Wine

Sommelier Vanessa Treviño Boyd Doesn't Kiss and Tell

Philippe sommelier and wine director Vanessa Treviño Boyd is not one to name drop. But even if she were, you really couldn't fault her for it. In conversation with her, once the ice is broken, she can rattle off a who's who of Burgundy and French-wine elites whom she counts among her most intimate ... More >>

Top 5 Red Wines to Serve Chilled in Summer

Some are more apt to reach for white than red wine during summer months, and it's perfectly understandable: White wines are generally served chilled, red wines generally not. But when summertime arrives at our house, I find myself craving earthy red wines to pair with the smoked ribs we are offered ... More >>

1981 and Now

The Top 12 Texas Junk Foods.

Top 5 All-American Red Wines for July 4th Grilling

It seems only natural to go All American for our Fourth of July recommendations. After all, wine -- and our nation's bizarre relationship with alcohol -- have been part of our history since the time of the Founding Fathers. "In nothing have the habits of the palate more decisive influence than in ... More >>

Underbelly's Underpriced Wine List Gives Us More Reasons to Love It

Because there is so very much to discuss when it comes to Underbelly, the subject of this week's cafe review, I found myself having to trim back significantly in certain areas of the review in order to get a broader point across (which, TL;DR, is that Underbelly is where it's all happening and you s ... More >>

Like That Wine? Try This One: A Guide to Texas Wine Varietals

In last week's cover story, we discussed the fact that Texas vineyards still stubbornly grow varietals that aren't suited to the Texan weather or soil -- well-known grapes such as Merlot, Cabernet and Chardonnay. But they're doing it for a reason: Too many wine drinkers don't want to stray from the ... More >>

The Perfect Sushi Wine?

Even though we're still more likely to reach for sake or beer when searching for a beverage pair with Japanese cuisine, we increasingly look to wine these days to quench the thirst that comes in the wake of the marine and umami flavors of both classic and innovative Japanese cooking. And while we ha ... More >>

Eggs and Pinot Noir, a Guilty Pleasure

Omelette Of all French dishes, the omelette is perhaps the most thoroughly representative. The French omelette is known far and wide, by reputation, at all events, and various are the parodies of the great French dish that are to be met with in the different corners of the world. In some places, om ... More >>

Texas Wines: Behind the Cellar Door

Not all the Texas wine you buy is made from grapes grown in our state. In fact, most of it isn’t.

3rd Annual Houston Wine Festival

Today's Cover Story on the Texas Wine Industry

See our slideshow of Texas wines and wineries. The cover story for this week's issue of the paper, coming out online this afternoon, is an article on the Texas wine industry by my colleague Katharine Shilcutt and me. In the piece, we take a hard look at the challenges that Texas winemakers face. ... More >>

What's the Deal With "Old" Wine?

So, what's the deal with old wine anyway? Wednesday's post on What are "Tannins" in Wine? got me thinking about the widely divergent ways Europeans and Americans perceive and approach the consumption of "old wine." Tannins and "tannic structure," after all, are part of what gives wine its longevity ... More >>

What Are "Tannins" in Wine?

Have you ever been to a wine tasting or dinner party and heard some blowhard try to befuddle and belittle an enthusiastic however neophyte wine lover by asking can you taste how smooth the tannins are in this [red] wine? One of the most common misperceptions in the wine world is that you can taste ... More >>

B[ring] Y[our] O[wn] B[arbera]

In the aftermath of recent posts here at Wine Time on corkage and tipping etiquette, Lucio's BYOB and Grill seemed like an ideal destination for a working dinner with a colleague -- a demilitarized zone, as it were. After all, it has "BYOB" in the name of the venue. Not knowing what to expect in ... More >>

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 >>

Digging a German Red Quaffer from Pfalz

Generally, when wine nerds like me think of fine wines from Germany, we think white: Mosel Riesling, with its enormous capacity for longevity and nuance, its bright acidity and vibrant minerality, is considered by many to be one of Europe's greatest wines. (Celebrity sommelier and winner of this yea ... More >>

A Tipsy Mom is a Happy Mom: Mother's Day Bellini Bar

If you're skipping the restaurant rush and looking for a way to jazz up to your annual Mother's Day Brunch, look no further. Two words. Bellini Bar. I know my mama would appreciate the morning buzz more than she would my not-so-famous quiche Lorraine (by the way, when did quiche become the official ... More >>

