept has been two-and-a-half years in the making. I decided to do a drive-through that served restaurant-quality food with healthy ingredients.

How did the drive-through aspect come about?  

From the minute I started thinking about this concept, I knew I had to have a drive-through because it would set it apart from everything else that’s already out there. That was the real reason why [I decided on the drive-through]. I wanted it to stand out. I know how difficult it is when you have kids or you’re on your way to work to stop and grab healthy food. I wanted to create something that would make it convenient for people to eat healthy on the go. Something like this needs to exist.

How did you develop the menu? Were these dishes you made at home? Things that you ate growing up? 

It’s mostly stuff that I tested and made at home. There are a couple of things I added for the sake of building up the menu. I put together a menu that I thought would be really accessible to most palates. These are things that people are already looking for on a fast-food menu, but with a healthier twist. For example, we have a hamburger, but it’s not your typical hamburger. It’s one-hundred percent grass-fed beef that’s local and sustainable, and our wheat bun has no preservatives. I wanted to create a menu of items that I would make at my house. A couple of things I created that I had never made before were the flourless chocolate cake and the veggie, egg white sandwich. I put some curry butter on the sandwich to give it a bit of a flavor profile. I just played with some things on the menu and incorporated some adventure in the items.

Is it all local, mostly local?  

There are a lot of local ingredients, but it’s definitely not all local. For one, we don’t run a seasonal menu. We’re not truly a farm-to-table restaurant because we wanted to create a menu that wouldn’t change since we’re trying to follow the fast-food format as much as possible. We’re just reinventing it a little.

Explain the meaning of the restaurant’s name. 

This concept doesn’t really exist anywhere else, so we felt like it was truly a start. We wanted to be the first people that started thinking about remodeling traditional fast food. We wanted to persuade people to start thinking about eating better and also about where their food comes from. It’s a start in the right direction.

What’s your opinion of the Dallas culinary scene? 

People here have a very sophisticated palate. My husband and I lived in New York part time for the last three-and-a-half years. We’d spend two weeks there and two weeks [in Dallas]. I was stunned to see how similar Dallas is to New York, obviously on a smaller scale. That same New York-style food is here in so many restaurants. People in Dallas really appreciate the farm-to-table concept, sourcing local, and eating well.

Tagged: dallas, Erin McKool, Layne Lynch, Start

Scott Banks of Tony’s in Houston with Duchman Family Winery 2010 Vermentino (photo courtesy Tony’s)

By now it should be fairly apparent that the warm climate grapes of Spain, Southern France and even the warmer parts of Italy are taking a shine to Texas soils. One such Italian success story is the Vermentino grape, which is originally a shining star for the little island of Sardinia that sits west of Italy in the Mediterranean sea. It’s a grape Stan and Lisa Duchman took a chance on in 2004 when they first began Duchman Family Winery, devoting their entire wine production to Italian varietals. And in its few years on the Texas market, it’s been an investment that has paid off.

Sure, it may not be one of the more well known white wines we’re used to grabbing from the grocery shelf. Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and even Pinot Grigio have dominated that column for some time now. But if you’ve any interest in deepening your breadth of white wine knowledge, especially when it comes to white wines from Texas, Vermentino should be at the top of your list.

Especially if it’s a Vermentino grown by Bingham Family Vineyards from Duchman Family Winery. The 2008 vintage nabbed the Texas Wine of the Month in May 2010 and this month the 2010 Duchman Family Winery Vermentino takes the same honor as Texas Wine of the Month for August. It should come as no surprise considering its gold medal status from the Dallas Morning News/TexSom International Wine Competition and a silver at the world-renowned San Francisco International Wine Competition.

This month’s selection comes at the suggestion of Scott Banks, wine director for the iconic Tony’s restaurant in Houston. Since 1965, Tony’s has long been regarded as one of the best dining experiences in Houston, if not all of Texas. Growing up it’s a place I remember my Houston-native grandparents sharing their stories of entertaining clients and friends for special dinners.

It wasn’t until recently that I enjoyed my first Tony’s experience and I have to say that whatever owner Tony Vallone did to attract sophisticated glitz and glamour in 1965, he’s still pulling it off today. Tony’s is special indeed, with every five-star dining frill you would expect from mussels steamed in tomatoes and white wine, to a meticulous table-side break down of a whole salted branzino served warm and aromatic with fresh herbs. A night at Tony’s is truly special, especially if you get a chance to sit down with the man himself over a glass of 2008 Galatrona Petrolo, a single vineyard Italian Merlot. That’s when the real stories come out.

