Wine Crawl

*I was given tickets to the Burleson Wine Crawl, and asked to write about my experiences there.  The words that follow and the opinions expressed are my own.

A Little Background:
Burleson Texas is not exactly my "hometown."  I'm connected with the place because it's the town where my dad graduated from high school, where the house is that I came home to, where I lived, briefly before moving a little further south to the town I would call my hometown.  I left Texas completely for college, and upon my arrival back home I came to recognize the things that were missing in Burleson.   Unless we were looking for a quick chain restaurant for a casual dinner we didn't frequent Burleson's restaurant scene, in fact, there was no "restaurant scene."  But just in the past few years that has changed.  There's been some kind of movement throughout the city to embrace the small business.  People are considered "trendy" when they find the hidden gem in what is considered the "Old Town" area of Burleson, a small, retro, "cultural district" if you will, that is found in and around the neighborhoods in close proximity to city hall.  I've heard rumors that this will be a walking district with more small businesses setting up shop, hopefully encouraging a safe haven of family friendly sidewalks and the like.  I had a restaurant there, as you know, with a focus on wine.  Maybe it was a bit before it's time....

1st ever press pass :)

You must imagine my surprise when I was asked to attend, and in turn blog about a Wine Crawl in Old Town Burleson.  To say the least my expectations were low.  I hate to admit that, but I'll just be honest, there are only a few local wineries in town, so I believed this would be a street festival with a focus on other types of vendors.  I was right about other vendors being involved, but I was surprised about the winery participation.

First off, it was billed as a local event, and didn't disappoint with  all 3 local wineries (Sunset, Lost Oak, D'vine Wine) there to serve and participate alongside a couple out-of-towners (Barking Rocks and Times Ten Cellars).  I have to say, the fact that there were 5 wineries in attendance really made the vendor/winery ratio exceed my expectations. 

My special helper :)

We were presented with "passports" and allowed 10 tastes of wine. Now, every taste was "paid" for by offering a tiny ticket from the passport and we were encouraged to visit the vendors as well.  For full passport participation (10 tastes and a visit to all the vendors) we were entered into a contest to win prizes.  I brought my sister (also known as my special helper), and we dove headstrong into diligently tasting through 10 tickets.  We make a pretty stellar team!

Santa's Special Label

We kicked off the evening at Sunset Winery's booth. Here we decided that in the future the crawl needs a faster distribution method, I'm not sure what that solution will be - more people pouring at each tent, maybe?  But for this year the lines (though long) moved pretty quickly.  I tried a "Santa's Special" red blend from Sunset that was a sweet blend with little character.  Not a bad drinking wine.  I will admit on this type of wine adventure some of the wineries have styles that I do not prefer, but that doesn't mean they don't have a target market that they know and embrace.  This red blend is a staple at Sunset Winery during the holidays.  The label- featuring a local guy dressed as Santa -  has a unique picture each year, making this almost a collectors item for Sunset customers.

Bruce, the wine maker at Sunset Winery

Local musicians were featured on a main stage, and the music added to the ambiance and seemed to make the wait time in the lines go by faster.  There were also food trucks beyond the featured winery and vendor booths that unfortunatley I didn't get a chance to sample as I was going to dinner with a group after our tour through the main attraction.  The addition of the food trucks was exciting to see and was a great draw for others because all the wine tasting kicks up an appetite!

Tiberia was a great sport taking a picture with me

From there we popped over to Barking Rocks where I was delighted to chat with Tiberia, the
winemaker there, who introduced us to the selection he chose to sample at the Crawl! Tiberia is the real deal.  A winemaker who is involved in his craft and who not only makes the wine, but tends the tasting room and shows up to events like this to educate his patrons on the wines he's made.  I enjoy his enthusiasm, his engaging approach, and his wines.  I tasted a couple at this one - a roussane that was a delicious medium bodied white with some tropical fruit, the rose that had an effervescence that I didn't expect, and I followed that with the merlot which had an almost startling coffee aroma that blended over into the palate very well.