The Wine Lover's Bill of Rights

We the Wine Lovers of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Meal, establish better Wine Pairings, insure enogastronomic Tranquility, provide for the common wine service, promote the quality of fine wine, and secure the Blessings of Vinous Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordai ... More >>

A Little Pork Fat and A Little Red Wine - Just What the Heart Needs

Sunday night, 20 miles south of Houston, two culinary heavy hitters knocked it out of the park at the Revana Wine Dinner at Killen's Steakhouse. Chef Ronnie Killen and Chef Randy Rucker began preparing weeks in advance, tasting wines and developing recipes to pair perfectly with Revana wines. It w ... More >>

Texas Wines Are Talk of the Town

In the wake of Sunday's Texas wine seminar at the Austin Food & Wine Festival, organized and moderated by Houston wine writer Russ Kane, Texas wines seem to be on everyone's minds this week. Eatocracy (CNN): Food & Wine magazine executive wine editor Ray Isle, a Houston native, was a member of the ... More >>

Texas Wine Makes the Big Time at Austin Food & Wine Mag Fest

"The Wines Of Texas Are Upon You" may have seemed like a bland seminar title when compared with spicier ones like "Everything You Need To Know About Wine But Were Afraid to Ask" and "Super Star Wines." But the fact that the Austin Food & Wine Festival (which made its debut over the weekend) includ ... More >>

The Chill: When Is Wine Too Cold?

In the wake of the Twitter response to yesterday's post on "The Pour: Glass Half Empty or Half Full?" (in other words, when should waiters refill or wait to refill your wine glass?), I thought I'd post on another issue that wine lovers often face in restaurants: Wine so chilled that its aromas and f ... More >>

Wine(s) of the Week: Austin Food & Wine Festival Preview

Anthony Giglio is simply one of the funniest and most fun-to-be-around people I know in the wine writing business today. The New York-born son of Neapolitan immigrants, he loves wine, food, and life with a passion that spans the divide between old world and new. And whether he's guiding a tasting of ... More >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

Bear on Wine: Chapeau bas, as the French say (in other words, hats off), to Houston wine educator and Spec's veteran fine wine buyer Bear Dalton for his painfully frank post on bottle variation in one of the world's most coveted Super Tuscans -- Guado al Tasso by Antinori. In preparation for the Ho ... More >>

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 >>

Wine Time: A Favorite Wine for Easter Lamb

When it comes to pairing wine with food, we live by two maxims at our house. 1. If it grows with it, it goes with it. (Motto attributed to the great New York restaurateur Danny Meyer.) Look to traditional pairings as rules-of-thumb. For example, the inhabitants of the western coast of France famo ... More >>

A Wonderful Time at Brenner's on the Bayou's Wine Revolution

This past weekend, beautiful Houstonians donning flats and bright resort-casual attire, per the event's invitation, skipped out on their Saturday country club visits and spa days in favor of Brenner's on the Bayou's third annual Wine Revolution. Set in tents under the bright sun, amidst Brenner's hi ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Your Grandfather's Chianti But I Like It

Italian wine is our thing. And when I say that, I don't mean that we don't like and drink French, Spanish, and Californian wine. But when it comes to the wine that my wife and I serve and drink in our home, that we drink most often when we go out, and what we stash away in our wine cellar, Italian w ... More >>

Wine Time: What To Do When Fine Wine Service Is Really Bad?

Historically, a sommelier was a cellar master who managed a wine collection. He -- and I say he because in the pre-sexual-revolution era, the sommelier was always male -- tracked and tallied the sums of wine (originally stored in cask and later in bottle). Today, the word is used loosely to denot ... More >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

WineSleuth Uncorked: Although we'd love to see some more wine bloggers join our ranks here in Houston, we've been geeked to see the steady posting by our city's local chroniclers of all things vinous. This week, stay-at-home mom Amy Gross shares her "ratatouille" moment -- otherwise known as an epi ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Eyrie Vineyards Pinot Noir (Willamette)

Of all the wine-growing regions in the U.S., none seems to make more sense to me than the Willamette Valley, Oregon (although the Finger Lakes in New York state comes in at a close second). When rich white dudes were inspired to plant French varieties in Napa like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Ch ... More >>

Odd Pair: Extreme House-Cured Charcuterie

Ever since the late 1990s and the advent of Molto Mario and his in-house salumeria at Babbo in Manhattan, extreme house-cured charcuterie has been embraced by chefs across the nation with seemingly unrivaled zeal. (Ever wonder why so many of them make "duck prosciutto"? It's because hanging ducks ta ... More >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

After reading our blogging colleague Katharine Shilcutt's post about Robb Walsh's tasting and pairing of Texas Gulf oysters and wines last week at Oceanaire on Westheimer, we were geeked to see a post from a wine blogger's perspective by one of our favorite Houston wine educators, Sandra Crittenden. ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Who Needs Another Merlot When You Have Cerasuolo di Vittoria?