The more than 1,100-bottle wine list features wines from the world’s greatest regions: from Barolo and Barbaresco (Piedmont) to Brunello di Montalcino (Tuscany) as well as an unmatched collection of first-growth Bordeaux and Grand Cru Burgundy. With a number of rare and collectible bottles—stretching back to 1844—the wine cellar at Tony’s is almost more of an homage to the grand history of global wine as it is a holding room for top beverage selections. And this year, Banks added Duchman’s Vermentino to the list. (To date, the only Texas wine to hit Tony’s hallowed list.)

“Planting Vermentino was such a shrewd decision,” says Banks of Duchman Family Winery for staking their claim with this grape. “It’s a hearty grape with an almost irrepressible acidity that can handle a Texas summer. The acid balances out the almost exotic fruit nature of this wine giving you a beverage that is crisp and clean without being ‘one note.’”

With bright acidity and citrus characters of fresh lemon zest, Meyer lemon, a squeeze of grapefruit and even the tiniest hint of fresh cut grass, the Duchman Vermentino is available on shelves in most HEBs, Whole Foods Markets and Central Markets throughout the state for about $15. Considering we’re still in for a couple more months of Texas heat, it’s a very reasonably priced wine to stock up on and enjoy with grilled fish, seared scallops or even as a back porch sipper on its own.

“At Tony’s, we’re featuring a salad that involves finely shaved heart of palm, finished with Ricotta di Bufala, Fredericksburg peach and crispy prosciutto,” says Banks who loves to pair the Duchman Vermentino with this dish. “The peach jibes with the slight tropical notes of the wine, while the wine’s bright acidity cuts right in to the natural, delicate fat of the Ricotta and the prosciutto.”

And if you like the 2010 Vermentino, you’ll no doubt love the 2011 vintage that will likely be released later this year, if not in early 2013.

“I really think we’ve hit our stride with Texas Vermentino,” says Dave Reilly, head winemaker for Duchman Family Vineyards. “Cliff Bingham [who grows it for us in North Texas] is exceptional at consistently growing high quality grapes regardless of what the growing season throws at him. The 2011 has the same flavor and aroma profile as the 2010, only more intense with more citrus. I honestly think this wine gets better with every vintage.”

Winery: Duchman Family Winery

Price: ~$15

Availability: Most grocery stores or large-scale liquor stores in Texas including HEB, Whole Foods Market, Central Market

- Jessica Dupuy

Tagged: Bingham Family Vineyards, Cliff Bingham, Dave Reilly, Duchman Family Winery 2010 Vermentino, Jessica Dupuy, Scott Banks, Tony's Houston

Despite our most valiant efforts, we cannot predict the life events that await us around the corner. Before May of last year, Daniel Curtis – former food and beverage director of The Carillon – had every intention of continuing his work in the evolving Austin culinary scene. But when a diving accident on Memorial Day Weekend of last year left Curtis with a severe spinal cord injury, all of his prior life plans were derailed. His focus was no longer on cuisine; Curtis wanted to regain his mobility.

Daniel Curtis and Josh Watkins

After the tragic event, Curtis quickly realized the road to recovery would be long, hard, and certainly not cheap. Despite having insurance, Curtis’ medical bills were significant. Lucky for Curtis, though, he had some loyal friends, loving family members, and faithful coworkers that were looking out for him. A group of individuals, including Curtis’ best friend, Josh Watkins – executive chef of the The Carillon – rallied together with the Lone Star Paralysis Foundation and created a fundraiser on Curtis’ behalf. In the end, the event raised an estimated $70,000 that helped cover some of Curtis’ medical expenses.

Now over a year later, Curtis has made some significant progress in his recovery, but he still has a lot of work ahead of him. His goal is to walk again, but his recovery is still very much a work in progress. All the same, Curtis is steadfast in his commitment  to push forward and pay it forward. In fact, Curtis is repaying the life-altering gift that was given to him last year and has helped put together the Pay It Forward With Daniel Curtis Event that takes place tonight.

