Subject:

Consumer Non-Cyclicals

  • Blogs

    May 22, 2012

    Federal Lawsuit Filed in Corpus Christi Over Lobster Baked Potato

    It's the clash of the Longhorn Steakhouse titans down south in Corpus Christi, where a local chain of steakhouses with a similar name to the national LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants has filed a federal lawsuit over a lobster baked potato. It's more complicated than that, of course, but the lobster ... More >>

  • Blogs

    May 22, 2012

    Why Restaurants Matter (and Why You Should Tip Generously)

    Last week's post Corkage: A Privilege, Not a Right generated a heated comment thread. "Are you f'n kidding me?" asked "Corkage Smorkage" rhetorically. "Offer your server a taste of your wine." ???? I'm already paying them a BS "fee" to open it. What's next, offering them a taste of my food so the ... More >>

  • Blogs

    May 21, 2012

    Red, White and Orange: More and More Orange Wines in Houston

    "Old man piss." I hate to say it, but it's the best descriptor to use to describe the color of many of the "orange" wines that are finding their way to our market these days. As you can see from the color of the wine in the glass above, orange wines aren't really orange: They tend to have a deep ... More >>

  • Calendar

    April 26, 2012

    Texas Beer Fest 2012

    "Old man piss." I hate to say it, but it's the best descriptor to use to describe the color of many of the "orange" wines that are finding their way to our market these days. As you can see from the color of the wine in the glass above, orange wines aren't really orange: They tend to have a deep ... More >>

  • Blogs

    April 5, 2012

    Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

    Vintage Texas: Top Texas wine authority Russ Kane chronicles the bankruptcy filing and botched sale of one of the state's leading wineries, CapRock, in Lubbock. According to his report, New Mexico winery Gruet has been ordered to pay $4 million for a breach of contract after bidding in a bankruptcy ... More >>

  • Music

    March 15, 2012

    Against the Grain

    Pardon the pun, but month-old Montrose craft-beer pub The Hay Merchant is already hopping.

  • Blogs

    February 27, 2012

    From Defender of Wily Politicians, Serial Killers and Drug Dealers to Texas Winemaker

    "I don't read anymore," said Dickson when I asked him to share his thoughts about the recent uproar in the world of Natural wine. "I did enough reading when I was an attorney." On Friday, I drove out to Houston native Lewis Dickson's Hill Country estate and winery, La Cruz de Comal, on the southern ... More >>

  • Blogs

    February 22, 2012

    Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

    Wine Thoughts: There's so much groovy stuff happening this week in the Texas enoblogosphere. But we just have to open today's post with a nod to one of our favorite and most balanced wine bloggers here in our state, Sandra Crittenden, author of Wine Thoughts, who writes about one of our pet peeves: ... More >>

  • Blogs

    January 30, 2012

    Wine of the Week: Natural Wine in Texas

    As we noted in last week's post on a new era of Nastiness and a call for civility in the Natural wine debate, it's not easy to define exactly what Natural wine is. As Eric Asimov wrote in his weekly New York Times column, there is no official definition or doctrine for Natural wine or Natural winem ... More >>

  • Blogs

    January 27, 2012

    The Natural Wine Debate Gets Ugly

    "Natural wine is wine to which nothing has been added," said the leading advocate of Natural wine in the U.S., Alice Feiring, when she visited Texas in October 2011 to promote her new book Naked Wine: Letting Grapes Do What Comes Naturally (Da Capo 2011). She was speaking at an event in a wine bar, ... More >>

  • Blogs

    January 23, 2012

    Must Like Texas Wine: The Wine Slinger Chronicles, a New Guide to Texas Wines

    Photo by Jeremy ParzenLeading Texas wine authority Russ Kane (left) and his wife Delia love meatballs. That's Russ with Coppa executive chef Brandi Key. Russ has called Brandi's meatballs "the best in town."​It seems inevitable that the authors of the two guides to the wines of Texas have name ... More >>

  • Dining

    January 19, 2012

    Meat Market

    You'll probably be paying more for your rib eyes and Whoppers thanks to the great Texas drought of 2011.

