Texas grapes, obviously. Or maybe not so obviously.
Rep. Jason Isaac
Chris Brundrett sat in a barn surrounded by barrels of wine he helped curate and swirled a glass of water in his hand, perhaps imagining it was something else.
Brundrett, accompanied by others from the state’s wine industry, drove home his pitch: “If we can just pump out wine from California and slap a picture of the Alamo or a longhorn on it and sell it,” he said, should wineries be able to put a “made in Texas” label on it?
A co-owner and winemaker at William Chris Vineyards between Fredericksburg and Johnson City, Brundrett was explaining why he backed House Bill 1514 by state Rep. Jason Isaac, R-Dripping Springs, which would require that wines with a Texas label be made only with Texas-grown grapes.
Under federal law, wine can have an appellation of origin from a state if a minimum 75 percent of its grapes are grown in that state. The other 25 percent can come from anywhere.
“I believe having something labeled as Texas should be from Texas,” Isaac told the Tribune, adding that his bill would encourage more Texas grape production.
Last year Texas produced about 3.8 million gallons of wine, according to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, and the state had more than 400 active permits to bottle, produce and sell wine. A separate study in 2015 found the wine industry contributed more than $2 billion to the state’s economy.
Grape growers and vineyard owners are scattered on the labeling issue. Paul Bonarrigo, co-owner of Messina Hof Winery, the state’s third-largest wine producer in 2016, said he was opposed to the measure, and the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association said they don’t back Isaac’s bill, either.
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Back at the Capitol, Isaac said that while 100 percent Texas wine was the goal, some in the industry contend that it might be too challenging to use only Texas grapes by September when the bill would go into effect if passed.
Isaac said he would look into offering an amended version of HB 1514 that would phase in the change, with benchmarks at 80 or 90 percent before requiring 100 percent Texas grapes. Isaac also said his bill would allow the Texas Department of Agriculture to allow exceptions to the threshold if severe weather or drought damaged state grape crops.
I don’t have any particular objection to this bill, though I think the federal 75/25 standard is perfectly adequate. Surely there’s some value in giving the wineries a bit of slack in a bad year. As long as there is a standard that everyone can accept and it is fairly enforced, I’m okay with whatever.
On the booze side, we have plenty of ‘Texas’ Bourbons that are nothing more than whiskey bought in bulk from the big distillers in KY or IN and just bottled in Texas. Ditto with vodka.