Tantalizing Tempranillo Is Setting Texas Wine Apart

Words by Stacey Ingram Kaleh
Photos by Ralph Yznaga

Perhaps more than any other locally grown grape, TexasTempranillo tantalizes our taste buds. Its luscious mouth feel and delicate dynamism make it worth exploring again and again — and a varietal that Texans seek out.

How has this Spanish varietal captivated both Texas wine makers and wine drinkers?

According to Julie Kuhlken, Ph.D, WSET III, CEO and co-owner of Pedernales Cellars in Stonewall and a sixth-generation Texan, Texas may be the largest grower of Tempranillo outside of its native Spain, where it’s the foundation for many celebrated wines. “Texas could be a second home for Tempranillo. We have the right conditions,” says Kuhlken.

Kuhlken and her husband David, co-owner and winemaker, chose to focus on Tempranillo when they started Pedernales Cellars in 2006. “At the time there had been some commercially grown Tempranillo but it was not clear that it was going to be a winner for Texas,” says Kuhlken.

She had a feeling Tempranillo would like the dry heat on their property. Today, it’s almost 50 percent of what they grow, make and sell. When you visit Pedernales Cellars, you may see as many as six Tempranillos available, and they almost always have Tempranillo Reserve, their flagship wine, on the tasting menu.

“What really made Tempranillo so successful in Texas is captured by its name, which means ‘the little early one,’” Kuhlken shares. “The thing about Tempranillo is that it ripens very quickly and early, and in Texas that’s fantastic because you get it out of the heat early in the season. We pick Tempranillo in our vineyard in late July, long before the dog days of summer.” This is important because the fruit maintain sits acidity.

It’s also advantageous from a business and sustainability standpoint. “With a grape that wants to grow here, you don’t have to intervene as often with chemicals. It’s more sustainable. It’s better for a business where you want to make a living. It’s better from a holistic view at every stage,” Kuhlken emphasizes.

For Ron Yates, the decision to focus on Tempranillo was more an affair of the heart. The flip-flop clad owner and president of Spicewood Vineyards in Spicewood and Ron Yates Wines in Hye is a seventh-generation Texan and comes from a longline of farmers. But he was the first in his family to not grow up on the ranch.

A self-described social butterfly, he’s long been interested in bringing people together to celebrate good times. That passion shows as Yates flutters between his office, the tasting room where he loves to say hello to customers and the vineyard.

Yates fell in love with Tempranillo while studying abroad in Spain as a University of Texas at Austin student. He lucked out and lived with a family who grew Tempranillo in the Toro and Ribera del Duero regions. Even more than the wine itself, he was inspired by the power of wine to bring Spanish families, like the one he stayed with, together at the dinner table. “Even the kids who were away at college would take the train home, spending hours traveling, every Sunday to have lunch with mom,” he says. And wine was always part of that.”

“Tempranillo was the impetus for this whole endeavor,” Yates says. He was studying communications and was on track to become a lawyer, when he let his passion guide him in a new direction —bringing some of that Spanish wine and spirit to the Texas Hill Country. He purchased Spicewood Vineyards in 2007 and planted Tempranillo in 2009, as soon as he could get some vines. His first commercial release of Tempranillo was in 2012, and since then, he’s been spreading his love for the wine to all who walk through his doors.

THE RIGHT CONDITIONS FOR RESILIENCE

Yates says one reason Tempranillo does well in Texas is that “the topography, the soil types, the growing conditions” are comparable to Spain’s.

Another reason is its resilience across the state’s different growing regions. “Tempranillo grows well in all the major growing areas — West Texas, the Hill Country, the High Plains. And that’s nice because Texas, as you know, has variable weather,” says Kuhlken. “Having the diversity of where you can source it is very useful.”

“Tempranillo has been grown in Texas at a larger scale for more than15 years, and has gained a reputation for consistent quality fruit,” says Paul Bonarrigo, owner and winemaker at Messina Hof Winery, which has locations in Bryan, Fredericksburg, Grapevine and Richmond. He, like Kuhlken and Yates, is a fan of the grape and has deep roots in Texas.

Bonarrigo, whose family has been Texas wine-making pioneers for46 years, also highlights the range of benefits the state provides winemakers. “Texas is a huge and diverse state in regards to terroir and grape growing potential … We have great water in both quantity and quality for keeping our plants healthy, we have a wide range of nutrient rich soils that allow for many varieties and styles to be made here, and we have strong agricultural and innovative roots that help us to constantly be pushing to improve and develop new ways of growing and making wine.”

A DIVERSITY OF EXPRESSIONS

When Yates started producing Tempranillo, he was working with two styles, one from his Spicewood Estate and the other from the High Plains. Now, he sources Tempranillo from seven or eight different Texas vineyards. He’s drawn to the opportunity and challenge of exploring how grapes grown in different regions of the state yield different expressions.“

To me the Hill Country is like [Spain’s] Ribera del Duero where it’s hot, not too cool even at night, needs more oak influence and produces big grippy, heavy Tempranillo,” he says. “We [his winery team] tried some fruit from the High Plains and it had a bit of a softer side that reminded me more of a Rioja, more delicate with more intricacies, not as ‘slap-you-in-the-face’ when you drink it.”

Kuhlken is also passionate about the complexity of Tempranillo, which can be classified as Joven, Crianza, Reserva or Gran Reserva depending on how long it is aged in oak. “Tempranillo is a grape that is very sensitive to how long you age it,” she says.