  • Blogs

    January 17, 2012

    Wine of the Week: 2000 Valpolicella by Giuseppe Quintarelli

    Photo by Jeremy Parzen.Giuseppe Quintarelli, one of the greatest winemakers of our lifetime, passed away on Sunday in the Valpolicella, Italy. He was 84.​From the tiny village of Negrar in the picturesque Valpolicella (Veneto, Italy) to the upper reaches of the One-Percenter wine collectors in ... More >>

  • Blogs

    December 6, 2011

    Me and the TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission)

    Image via the Texas Restaurant Association.TABC To Go is an excellent online TABC certification program for Texas restaurant and bar workers. Although not required by the state, many Texas employers require certification to ensure proper service of alcohol.​The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commiss ... More >>

  • Blogs

    December 5, 2011

    Absurdity of Texas Wine Shipping Law Reaches New Heights

    Photo by Jeremy Parzen.Castell'in Villa Chianti Classico is one of the greatest values in Italian wine today, but out-of-state retailers can't ship it to me in Texas... at least not legally.​On Friday, one of the most bizarre press releases I've ever read found its way to my inbox. "The Texas ... More >>

  • Blogs

    December 1, 2011

    Why Texas Should Reopen Its Horse Slaughterhouses

    It's been five years since the nation's last horse slaughterhouse was shut down. The Cavel horse slaughterhouse in DeKalb, Illinois, closed after Congress banned USDA inspections of horse meat -- effectively ceasing operations at the few abattoirs in the United States that dealt in horses. If the me ... More >>

  • Blogs

    November 14, 2011

    What Do Wine and Saddles Have In Common? The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo

    ​Over the course of a weekend, volunteers with the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo wash 20,000 wine glasses in two days. It's just one of the staggering statistics behind the annual International Wine Competition, the contest that leads to the Rodeo Uncorked! Wine Show and to a few lucky wineri ... More >>

  • Blogs

    November 4, 2011

    Wine Time: Wine and Sulfur Dioxide

    Image via HomeBrewers.com.No, that's not cocaine. It's potassium metabisulfite, one of the many forms of sulfites employed by winemakers for a variety of purposes.​A post earlier this week ("Wine of the Week: A Wine with No Detectable Sulfites") inspired a lot of acidic (pun intended) discussi ... More >>

  • Blogs

    November 1, 2011

    Wine of the Week: A Wine with "No Detectable Sulfites"

    Photos by Jeremy Parzen.The Madoff segment on last night's 60 Minutes was made more palatable by a tasting of the utterly transparent Frey Vineyard's "Natural Red."​One of the chief complaints often expressed by advocates, champions, and militants of Natural wine (with a capital N) is that ove ... More >>

  • Blogs

    October 27, 2011

    Natalie MacLean's Unquenchable Search for the Best Cheap Wines

    ​To research her new book Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World's Best Bargain Wines, Natalie MacLean traveled to wineries in eight countries including Australia and Italy over a five-year period. Each chapter in Unquenchable pairs a wine with a day of the week and a meal. While the book ... More >>

  • Blogs

    October 21, 2011

    Odd Pair: Wine and Legs (or Tears That Rhyme with Ears)

    Photos by Jeremy Parzen.The legs of 2005 Langhe Nebbiolo Sperss by Gaja (Piedmont, Italy), tasted this week in Houston.​How many times have you been at a dinner party and heard some blowhard say something like the following (uttered with a fake British accent): Observe carefully: After swirli ... More >>

  • Blogs

    September 26, 2011

    Wine of the Week: An Under-$25 Fresh, Clean Sparkler

    ​Whenever it comes to sparkling wine, the comparison to Champagne is inevitable. Together with Bordeaux and Burgundy, wine regions that the British embraced as benchmarks for fine wine in the 19th century, the Champagne "brand" is so powerful that it pervades nearly every discussion of spar ... More >>