Some of the Lost Oak Wines

I do frequent Lost Oak Winery here in town, so I was less sampling, and more re-visiting some of the wines at the next booth.  I will say tasting these with my sister and a new blogger friend I made at the Crawl was fun because I got to experience them through their eyes.   The Red Roan was top on my list to try again, but my sister and our new friend Emily chose the riesling as their favorite.

Times Ten Cellars from Fort Worth had a great selection, unfortunately they were already out of my first choice (Sauvignon blanc) but the pinot grigio was very nice, it had a peachy aroma along with some citrus that was pleasing.  I did end up sampling a zinfandel they were pouring and a tempranillo as well - hints of caramel and raisin made this one of my favorites of the evening.

D'Vine Wine was also represented.  This is another winery that does well in Burleson, but the style is just not for me.  That doesn't mean, as I mentioned before, that they don't know their market and serve them well, it just means that I'm not in that market.   While they do use some traditional varietals, their biggest sellers, (and the wines they were pouring at the Crawl) are fruit flavored wines.  These are wines that are made in stainless casks using juice that they purchase and then flavor with, from what I can tell, fruit extracts.  I'm no D'Vine Wine expert, but I feel they are a more loose interpretation of a winery than the other wineries in attendance.  I knew to think about these wines in a different way than I had the others, so when I tasted the blackberry merlot I thought it was a great little wine, probably marketed to people who enjoy an easy drinking very fruit forward wine without complexity.

Altogether I'm so proud of Burleson for not only putting an event like this together but for inviting wineries from other areas to compliment the ones we have in town and make a great event fabulous.  I am so looking forward to next year's event and watching this city embrace cultural growth in this way.

Postscript: Know of any wine related events going on around you?  I love to travel and would get a kick out of more festivals and tasting events like this one!

Good vs. Evil

I got the news early in the afternoon Friday that I would be able to go to a local, and stunning, performance hall and see a couple inspirational characters perform.  I was floored, and naturally invited the only person in my world who could appreciate this situation the way it should be - my Mom.

When I was in the 6th grade, I believe, I read Anthony Bourdain’s book (unbeknownst to my mother) Kitchen Confidential.  If you’ve been following along in my blog, you know that when I was in the fourth grade I decided to become a chef, so by the sixth grade I can tell you this choice was pretty firm, but between the charismatic storytelling of Anthony Bourdain and the PBS cooking shows I was taking in on the weekends, I was sold. If you read KC because of this post, please don’t judge me based on the filthy dialogue and/or the R rated scenarios you’ll encounter. Note: the only single thing my mother has ever sold on ebay was that book. 

Recently we’ve become big time No Reservations fans.  Mom and I are foodies, and adventurous women, and well, we fancy ourselves as the types who’d eat off a street cart in Bangladesh without giving it a passing thought - if we ever found ourselves in Bangladesh...with hand sanitizer lol.  From this you should gather that we’ve grown to “know” Anthony Bourdain over the years, and were thrilled to be able to see him live.

Because we’re HUGE nerds, we decided to go to a restaurant before we got to the performance hall, but not just any restaurant, one that neither of us had been to before and also one where we could order things we’d never heard of, anxiously await their arrival to the table, and eat commenting on each dish as an ode to the good (I’ll use that  term loosely) man Tony.

Shinjuku Station in Fort Worth was were we landed, and with only an hour and a half before the show, we were afraid we couldn’t soak in all the goodness the place had to offer, but boy were we wrong.  Our service was outstanding, when they heard we were pressed for time (and where we were going) no one made us feel inferior, they assured us there would be no reason for tardiness and everyone worked together to make our night enjoyable (shout out to Jered our server). 
The food was impeccable.  We had an array of dishes (made to share) beginning with Chile Garlic Edamame and ending with Okinomiyaki, a Japanese pizza type thing made with pork belly, napa cabbage, tempura batter, citrus aioli and all things good and wonderful.  I should mention here (not to imply that the food wasn’t beyond ridiculously good) that Mom and I are playing a diet game, to which a friendly wager has been applied, with some of our friends, and we’d taken this night as our first night “off.”  One of the caveats in the diet game is no wine, let me underscore that, I CANNOT DRINK WINE WHILE PLAYING THIS GAME.  It’s tough.  But at Shinjuku station, we had the night off, so wine we had.  The list was concise and most of the wines I knew,

