Wine Life - Houston

The 50th anniversary of the Montepulciano d'Abruzzo DOC is this year and select winemakers went on a tasting tour in Houston, Toronto, and Boston. They kicked the celebration off with a seminar in Houston featuring local Italian wine expert and blogger, Jeremy Parzen , and Texas-based but Italian born sommelier and geologist, Osvaldo Pascolini. Pascolini, a Master of Terroir, first led the group through the geologic features that make the Abruzzo region ideal for wine production. Abruzzo is located between the Adriatic Sea and the Gran Sasso and Majella massifs. This short distance between the coast and the mountains create the unique conditions that help to produce high quality grapes. The diurnal swing, or change in temperature from day to night, helps the grapes to fully ripen while still maintaining their natural acidity. The good ventilation and ideal amount of rainfall also contribute to the quality of the fruit produced. The region has more environmentally protected ...

As I get to go to a lot of professional wine tastings, I tend to not really enjoy many consumer wine events, they are often loud and rowdy. An exception to the rule is the events held by  Pappas Bros. Steakhouse . They always draw a good wine loving crowd and they are always top quality in regards to the selected wines they serve, and even more importantly, the sommeliers that pour at the events are incredibly knowledgeable. The wine dinners are some of the best that are offered in Houston and are always worth the splurge. My daughter and I attended the Rediscover: Grenache wine tasting at the original location on Westheimer last week. The event showcased a wide variety of Grenache-based wines from around the world with the added bonus of delicious hors d'oeuvres throughout the tasting. Some of our favorite passed snacks on this evening were the morel and parmesan foam risotto with black truffles and the dry-aged Colorado lamb with lentils and braised Napa Cabbage on pomme g...

As originally seen in the September issue of Galveston Monthly

I was invited to a media and trade tasting lunch at Backstreet Cafe with Andrés Sánchez, the winemaker for Alcance, a Jackson Family winery. As guests arrived, we were greeted with a glass of lightly chilled Alcance Chardonnay 2016, a perfect start for a hot summer day in Houston. This rich and elegant Chardonnay is grown on granitic soils in a coastal mountain vineyard in the Valle de Itata. Despite my multiple wine classes, this was a growing area with which I was not familiar. This vineyard is located between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean about 12 miles from the coast which as Sánchez pointed out adds a nice sea influence to the wine. The Chardonnay was pleasantly fresh with light citrus notes and a touch of butterscotch with a distinct saline mineralty throughout the slightly creamy finish.  A mixed appetizer platter with Gulf Coast Beignets, duck spring rolss, asparagus and zuchini flatbread, and lump crab cakes on red pepper beurre blanc were br...

Allessandro Bernini, Italian Portfolio Manager for Shaw-Ross importers, was in Houston last month to present some of the current releases from  Frescobaldi Toscana. The tasting was held over lunch at Kiran's restaurant to showcase the versatility of the wines with cuisine beyond the expected Italian. The majority of these wines are found on restaurant wine lists versus at retail shops, all are sustainably made. Bernini shared the extensive history of this family winery which begins over 700 years ago when the then banking family moved to medieval Florence from Germany. By the dawn of the Renaissance, the Frescobaldi's were the financial backers of major improvements to the area paying to build things such as the Santa Trinita bridge. Financial success and strategic marriages with other landholders eventually brought six estates into the family holdings, all of which were conducive to the growing of grapes for fine wine. The vineyards ranged in location from cool climate mo...