  • Calendar

    September 15, 2011

    Beer & Brass

    ​Whenever it comes to sparkling wine, the comparison to Champagne is inevitable. Together with Bordeaux and Burgundy, wine regions that the British embraced as benchmarks for fine wine in the 19th century, the Champagne "brand" is so powerful that it pervades nearly every discussion of spar ... More >>

  • Blogs

    September 12, 2011

    Wine of the Week: A Rosé from the Texas Hill Country

    ​The more I read about Texas Hill Country winemaker and San Antonio endocrinologist Richard Becker, the more I am intrigued. Any doctor-cum-vintner who quotes readily from one of my favorite 20th-century American poets, Wallace Stevens, sounds like someone who puts more thought into the art an ... More >>

  • Blogs

    September 7, 2011

    Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

    Know a Houston-based blog we should be paying particular attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below. ​TweetChat #TXWine: If you've been following along here at Wine Time, you know that Texas wines have been on our minds. We found out about the TweetChat #TXWines thanks to t ... More >>

  • Blogs

    September 6, 2011

    Wine of the Week: Texas Blanc du Bois

    ​Above: Blanc du Bois grapes from the 2010 harvest at the Cruz de Comal Winery in the Texas Hill Country. To tell the story of winemaking in Texas today, we need to start with what happened in California back in the 1970s and the way wine has been marketed historically in the U.S. When I was ... More >>

  • Blogs

    August 12, 2011

    Odd Pair: What Wine Do You Serve with Doritos?

    ​When asked what factors had shaped his palate and his wine collection when he first began collecting fine wine, rockstar (literally, not just figuratively) and winemaker Maynard James Keenan answered: "Mountain Dew and Doritos. Like most American kids, that's what I grew up on." This was a fe ... More >>

  • Blogs

    August 2, 2011

    Wine of the Week, Part 2: Orange Wine by Nicolas Joly, on a Mission from Nature

    ​Yesterday, after we posted our Orange Wines 101 primer, Elgreco54 noted that "Joly does knockout stuff." As it just so happens, I tasted the new vintage, 2008, of Joly's entry-level wine, Les Clos Sacrés (the holy cloisters), over the weekend. (In France the wine is called "Les Vieux Clos," ... More >>

  • Blogs

    August 1, 2011

    Wine of the Week: Orange Wine (Yes, Orange)

    ​White wine, rosé wine, red wine, orange wine... Orange wine? Qu'est-ce que c'est? No, it's not a wine concocted by Longhorn fans. (They call UT the orange tide? Call me Deacon Blue Nun). Orange wine is a loosely codified category of winemaking and winemakers who macerate the juice obtained ... More >>

  • Blogs

    July 22, 2011

    Greatest Grub: Best Non-Blue Bell Ice Cream Flavors

    Carrie Applegate Jaeger​As promised, here's the follow up to the last Greatest Grub featuring favorite flavors of Blue Bell ice cream. I can only imagine how many gallons of that stuff are bought in the state during these unbearably hot summer months. I know that Blue Bell is the hometown fa ... More >>

  • Blogs

    July 19, 2011

    Open the Taps: Houston Lobbies for Statewide Access to Better Beer

    Will you support the cause?​It's one thing to sit and complain about the wretched restrictions the State of Texas has placed on the sale and distribution of craft beer. It's quite another to actually do something about it. And because Houston is a city of do-ers, five Houston craft beer lovers ... More >>

  • Blogs

    July 7, 2011

    AB InBev Trademarking Our Area Code for Crappy Beer

    Filling a stein with Budweiser is tantamount to filling a Riedel glass with Boone's Farm, just FYI.​Anheuser-Busch is counting on civic pride to make its next product a smash seller: beer named after America's various beer-drinking cities, based on their area codes. To that end, AB has alread ... More >>

  • Blogs

    May 9, 2011

    Wine of the Week: Righting the Wrong of Rosé

    ​Remember the "pink" and "blush" wines from the 1970s, like the one pictured right? They were mass-produced and mass-marketed blends of white and red grapes with high alcohol content (and often with added sugar) intended for the swinging cocktail set of the era. And while we all had a grand t ... More >>

