When you have a name like Grapevine and you’re in the heart of an emerging wine region, living up to the expectations a name like that provides can be daunting. Combine Grapevine with GrapeFest, the largest wine festival in the Southwest, and you have the makings of a pretty great opportunity to taste what Texas winemakers have to offer.
First let’s start with wine in Texas—if you just raised your eyebrows in surprise at the thought, you’re not alone. While Advinetures knew that Texas produced wine, we had no idea it is in fact the fifth-largest wine producing state in the United States behind California, Washington, New York and Oregon.
Each September Grapevine closes down its main street and hosts the largest wine festival in the Southwest. And while GrapeFest’s primary purpose is to showcase Texas wine, it also always features one other US wine-producing state along with a country that produces wine outside of the United States. This year visitors were treated to wineries representing the state of Oregon along with the country of Argentina.
To say that wine’s popularity in Texas is growing quickly would be an enormous understatement. At the inaugural Grapefest, Texas had only 30 registered wineries throughout the state. Twenty-nine years later, 250,000 people attended this year’s festival and the state now boasts 350 wineries as well as eight recognized American Viticultural Areas (AVAs).
What is particularly interesting is the sheer diversity of grape varietals being grown. During this festival alone we saw everything being poured from Roussanne, Viognier, Chardonnay, and Blanc du Bois, to Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Mourvèdre, Tempranillo, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon. There was also a large selection of sparkling and fortified wines.
GrapeFest touts itself as a “Wine Experience” and this 4-day festival definitely lives up to that promise with numerous wine tasting events, a Champagne terrace, a grape-stomping competition, an amusement park, a golf tournament, a tennis tournament and live music throughout each of the four days and nights.
Still scratching your head trying to figure out where in Texas Grapevine is exactly? It’s located right between Dallas and Fort Worth. In fact, if you’ve ever been to Dallas Fort Worth airport, you’ve been to Grapevine. Well, at least part of it. Eighty percent of the airport sits in Grapevine which means that within minutes of landing at DFW, you can travel back in time and find a truly authentic Texas experience within this hidden gem. Its population is just under 50,000 and each year they welcome more than 12 million visitors.
Despite this massive influx somehow they’ve managed to maintain a genuine warmth and charm that is rare to experience in a place that relies on tourism so heavily. And, as we soon found out, the people of Grapevine don’t just breathe the words “our business is hospitality”, they live them. It seems more than fitting that Grapevine is where the Treaty of Friendship was signed by General Sam Huston and the 10 Indian Nations. This sense of camaraderie seemed to resonate within every local we met which more often than not resulted in a friendly conversation peppered with y’all and a genuine interest in our well being. It’s clear that Grapevine’s residents are aware of what a unique home they have and take enormous pride in both welcoming visitors to experience it while at the same time staunchly preserving it. We guarantee that if the wine isn’t enough to draw you, the generosity of spirit demonstrated by the people of Grapevine will definitely have y’all coming back for more.
Recent Comments