The fundraising event will help raise awareness and funds for individuals who, like Curtis, have suffered spinal cord injuries. Tonight from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the AT&T Executive Center, The Lone Star Paralysis Foundation hosts a night of silent auctions, live music from Kat Edmonson, and delicious cocktails and cuisine from some of Austin’s most talented culinary minds, including Josh Watkins of The Carillon, John Bates of The Noble Pig, David Bull of Congress, Shawn Cirkiel of Parkside, Callie Speer of Swift’s Attic, Philip Speer of Uchi and Uchiko, David Alan of Tipsy Texan, and several more.

To purchase tickets to this charitable event, see this link. Tickets can also be purchased at the door!

Tagged: austin, Callie Speer, Congress, Daniel Curtis, David Alan, David Bull, John Bates, Josh Watkins, Layne Lynch, Parkside, Pay It Forward, Philip Speer, Shawn Ciriel, Swift's Attic, the Carillon, The Noble Pig, Tipsy Texan, uchi, uchiko

Proving once again that “even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut,” I have discovered a fabulous food combination: roasted Hatch green chiles and Pure Luck goat cheese. More specifically, an omelet or scrambled eggs with said ingredients. It happened the other day when it was—ohmigod—RAINING and I didn’t want to go out.

By coincidence I had (as I frequently do) some Pure Luck cheese in the fridge. (If you are not familiar with it, Pure Luck is an award-winning chèvre handmade in Dripping Springs. The small dairy has limited distribution, so you might have to substitute another fresh goat cheese. That would work fine, I’m sure, but might not be as spot-on, flavorwise.)

Poking around the fridge some more, I found eggs and a plastic bag of Central Market’s roasted mild Hatch chiles, which I had bought on a whim after smelling the fabulous aroma of them roasting in the market’s parking lot. Perfect: I could make a scramble.

I like a lot of flavor, so I used one chile per two eggs. First, I sliced the chile crosswise in thick pieces (leaving in the seeds and charred skin) and warmed them up in a buttered skillet for a minute. I took them out, added a little more butter, and started scrambling a couple of beaten eggs mixed with some salt and a teaspoon of liquid from the chile bag. Right before the eggs started to set, I tossed in the chiles and finished the cooking (don’t overdo them—there’s nothing worse than dried-out eggs). Then, the finishing touch: the goat cheese. Ambitious cooks might want to melt it in with the eggs. Being lazy, I just dabbed some on top. Then I ate my creation, looking out the kitchen window and watching the rain come down. Fabulous.

Tagged: Central Market, Hatch chiles, Pure Luck

The Texas Terroir Lineup at TexSom

For anyone wondering how Texas wines fare among experts in the wine industry, the proof was in this year’s 2012 TexSom conference. In it’s eighth year, TexSom—short for Texas Sommelier’s Conference—reserved one of their nine wine sessions for an hour completely devoted to Texas Terroir.

A few hundred sommeliers and industry retail and restaurant professionals were in the room as part of the sold out two-day conference, which was held at the Four Seasons Resort and Club Las Colinas outside of Dallas. The session was led by the Guy Stout, a Master Sommelier who manages the wine education program at Glazer’s, and Christy Canterbury, a Master of Wine, wine educator and writer, and native Texan who helped judge the 2012 Dallas Morning News/TEXSOM International Wine Competition earlier this year.

The two opened with a few comments on the state of the Texas industry showing numbers on just how big Texas wine has become. In 2001, there were only 46 wineries producing only about 600,000 cases of wine. By 2009, there were more than 220 wineries producing more than 1.2 million cases. And the growth has only increased in more recent years.

Among the top points Stout drove home was the fact that Texas winemakers have finally honed in on warm climate grapes to produce the best wines within the state. Among the lineup included many examples of these varietals such as Italian Vermentino, Viognier from the Rhone Valley of France, and Touriga Nacional from Portugal.

Of the eight wines showcased for the tasting, all were “single vineyard” wines, meaning each one was made from grapes that came from a specific Texas vineyard.

“We really wanted to show the terroir of Texas for this seminar,” says Drew Hendricks, TexSom co-founder and director of wine and beverage education for Pappas Restaurants. “It is possible to make wine that has a sense of place in Texas and these wines show that.”

Below is the list of Texas wines tasted, with a comment or two from Stout and other audience members in between…

 2010 Duchman Family Vineyards Vermentino (Bingham Family Vineyards)

“The typicity of this wine is outstanding,” said Stout. “It tastes exactly like Vermentino should taste.

