Labor Day at Texas Wineries and Vineyards
Last weekend was the three-day Labor Day weekend. Normally, we start to transition to the Fall with cooler temperatures on the way. This past Labor Day marked the transition from lighter clothing, lighter foods, and lighter wines to heavier clothing as the weather begins to cool. In addition, our foods normally get heavier and so we also gravitate toward red wines which are also heavier.
Texas is enjoying another outstanding year of a quality harvest through the past Labor Day weekend. Grape quantities are down this year since all of Texas, including grape vines suffered through last year’s February Freezes and Bayer’s Dicamba herbicide which is killing hundreds of acres of vineyards according to vineyard owners. The grapes have been harvested along the Gulf Coast and the Texas Hill County. The grapes on the Texas High plains have everyone abuzz about 2026 being another awesome year for Texas, once of the BEST ever! Almost all of the Texas grapes have been harvested on the flat lands of the Texas High Plains. These flat lands make harvesting grapes easy with mechanical grape harvesters. These machines have vibrating sides on each side of the rows of grape vines guided by a wheeled mechanism. About 100 grape pickers equal the daily output of just one mechanical harvester. With lack of farm hands, Texas is not being impacted unlike California with its steeply sloping vineyards and lack of farm hands. These machine-harvested grapes come into the winery cleaner and faster than hand-harvested grapes. As a result of a faster accumulation of grapes via mechanical harvester, the grapes arrive at the wineries in less than 90 minutes vs. several hours of vineyard storage and accumulation of grapes to justify transportation to the winery by truck. The grapes that arrive faster from mechanical harvest have a temperature about one to two degrees above ambient air temperature. However, grapes that have to reside in the vineyards for hours due to the slow manual picking start fermentation via rogue yeasts and bacteria. Winemakers have no control over these rogue fermentations and sometime have unusual tastes that the winemaker does NOT want to have in his wines. With this type of mechanical harvesting, Texas wineries are experiencing better quality grapes at the winery. Most everyone agrees that Texas is finding its identity and making lots of award-winning wines. As we look into another quality grape harvest, it appears that Texas is poised to continue to earn the recognition it has earned year after year with more Gold Medals and Double Gold Medals. Grapes in California are also seeing an early harvest.
If you want a chance to develop and expand your palette, get your ticket for next week’s Platinum Wine Vault as Wine and Food Week continues its “Going Places” journey around the globe with a focus on Greece. Inspired by the sun-drenched beauty, timeless hospitality, and vibrant flavors of the Mediterranean, the Platinum Wine Vault Luxury Tasting invites guests to indulge in an extraordinary evening of world-class wines, chef-inspired cuisine, a special Greek experience and live music on Friday, September 18, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Bayway Cadillac of The Woodlands. Tickets are $150 and available in limited supply at www.wineandfoodweek.com.