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by Marques Vickers (Photographer), Marques Vickers (Author)
"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 2017. The edition also includes comparison with the California, Washington and Oregon wine regions. The 2019 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 11.7 thousand tons during the 2017 harvest. California harvested over 4 million tons and Washington 227 thousand tons during the 2017 harvest. Oregon harvested 79.8 thousand tons during the 2016 harvest.2. Texas' wine grape harvest is 14.7% of Oregon's, 5.2% of Washington's and .03% of California's annual harvest. Washington's harvest is only 5.6% and Oregon's 2% of California's overall production. Oregon's production is 35.1% 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 fourteenth 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 $1730 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 67% of the state's grapes.8. During 2017, Texas' state total production ratio was 67% red wine grapes and 33% white wine grapes. Total Bearable acreage is 70% red wine and 30% white wine grapes.9. Between 2015 and 2017, production of the Muscat Canelli grape dropped 52.2% and 62% in the High Plains and Panhandle growing region. The grape in 2015 was Texas' largest produced varietal.10. Based on 2017 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 445% in the High Plains and Panhandle growing region between 2015 and 2017 making it the second largest grape tied with Merlot. The grape is now the fourth largest produced in the state.12. Viognier dropped from the second largest production grape in the High Plains and Panhandle growing region during 2015 to fourth in the region based on a production decrease of 40.3%.13. Merlot's reduced production of 45.5% between 2015 and 2017 in the Hill County region dropped it from the largest produced grape to third place.14. The Hill Country growing region, the state's second largest, suffered a 37.1% decline in production between 2015 and 2017. The decline was attributed to a severe rainy season culminating in extensive vine destroying rot and mildew.15. Blanc du Bois and Black Spanish grapes are the dominant grapes produced in the Southeast Texas and Gulf Coast growing region comprising 74.7% of production. Combined in 2017, they represent 54.8% of statewide production in those grapes.