2010 McPherson Cellars Reserve Roussanne (Bingham Family Vineyards)

“This shows what we can do with Rhone varieties,” said Stout. “McPherson is one of the greatest winemakers in the state of Texas and this wine is an example of why.”

“This wine is outstanding,” added Marcy Jimenez of Houston Wine Merchant. “It’s brilliant and so exciting that this is happening here in Texas.”

2010 CapRock Winery Viognier (Reddy Vineyards)

“This wine tastes like the variety should taste,” said Canterbury. “It’s floral with apricots and orange peel. It’s beautiful.”

 2009 Sandstone Cellars VII (Mason County)

“This wine has iron and spice like you would find with Touriga,” says Canterbury, but it is also very savory. It’s not fruit forward, but restrained and European in style.”

“Don Pullum is the winemaker for Sandstone and I’d say he’s one of the best winemakers in the state and this Touriga blend is an example of the great job he’s doing,” added food and wine journalist Andrew Chalk of D Magazine.

2009 Pedernales Cellars Kuhlken Vineyards Reserve Blend

“Pedernales Cellars aged this wine in both American and French oak. It’s a lovely wine that will definitely hold for a while if you age it,” said Stout. “The blend has Tempranillo and Merlot and shows a more European footprint than a lot of Californian wines.”

2010 Fairhaven Vineyards Chambourcin

“We really wanted to show this wine because it’s from someone who really believes in American hybrid grapes,” said Stout about the red Chamburcin grape, which is a French-American hybrid between that has shown to be resistant to fungal diseases . “R.L. Winters hangs his hat on these varieties and this is one of the best representations he has of why.”

2010 Vineyard at Florence “Veritas” Cabernet Sauvignon

“This isn’t a warm variety grape, but this wine shows really well with black currant, eucalyptus and a little sweet vanilla from the oak,” said Canterbury. “It’s really nice.”

2010 Haak Vineyards “Madeira” Blanc du Bois

“I think Blanc du Bois is one of the most exciting white wine varieties in Texas,” said Stout. “It’s an American hybrid that took five generations to get correct, but Raymond Haak at Haak Vineyards is doing it right. It has orange blossom and orange water on the nose and palate. Beautiful.”

The two days of wine-filled education featured eight other seminars including some particularly eye-opening (and delicious) sessions on Riesling, Cabernet Franc and perhaps my favorite, Oregon wines. TexSom ended Monday evening with a festive Grand Tasting featuring more than 150 wines from all over the world. And of course, Texas was there to represent with wines from CapRock Winery, Duchman Family Winery, Inwood Estates, Pedernales Cellars, and Sandstone Cellars which brought along an intriguing Tempranillo from a new Mason County Vineyard, Pontotoc Vineyard.

Winners of the Texas Best Sommelier competition at TexSom, David Keck (2nd place), Ryan Tedder (1st place), Steve Murphey (3rd place)

The highlight of the evening was the announcement of Texas’ Best Sommelier, Ryan Tedder of FT33 Restaurant in Dallas. Tedder was one of 23 competitors in the annual Texas Best Sommelier competition which is run behind-the-scenes at TexSom and proctored by a number of Master Sommeliers from the Court of Master Sommeliers. An integral part of TexSom, the competition was designed to help give aspiring sommeliers scholarship funding to help further their wine studies. (Tedder received $2,500 for his top honor.)

David Keck of Uchi Houston was the second runner up and Steve Murphey of Mid-Stage Wine & Liquor in Plano received third place. Additionally, the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, California will offer scholarships to all three to placers.

- Jessica Dupuy

Tagged: Andrew Chalk, CapRock Winery, Christy Canterbury, David Keck, Drew Hendricks, Duchman Family Winery, Fairhaven Vineyards, Guy Stout, Inwood Estates, Jessica Dupuy, Marcy Jimenez, McPherson Cellars, Pedernales Cellars, Ryan Tedder, sandstone cellars, Steve Murphey, TexSom, The Vineyard ar Florence

Tim Love

Pack your bags, Top Chef fans; your favorite culinary reality show is setting sail in April 2013….on a cruise. With Gail Simmons and Tom Colicchio as the celebrity hosts, Top Chef: The Cruise stops in Key West and Cozumel and gives attendees “the chance to spend quality time with the show’s judges and chefs, [thus] making [it] a one-of-a-kind culinary vacation experience.”

