So You Think You Know Texas Wines? (2020-2021)

Book excerpt: “So You Think You Know Texas Wines” is designed to simplify your understanding by identifying growing trends, grape descriptions, and future direction of the Texas wine industry. This book concisely profiles each of the state’s leading growing regions and prominent grapes based on the most recent available harvest data from 2019. The edition also includes comparison with the California, Washington and Oregon wine regions. The 2020-2021 edition is ideal for wine collectors, winemakers and anyone who appreciates a Texan grown vintage. The following facts are from hundreds of little known essentials included in the book: 1. Texas harvested 14.2 thousand tons during the 2019 harvest. California harvested 4.28 million tons and Washington 261 thousand tons during the 2018 harvest. Oregon harvested 91.3 thousand tons during 2017. 2. Texas’ wine grape harvest is 15.5% of Oregon’s, 5.4% of Washington’s and .03% of California’s annual harvest. Washington’s harvest is only 6% and Oregon’s 2.1% of California’s overall production. Oregon’s production is 35% of Washington’s. 3. California has 3,670+, Washington 940+, Oregon 725+, and Texas approximately 200+ wineries. California has seventeen, Washington fourteen, while Oregon and Texas have designated five growing regions. 4. Texas has eight designated AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) including Bell Mountain, Escondido Valley, Fredericksburg, Mesilla, Texas Davis Mountains, Texas High Plains, Texas Hill Country and Texoma. 5. Cabernet Sauvignon is Texas’ most popular but only thirtieth highest priced wine grape. It is California’s second most popular and second highest priced red wine grape. It is Washington’s most popular and sixth highest priced and Oregon’s sixth most popular and highest priced wine grape. 6. Tempranillo is Texas’ second most popular and seventh highest priced wine grape averaging $1720 per ton. It is California’s thirteenth and Oregon’s fourth most popular red wine grape. 7. The High Plains and Panhandle growing region is the largest Texas production center harvesting 72.6% of the state’s grapes. 8. During 2019, Texas’ state total production ratio was 71% red wine grapes and 29% white wine grapes. Total Bearable acreage is 73% red wine and 27% white wine grapes. 9. Between 2015 and 2019, production of the Muscat Canelli grape dropped 56.6% in Texas overall and 47.8% in the High Plains and Panhandle growing region. The grape in 2015 was Texas’ largest produced varietal. 10. Based on 2019 non-bearing acreage figures, the six most likely statewide grapes to increase in production are Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo, Blanc du Bois, Black Spanish (Lenoir), Merlot and Mourvèdre. Non-bearing acreage represents planted vineyards whose young grapes have not been included into production statistics. They may also reflect damaged and destroyed vineyards that did not add to the production totals. 11. Production of Mourvèdre jumped over 700% in the High Plains and Panhandle growing region between 2015 and 2019 making it the second largest grape. The grape is now the third largest produced in the state. 12. Blanc du Bois and Black Spanish grapes are the dominant grapes produced in the Southeast Texas and Gulf Coast growing region comprising 80.1% of production. Combined in 2019, they represent 63.3% of statewide production in those grapes.