My Apologies, Tech Grads ;)

A Love Letter to West Texas (haha)

Lubbock: for those of you who are not familiar with this place, I’ll enlighten you.  As you make your way to this slight oasis in the wasteland that is the panhandle of Texas you will smell it.  I mean that.  At every spoke into the “hub city” as it were, you will find a feedlot to welcome you.  The smell is nauseating and the sight is sad. Beyond that, I’m sure you’re waiting for me to tell you there lies beautiful pasture lands studded by a university, art galleries filled with rugged contemporary styles of barbed wire, and the great Buddy Holly Museum alongside meadows speckled with cute little neighborhoods reminiscent of the 1950s,  and schools with crossing guards, but what I’m here to tell you is, it’s flat.  That’s basically it.  If you think I’m exaggerating please head west from DFW, turn north when you see an entire train on the horizon, and bypass the first feedlot you see, “the LBK” will spread out before you and all the things I’ve just mentioned will make perfect sense.

We arrived in the LBK via I40 East and in keeping with MOP throughout this whole trip we checked into our hotel, took naps, then got ready to hit the town. 

Mom and I were on a mission to visit a restaurant with a wine list (there are probably only 2 in town).  So with Dad in tow, we headed for a place we’d heard good things about before called La Diosa. Because this is not a restaurant review or travel blog (I’m sure I’m confusing you now) I won’t go into too much detail about my impressions of the food, location, live music feature, and/or the service but I will touch on the things that influenced my wine choices.

The restaurant featured tapas, so we ordered a few small plates including baked crab dip, shrimp with a lime vinaigrette, and smoked oysters with a tapenade of sorts.  Because I was presented with the wine list (as usual, I’m the one making this decision) I'll take you through my thought process.

1.  I’m not paying.  So I better evaluate the price situation and not make a definitive selection without mentioning my choice to the party that the bill will be presented to before I order.
2.  In my opinion, the wine should either compliment or contrast the food.  I also look to the region from which the wine comes and think about what is typical in the food around that area.
3. What do the people I’m sharing the wine find appealing? What’s the point of ordering a buttery chardonnay when I know they’ll hate it, even if it would pair perfectly with the food?

$25 is not what I would pay retail; restaurants are different.

In this case, I chose a bottle of Montgravet from Cotes De Gascogne ($25).  While I’m not super familiar with the region I did know that this wine is from southwestern France near Bordeaux so I was thinking the wine could be similar to another grape  typically grown around that area: sauvignon blanc. Regardless of the regional cuisine I would pair an acidic wine like sauvignon blanc with seafood any day. This one in particular was a great match for the food we chose, with the lemon, limey, mineral/chalky characteristics Mom, Dad, and I talked about as we ate and drank reassured me of the selection.   The smoked oysters went spectacularly with the wine. Something about the smokiness of the oysters brought out the fruitiness in the wine.  The bacon in the crab “casserole” worked to contrast the acidity in the wine, and the lime vinaigrette with the shrimp complimented the lemon/lime situation we found so delicious.  Somehow we ended up with a contrast, and a couple compliments in the mix.  I should note that my parents have similar tastes to mine when it comes to wine, so the mineral/citrus number was a pretty safe bet.  I guess you could say I cheated on this one!

*The funny part of this whole thing is that I would serve sauvnignon blanc with fish, but I wouldn’t normally order fish in a landlocked area (lubbock) and in researching the wine I chose, the people from the region would probably not be eating seafood, but the rich food I should have picked from the LBK in the first place, HA!  I guess you live and learn :)


I ended up topping off the evening on a high note.  To be honest I’m a HUGE sucker for port, and since we’d just come off a hot hot summer in the metroplex, a breezy 68 degree day in Lubbock seemed like a blustery cold front I talked the ‘rents into a wintry treat!  We ended the evening with a ganache torte, and a glass (bottle) of port.  I chose a tawny port even though normally I would pair a ruby with chocolate and a tawny with a nutty pie or something with dried fruit this worked for us.  I chose the port that suited our tastes, and the food that we like, and let the idea of a classic pair go out the window in favor of OUR perfect pair.  It. Was. Divine.

I know, the Boy would say this is too dark, but the glasses

 were soo cute!

Ending the night with chocolate and port brought our trip to a beautiful and delicious close.  The next day we meandered our way home.  There was one final stop we had to make, with no wine selection needed.  Only true Texans know on a return trip home the place to go that welcomes you back into our great state is..say it with me..WHATABURGER!