The food-centric cruise features Quickfire challenges, cooking demos, menus inspired by Top Chef episodes, and Q&A sessions. Former Top Chef and Top Chef Masters contestants including Jennifer Carroll, Tiffany Derry, Chris Hanmer, Michael Isabella, Spike Mendelsohn, Hosea Rosenberg, Angelo Sosa, Casey Thompson, Hubert Keller, and Fort Worth’s Tim Love will attend. Love was a contestant on the first season of Top Chef Masters and ended up finishing in third place. TEXAS MONTHLY’s Pat Sharpe featured Love’s Woodshed Smokehouse as “Pat’s Pick” this past March. Top Chef: The Cruise runs from April 11-15,  and room prices range from $699 (four people in a stateroom) to $5,999 for a penthouse suite.

Tagged: Layne Lynch, pat sharpe, Pat's Pick, Tim Love, Top Chef Masters, Top Chef: The Cruise, Woodshed Smokehouse

We were delighted to hear that seven of the fifty best new restaurants in America – according to Bon Appétit magazine– hailed from the great Lone Star State.

Dish from Justin Yu. Gulf Oyster Steamed in its Shell. Photo by Paul Sedillo.

These Texas seven included Elizabeth Street, Austin; Lenoir, Austin; Oak, Dallas; Oxheart, Houston; Uchi, Houston; Underbelly, Houston; and Woodshed, Fort Worth.

Well, that list of fifty best restaurants has finally been narrowed down to the top ten, and Oxheart in Houston is the only one of the seven Texas restaurants to make it into the honorable top ten. Congratulations to Justin Yu and his team! To get a full look at the top ten, check it out here.

I first met Andrew Zimmern last fall at Whip In in Austin where the spirited television chef was filming his hit Travel Channel series, “Bizarre Foods.” Though Zimmern has traveled all over the world, he made it clear to me during his stop in Texas that Austin’s culinary scene evoked a certain quality he rarely ever saw in American cuisine. “The people of Austin really enjoy being experimented at,” Zimmern explained to me. “They redefine the meaning of bizarre food.”

Tonight, the Austin episode of Bizarre Foods premieres at 8 p.m. CT and features some Austin favorites, including Foreign & Domestic, Contigo, Lamberts, Barley Swine, Gourdoughs, Dai Due, and a number of other Austin spots. It seems like Rene Ortiz of La Condesa will also be featured on the episode as well, according to a post on Sway’s Facebook page which warns, “Spoiler alert: Rene might kill something [tonight].”

Bridget Dunlap with Andrew Zimmern

The host for Zimmern’s Austin visit is Rainey Street Queen Bridget Dunlap, owner of Lustre Pearl, Clive Bar, Bar 96, and the yet-to-be-opened Container Bar. ”Andrew and the crew are super badass! He was so fun, sweet, and down-to-earth,” Dunlap said of her experience with Zimmern. ”We all stayed out together until 12:30 a.m. and had a blast. He loves his job and the crew loves him…the whole experience was really amazing.”

Catch all the Austin bizarreness tonight on the Travel Channel!

Tagged: Andrew Zimmern, austin, Barley Swine, Bridget Dunlap, Contigo, Dai Due, Foreign and Domestic, la condesa, Lambert's, Layne Lynch, Rene Ortiz, Sway, Travel Channel, Whip In

A bounty of 2012 Viognier grapes from Bingham Family Vineyards in the High Plains

Just got back from a few days in the High Plains where the 2012 grape harvest is in full swing! From grape grower to winemaker alike, the annual harvesting season is where the rubber meets the road on revealing exactly what we can expect from Texas wine from year to year. After last year’s monumental drought, which yielded a very small grape crop, tension was high this year about what this season would bring.

In Texas, harvest isn’t exactly the kind of thing you see in the movies. In the High Plains, things are done on a regimented schedule and usually in the middle of the night. (It’s the coolest and safest time of day to pick the grapes and get them ready for crush, press and inoculation.)

This is where the old adage, “hurry up and wait,” is brought to reality. As the sugar levels in the grapes approach their optimum levels, grape growers like Neal Newsom, VJ Reddy and Cliff Bingham are in constant contact with the wineries that will receive their grapes to select the best time slot in their schedules to pick them and have them whisked away to production facilities all over the state—primarily in Central Texas.