but we chose a wine, well, Jered helped us, that was very unusual.  Marketed as a “wine to drink with sushi,” Oroya is a blend of grapes native to Spain that are blended to create a wine with a soft structure but vibrant citrus flavor and a hint of peachiness.  We thoroughly enjoyed.  I will tell you, but only you, that we had these mussels in a yuzu butter that were so very tasty that we couldn’t bear to leave the pot liquor on the plate.  When we asked Jered how we were supposed to walk away from the dish he promptly brought us spoons and a side of rice (some people just “get” you, ya know?) it was awesome. 

From the restaurant we stepped into beautiful Bass Performance Hall in downtown Fort Worth, where Christmas was in full swing.  We did a quick bathroom break/wine stop then shopped through beautiful silent auction displays before getting our seats. 

Good vs. Evil featuring Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert began with an interrogation of sorts.  Each of the guys took turns sitting in the Hot Seat on stage while the other strolled past asking insightful/sarcastic questions that revealed hysterical bits and pieces of their pasts - Erik’s storied, Anthony’s sordid. 
Throughout the show we laughed inappropriately, applauded, became appalled, and then surprised.   
After the interrogation portion of the evening, the chefs sat down, cracked open a couple beers, and chatted about things that really matter to them, and I wasn’t expecting what I heard.  The message was clear: no farms, no food.  Of all the whirlwinds these guys have been through in their pasts it all came back to food.  Food is what drove these guys to work, to travel, what inspired them in their creativity.  Eric cooks with his son on Sundays, and Anthony would probably point out that cooking brought him to and eventually turned him away from drug abuse, it gave him something to write about, and even moved these two onto a stage in Fort Worth, Texas where they sat before at least 2 women who felt connected to them because of food. 

Before they opened up the floor for questions I listened to a couple renowned chefs talk about mistakes of their pasts where they’d unintentionally aided in the demise of species of fish and fowl, and how they felt about these things.  They spoke candidly about using ingredients responsibly now, serving sustainable seafood, standing up for the way crops are grown here in the US, and how they deal with waste and surplus by supporting inner city food distributors for the less fortunate.  They made points about the changes in our culture where food is concerned - diseases that affect so many - hormones, antibiotics, and chemicals used in our food supply. 

When I walked out of the beautiful space and into the real world, I took inventory of the situation:  Mom and I had a fabulous evening, we were well entertained, but more than that, I was prompted to think about food in a way I had previously neglected.  I’m hoping it wasn’t just me in that tremendous crowd that left feeling a responsibility for protecting our farms and our foods.

News and Events!

I know I mentioned this in the previous post, but I'm very excited to have been invited to participate (as a blogger) in an upcoming local wine event.  The Second Annual Burleson Wine Crawl is going on November 10th, and actually has 5 participating wineries!  I know we have 3 wineries here locally, and a couple are coming in from out of town, but the variety looks fabulous. 

I'm planning to update the New Facebook page I have associated with The Everyday Sommelier throughout the entire Crawl.  I'm hoping you find all this very official and now see this blog as somewhat more put together than it really is.  I'm truly honored to be participating in anything with an official "press pass" so please go with me on this one!  Speaking of, you could actually GO with me.  Just click this link and get your tickets to the Burleosn Wine Crawl.  We may even bump into each other!

It seems I need to brush up on the grapes that do well in Texas, I think I'll start this weekend with a trip to a winery, yes, maybe even one that's on the list of participants. I'm sure you can never have too much of a good thing.  

BTW - Thanks for reading my blog.  It means a lot to me, and I hope you'll follow along as I embark on this - the new adventures of a semi-professional blogger extraordinaire - wait, was that too much? Haha.  Get your tickets and crawl with me on November 10th, oh, and "like" my new Facebook page to stay up to date!