Wine Life - Houston

The beautiful spring weather we enjoyed earlier this week in Houston prompted my decision to open this sample bottle of Chateau Bibian Haut-Medoc Cru Bourgeois 2012 and fire up the grill for some steaks. My husband had arrived home somewhat early (for him) and he was assisting me in setting up for dinner. I poured us each a glass of wine while we waited for the grill to heat. I was standing at my notebook starting to scribble down my initial positive impressions about the wine when I heard him say, "wow, what is this? This is good." I looked up in time to see him take another big gulp from his glass. "It's Cru Bourgeois from the Haut-Medoc", I replied, all the while knowing this is relatively meaningless to him. We have a deal that I don't have to know too much about how my car operates and he doesn't have to retain too much wine knowledge. He continued to look at me with a semi-blank expression so I expounded, "Bordeaux, left-bank, not the ...

As originally seen in Galveston Monthly magazine

San Francisco Chronicle "2014 Winemaker of the Year", Steve Matthiasson, was in Houston to deliver a viticulture lesson to local wine professionals. He recently changed the name of his lecture to "The Farmer's Role in Terroir" as he wanted to begin the discussion after "what is". Steve explains that terroir is what it is, in so far as it has a certain type of soil, a certain amount of sunlight and a certain amount of water and nutrients that are naturally available to the grapes that are grown there. He feels that the farmer's role is to help manage the crop load by helping the vineyard to control for vine stress in the earliest part of the growing season. His philosophy is simply that you can impact the style of the wine by the way that you grow the grapes. Balance in the glass begins with balancing the viticultural aspects of the vine in the vineyard. The condition of the soil, pruning methods,  canopy management, as well as water and hormo...