Night Harvesting in the High Plains

So now that we’re into the first couple of weeks of harvest,  how are things going? In a word, G-R-A-P-E!

But don’t take it from me. Here’s what the experts have to say:

“This week alone has been the best week of grape harvesting I’ve ever seen in the High Plains,” says Bobby Cox, who has been growing wine and consulting to grape growers in the High Plains for more than 30 years. “The fruit is just amazing and this is just what we needed after such a hard crop last year.”

“We have been so blessed with the harvest this year,” says Cliff Bingham of Bingham Family Vineyards who is looking at harvesting about 800 tons of grapes this year compared to only about 150 tons in 2011. “If I can estimate within 15 percent of what I think a particular varietal is going

Cliff Bingham inspecting the Vermentino Crop on his vineyard

to yield, I consider that to be pretty good. But as we’ve been harvesting grapes in the past couple of weeks, we’re seeing so much more fruit than I anticipated. And the [chemistry] levels we’re looking for when we pick the fruit are great too!”

“This will be the largest grape harvest in the history of Texas. The quality of fruit & the quantity are both outstanding,” says Phillip Anderson of CapRock Winery who says he’s particularly excited about the sizable amount of Viognier CapRock received this year. “It means we will be able to make both a traditional Viognier and a blend with Muscat Blanc/Viognier that we call Toscano Bianco. Last year, the harvest was so poor, we only had enough grapes to make the Toscano Bianco but none of the Viognier.”

“The harvest is great. We’ve got more fruit than we expected, and we expected a lot,” says David Kuhlken co-owner and winemaker for Pedernales Cellars whose 2011 Viognier just recently received a gold medal at the heralded San Francisco International Wine Competition and not to mention gold medal for the 2009 Tempranillo in the Dallas Morning News/TEXSOM Wine Competition this year. “Last year was a comparatively lean year, and while the quality was good, the quantity wasn’t. But the combination of a wet spring and the relatively dry stretch we’ve had lately has given us a good target yield from [our] vineyard. The Texas High Plains vineyards are also getting high yield and the heat they’ve experienced is accelerating their harvest.”

In the Hill Country, Kuhlken—and many others—is seeing much of the same. “Our earliest analysis of what we’ve harvested from our Hill Country Kuhlken Vineyard shows medium- to full-bodied fruit with good sugars.” says Kuhlken. “The basic chemistry’s all there for us to create some really good wines. And because of the higher yields, we have the ability to make more Kuhlken Vineyard estate wines in the next few years.”

Salt Lick Vineyards

Down in Driftwood Salt Lick Vineyards began harvesting grapes during the first week of August with both good and bad results. “The late July rains have caused havoc with the grapes,” says Salt Lick Owner Scott Roberts. “It delayed the harvest and the good thing is that the hang time was increased. The bad news is that it cause some of the grapes to shrivel and raisin, which hurt our yield. But overall, our Tempranillo grapes have some of the darkest color and best flavor to date. You know rain late in the season makes you feel selfish. You want everyone to get rain but for yourself you want it to go away. We were lucky this year the late rains could have destroyed the crop so instead of losing everything we got a little bad and a lot of good.”

Just a few miles away from the Salt Lick is Duchman Family Winery.

“We’ll have harvested about one third of our grapes with the first two weeks of August, which is amazing. And it’s just a ton of fruit,” says Duchman’s head winemaker Dave Reilly who received almost double the Vermentino he was

Plump cluster of Dolcetto Grapes from Bingham Family Vineyards

estimating to get this year from Cliff Bingham in the High Plains. (His 2010 Viognier and 2010 Vermentino won gold medals at the Dallas Morning News/TEXSOM Wine Competition and silvers at the San Francisco International Wine Competition this year.) “In my opinion, 2012 is going to be a repeat of 2010 in volume, but the quality is just so much better. It’s going to be a really great year for Texas wines.”

Up in the Colorado River Valley between Marble Falls and Burnett, Seth and Laura Martin of Perissos Vineyards are in good spirits. “Harvest 2012 at Perissos has been abundant,” says Seth Martin who makes the majority of his wines from grapes from his own estate. “This is not only our biggest crop load ever, but also the highest quality fruit across the board. I’d say the wines from this vintage are off to a spectacular start and we are humbled and thrilled over the blessing of this harvest.”

 - Jessica Dupuy