  • Blogs

    April 11, 2011

    Pierre Celis, Brewer of Hoegaarden and Celis Beer, Dead at 86

    Flickr user wolfworld​Pierre Celis, the "King of Belgian White Beer", died over the weekend. He was 86. In spite of several unfavorable transactions with major brewing companies, Celis is widely considered one of the forbearers of the craft-brewing movement in America. His self-named brewery ... More >>

  • Blogs

    March 25, 2011

    Upcoming Events

    Italian winemaker Ezio Trinchero​Starting this Saturday, there are plenty of inexpensive ways to get your gourmet on in Houston this week, and it all kicks off at Block 7 Wine Company. Fresh off last night's wine dinner featuring acclaimed Italian winemaker Ezio Trinchero, Block 7 Wine Compan ... More >>

  • News

    March 17, 2011

    Made in Texas

    Think all bourbon comes from Kentucky? Think again.

  • Blogs

    February 28, 2011

    Get Your Passport Stamped Along the Texas Wine Trails

    ​While the trail riders rode into town last Friday, you could be riding out one weekend soon to hit one of Texas's 11 wine trails just as the bluebonnets are beginning to bloom this spring. The fifth most productive wine-producing state in the nation, Texas features more than 200 vineyards wi ... More >>

  • Blogs

    February 24, 2011

    An Afternoon of Free Wine at Archway

    Photo by CrosslersAn example of home winemaking supplies.​Take a late lunch tomorrow, if you can. And maybe bring along a designated driver. Archway Gallery (2305 Dunlavy, 713-522-2409) is hosting an afternoon of free wine in its Montrose space, and this isn't your typical gallery showing. Fr ... More >>

  • Blogs

    February 21, 2011

    Wine(s) of the Week: Duel Napa Valley Chardonnay

    ​I had a couple bottles of Chardonnay sent to me from different wineries, and noticed they were both within a year's vintage of one another, in the same price range, and both from the Napa Valley. So, why not do a Wine of the Week, "Food Fight" style? It was on like Donkey Kong, only a little ... More >>

  • Dining

    February 17, 2011

    Come and Bake It

    Local movement fights for cottage food bill.

  • Blogs

    January 27, 2011

    Vintners Own Winery: Wine (in a Freaking Keg!) in the Heights

    Happiness is eight different wines on tap.​I called my most wine-savvy friend upon receiving the invitation to the event. "Did you know there's a freaking winery in the Heights, just a few blocks from your house?" This was followed by a string of expletives (apparently she was not aware). I co ... More >>

  • Blogs

    January 19, 2011

    Comment of the Day

    ​Today, Katharine Shilcutt told EOW readers about the new beer bar from the guys at Anvil, which left many salivating for more info...and probably beer. Said commenter Dacano: I think 2010 was just the beginning for the craft beer movement here in Houston and Texas as a whole with the emergen ... More >>

  • Dining

    June 28, 2007

    5 Wines That'll Blow Your Mind

    ​Today, Katharine Shilcutt told EOW readers about the new beer bar from the guys at Anvil, which left many salivating for more info...and probably beer. Said commenter Dacano: I think 2010 was just the beginning for the craft beer movement here in Houston and Texas as a whole with the emergen ... More >>

  • Dining

    May 3, 2007

    Five Wines That'll Blow Your Mind

    The Vintage Mirrors the Year

  • Dining

    February 6, 2003

    Dining by Demographic

    Fleming's Prime Steakhouse serves up excellent renditions of the nation's most average food and wine preferences

  • Dining

    November 14, 2002

    Steak House Shuffle

    Vallone's takes a break just in time to give Fleming's a shot

  • Dining

    May 17, 2001

    Play Ball!

    Sports bars and gay bars cater to a similar crowd: Guys who watch buff men

  • Dining

    January 18, 2001

    Stirred and Shaken

    Champps Americana's Manhattan

  • Dining

    November 16, 2000

    Stirred and Shaken

    P.F. Chang's mai tai

  • Dining

    June 19, 1997

    Capital Idea

    Is one more palace of red meat one too many? If it's the Capital Grille, the answer is no.

  • More >>
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