Did the world really need another Merlot and Chardonnay in 1995? Evidently, the Planeta family thought so, and when the younger generation of this Sicilian clan launched the eponymous winery in the mid-1990s, they delivered bold, oaky, concentrated, and highly alcoholic Chardonnay, Merlot, and Syrah ... More >>

Wine of the Week: An Albariño That Really Delivered

Some people tend to drink more red wine than white during winter. At our house, we tend to drink more white than red -- year round. And it's not because we have an issue with red wine. In fact, some of our best friends are red wines. On Saturday nights at home, when I might treat myself to a black ... More >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

TX Wine Lover: As the still youthful Texas wine industry continues to grow and find its footing (shifting away from the California Chardonnay-Cabernet-Sauvignon-Merlot paradigm), a handful of European grape varieties (beyond the classics of Bordeaux and Burgundy) have emerged as winners. Their succe ... More >>

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 >>

Odd Pair: Pizza and Champagne (Socialism)

Photo by Jeremy Parzen​Champagne socialist, noun depreciative (originally and chiefly British): a person who espouses socialist ideals but enjoys a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle; confer limousine liberal noun. -- Oxford English Dictionary In this day and age of the 99 percenters, there's no ... More >>

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 >>

Wine of the Week: Chardonnay

Photo by Tracie P.Although Chardonnay has become synonymous with "white wine" in North America, its true homeland is the Côte de Beaune in Burgundy, France, where it is grown and raised in some of its most celebrated expressions.​Chardonnay has been on our minds. Last week, our colleague Chr ... More >>

Odd Pair: Mile-High Wine

Photos by Jeremy Parzen.​"What are my white wine choices?" I asked the other day after boarding one of the roughly 24 Southwest Airlines flights that I will take this year, as I commute monthly to work with one of my clients in California. "Chardonnay," answered the steward. "Is there more t ... More >>

Ingredient of the Week: Chardonnay

Valentine's Day came and went. You cooked some fancy meal with your significant other, uncorked a bottle of wine, and then after dinner, fed each other bon bons by the fire. Okay, realistically, there was no fire because Houston just hasn't stayed cold this winter. But all the other parts really ... More >>

Wine Time: Sparkling Wines for Cocktails

Back at the end of 2011, when we were writing a lot about Champagne and other sparkling wines for the holidays, reader John wrote us asking for advice on what sparkling wines to use for sparkling wine cocktails. "Since spirits and lemon juice and bitters mess with the subtleties of Champagne," he ... More >>

Wine of the Week: A Red That Lasts for Days

After what's your favorite wine?, the question that I get asked the most at wine tastings and seminars is how do you make wine last after you've opened the bottle? My initial answer is drink good wine: Wine with high acidity will last longer once opened; acidity is one of the key elements that give ... More >>

Odd Pair: Sushi and Wine (a Preview of Uchi's Wine List)

There's a lot riding on the launch of the new Uchi in Houston. Tyson Cole's Austin outposts -- Uchi and Uchiko -- stand apart as "destination" restaurants in Texas, venues that have attained national recognition in part because of Cole's success as a competitive chef on television and in part becau ... More >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in (Women's) Wine Blogs

Photo by Margaret Shugart, curator of a new blog, The Wine Roads of Texas.​The Wine Roads of Texas: "If you've never seen the communities that run across that vast stretch of road," writes Margaret Shugart, author of a new blog called The Wine Roads of Texas, "you are missing one of the most u ... More >>

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 >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

Bear on Wine: We've been having a blast following Texas wine legend Bear Dalton's new blog, Bear on Wine. This week he weighs in with some of his insights into cork damage with a post entitled (caps his) MURDER, HE TASTED or 'Death in the Desert'. We don't want to spoil the grand finale of this fi ... More >>

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 >>

Odd Pair: What Wine Do You Serve with Your Baked Potato?

Baked potatoes at our house are much more than a meal. They are a religion. We don't just do sour cream. We do sour cream-infused with freshly ground horseradish, a kiss of white wine, and kosher salt. We don't do "bacon bits." We do crumbled, crispy, center-cut bacon that's been fried the day bef ... More >>