Joven Tempranillos tend to be lighter and brighter, young wines with little oak influence. They showcase the primary fruit flavors of the grape. Crianza wines are aged a minimum of two years with six months to one year in oak barrels. They carry more complexity, with subtle oak and a hint of spice. Reserva Tempranillos have a more robust mouthfeel, more oak characteristics like vanilla, cedar and tobacco and smoother tannins. They are aged for 36 months and spend a minimum of 12 to24 months in oak barrels. Gran Reservas, which are aged for at least five years, two or more in an oak barrel, have well-integrated tannins and along, lingering finish.

Not only does length of time in the barrel matter, the type of oakalso shapes each wine. “For me, with French oak you get more of the smokiness, and with American oak you get more of the vanilla and coconut qualities,” says Kuhlken.“The thing you get from oak aging is both the flavors you get from the oak and all of the oxygen exchange,w hich changes the tannins … the polymers form longer strings andt hen they become softer. The oak helps smooth [the tannins] out.

”Thanks to terroir and the oak-barrel aging, you can find a Tempranillo suitable for any of our Texas “seasons.” A Tempranillo is the perfect companion for a winter campfire, a spring festival, a summer barbecue or Thanksgiving supper in the fall.

CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO TO SHAPE TEXAS’WINE IDENTITY

The dynamism and complexity of the varietal also makes Tempranillo an excellent grape for Texas. It offers room for experimentation that whets our Texas-sized appetites to push boundaries.

For innovators like Yates, who’s been working with Tempranillo for more than 16 years, the varietal offers the opportunity to challenge the status quo. When he started, the goal was to make wine that everyone enjoys and brings people together. One way he pushes himself is through collaboration and friendly rivalries with other Texas winemakers. “It’s really fun, really tight-knit, and people really help each other out,” Yates says of the Texas wine community. “There’s so much to learn. I’m seventeen years into this and I’m barely scratching the surface. The collaborative element here helps make everyone better.”

“At first it was like, can we do this?” says Yates. “But once I got into it, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. Now that we’ve figured out it’s possible to have a successful wine business in Texas, for me, it’s about testing the limits of quality. I want to continue to get better and better and better.”

Bonarrigo and Kuhlken share similar sentiments and are also motivated to expand notions of what is collectively possible for Texas wine. “We have learned a lot over the past 46 years about where grapes grow well and what viticulture practices lead to the best quality fruit, but we still have so much more potential that is unexplored,” says Bonarrigo. These days, wineries allover the state serve Tempranillo, from Spicewood to Stonewall, Hico to Lubbock to Bryan. Texas winemakers , including Pedernales Cellars, Spicewood Vineyards, Ron Yates Wines and Messina Hof, have won numerous awards at the national and international level for their Tempranillo wines. But what is it that really makes Tempranillo a frontrunner for “the grape of Texas,” as Yates calls it?“

It’s the best suited to the fight of growing grapes in Texas,” says Yates. “It ripens early, making it sustainable, and pairs well with the food we like here,” Kuhlken says, giving examples such as barbecue, steak and enchiladas.

“It grows well, makes great wine, and people are becoming more and more aware of what we are doing with it in Texas,” Bonarrigo says of the varietal.

“I think Tempranillo has a second home here,” says Kuhlken. “However, Texas is the size of France, there’s no single variety that’s going to knock out all of the others because there’s lots of things that grow well in Texas. Mourvèdre is good, Viognier is excellent, Tannat is excellent…but I think Tempranillo is particularly well-suited.”

While Kuhlken, Yates and Bonarrigo acknowledge that Texas will never be known for just one grape — more than 40 varieties are grown here today — they all agree that Tempranillo has the capacity to set our state apart on a national, and even international, scale.

“Drink local! Texas is a huge wine drinking state. Given how much Texans love everything about our state, people should be drinking more Texas wine.”

WINE IS A GREAT STORY

When it comes to Texans’ love of wine, it all boils down to taking pride in hard work and invention, finding solace in companionship and helping to make life just a little bit better for your family and neighbors.

No one captures this essence quite like Yates. “Each wine, each grape, really, tells its own unique story,” he says. They highlight the many people and the hard work that goes into producing each bottle: late nights chasing deer out of the vineyard or lighting fires before a freeze, and many on-the-fly adaptations.

Yates takes immense satisfaction in people enjoying the wines made from vines he and his team planted, tended and protected. “All that work that we do,” Yates says, “is to bring people together in celebration— and I love that. To me life is about sharing the good times.

Our hard work gets to help people enjoy their good times.” Whether you’re looking for an award-winning wine, a delicious wine to bring to dinner or a barbecue with family and friends, or a wine that tells the story of Texas, try Tempranillo from a local winery. Tell your friends the story of how that Tempranillo journeyed from the vineyard to your table, passing through the hands of many passionate, hard-working growers, winemakers and bottlers. Then let the wine open up a new story that’s yours to write.

Stacey Ingram Kaleh is a native of the Texas Hill Country. Born and raised in Austin, she lives in Spicewood with her husband, two young daughters and fluffy dog Zeus. She’s been exploring Texas wineries for more than a decade, enjoying great wine, stellar company and scenic views as she learns from local winemakers. Follow her wine adventures on Instagram @TXWineGirl.