Let's try this again

I haven't posted in quite sime time, but a recent vacation led me to thinking about sharing my thoughts again. This time it's about wine. We traveled to Kingsland TX to do a little fishing and to visit some Texas wineries. We love the Texas wines and have traveled the state to taste what the grape has to offer. We visited 7 wineries on this trip and averaged purchases of three bottles per winery.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, where am I going with this blog? Mostly it's going to be about wine, it will be a  journal, if you will, of my trips and enjoyment of mainly (but not always) Texas wines. I am not a wine snob, in fact, a few years ago I couldn't tell you anything about wine. But as you sip and visit with different winemakers and sommeliers you begin to learn something. I still do not think I know that much, but it's like that art statement: I may not know much but I know what I like!

This last week was a blast, visited some new wineries for us and then ended the week with the 6th Annual Texas Reds Festival in downtown Bryan (thoughts on that later).

On the first day of our travels we stopped at what was a new vineyard for us. Perissos is located just north of Kingsland on Park Road 4, connecting Inks Lake State Park with Longhorn Caverns. This was a leg of the trip that we had taken with each grandchild as they turned 8. Our youngest is now 15, so that places us in the area about 7 years ago. I don't remember them then but it appears from their website that this was their first year to have wine. So that seems about right.

This will be my opinions of the wine and why I enjoy them, I hope not to be judgmental but I want to give my true impressions of the  wineries and their wines. I hope as I go forward I will have copious notes so I can refer to our impressions as we visit each place. On our first stop to Perissos we had packed our Wine Notes books in the luggage which was in the back of the truck, don't think I'll make that mistake again. You forget the mental notes you make and the writing on the tasting slip is very small. So anyway we're pulling into Perissos and it is very impressive, it is in a small valley following the Colorado River and is just beautiful. Their vines were full and luscious and as we turned the road to the winery we noticed each row had a sign of what grapes they had planted, quite a variety. It is worth a trip just for the scenery.

I really expected to be about the only one here, but we were in for a surprise. This vineyard seems to be a destination place for a large Austin component. A large party was going on and we were last to arrive! We were met at the door by a delightful lady, who introduced herself and asked if we were ready to taste some wines. We tasted 3 whites and 3 reds, all were good and ranged from slightly sweet  (the Sweet Lucy - a white blend) to a nice dry Sangiovese. The place was so busy we were sharing a list of the wines with a couple from Tyler and didn't have anything to make notes on.  I do remember thinking it was a great venue and some good wines, the one that surprised me was the Rousanne, a wine/grape I had not tried before. Later in the trip I discovered the Rousanne is normally used as a blending grape and is difficult to grow and maintain. I do remember thinking it was a refreshing wine and would drink more.

The good part of the trip to Perissos: It was a great venue, has great soils, a beautiful valley and beautiful vines. The wines were all above average for Texas wines. The not so good part, the wines are pricey by current Texas standards, the Sweet Lucy is $24 and the Tempranillo-Tourigo was $45. I did purchase the Sangiovese for $38 and will savor it later as it puts on some age. I know that reads as a contradiction, the wines are above average and above price - but they are slightly more above price than above average flavor, that being said, I will drop by here again, with my notebook next time!

Drink and enjoy. Next up: McReynolds and West Cave Cellars.

Granddad