Texas Wine Pioneers

In the years preceding the seventies, America began to awaken to locally sourced food and wine; a key turning point was The Judgement of Paris in 1976, a moment that rocked the world of wine and set it on a different course. French judges, in a blind tasting, judged two California wines superior to their French counterparts. Attitudes toward wine began to shift and adventurous people in various parts of the United States began to feel empowered to explore wine-making conditions in their own regions. As part of this cultural movement, Gretchen Glasscock, returning from the East with a degree from Columbia University and a penchant for research, upended a Texas A&M Study asserting that all Texas was a hot and humid climate suitable for growing only jug wines. She identified the region around Blue Mountain in Fort Davis as cool and crisp, like Napa or parts of France. Before planting her vineyard, Glasscock brought in renowned viticultural and enology experts to guide her in developing this new Texas agribusiness. Subsequent Judgement of Paris moments have now taken place putting premiumTexas wines at the center of a new, more diverse wine universe. This book provides new details recorded by a Texas wine pioneer, advocate, activist and entrepreneur who lived it. Her seminal research and hard fought wine legislation laid the foundation, enabling the development of a multibillion-dollar Texas wine industry.This is a tale of epic battles and larger-than-life personalities, including iconic global winemakers, titans of the wine industry, newcomers who wanted to create this groundbreaking industry and Texas legislators who either caved or fiercely fought the well-financed liquor lobby that had one goal: to kill change.It explores the future of the Texas wine industry, particularly in this present moment of a pandemic that has forced wine-tasting rooms and wine festivals to shut down. Glasscock's solution is to establish an online wine sales platform for all Texas wineries to be able to market their wine online and deliver it to a wine lover's door, in a way that will create a new prosperity for the Texas wine industry.