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A Day At The Sunday Fair

Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival

By Autumn Rhea Carpenter

Swilling a lush merlot or a floral Riesling coupled with several tasty delicacies, including Texas barbeque, Italian gelato desserts, and seared tuna is not a bad way to spend a Sunday spring afternoon, at the Sunday Fair segment of the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival, held this year at the San Gabriel Park in Georgetown.

The new host to the Sunday Fair (which culminated the four-day event) glistened with the bright white tents, bulging with the eager attendees, salivating for their promised samples. The 21st annual event included 100 renowned gourmet restaurants, 60 wineries around the world, children’s activities, music, and cooking demonstrations, all centered around Texas. The festival serves as a forum for producers, consumers, foodies, industry professionals, and writers. It is also a powerful venue for supporting Texas wine and food industries, and encouraging better training in these fields.

The old-fashioned, family-friendly event offered guests an opportunity to taste a wide assortment of foods prepared by celebrity chefs, including David Bull of the Driskill Grill, John Ash, a prominent wine and food educator, Patricia Quintana, renowned chef and owner of Izote Restaurant in Mexico City, and many others. Ongoing cooking demonstrations allowed guests to learn more about the art of barbeque, including the Circle of Chuckwagons, where authentic cowboy cooked traditional Texas fair from their wagons.

The grilling education continued at the Texas Beef Council’s Ultimate Backyard, where the culinary director, Tiffany Collins, and guest chefs, shared their steak grilling prowess and recipes. Various vendors also fashioned the latest in grills and accessories, attempting to prepare guests to gear up for adventures in outdoor summer cooking.

After learning about applying BBQ sauce and taste testing a few versions, attendees could be schooled at the wine and spirits seminars, gaining helpful knowledge at each vintners’ table. For those of you who have viewed last year’s sleeper movie, “Sideways,” about the California wine country and one common man’s love/hate relationship with pinot noir, it is easy to understand how wine has slowly made an entrance to the general public’s dinner tables. For those thinking wine should be reserved for special occasions, the vineyard representatives explained how the drink has evolved and can be paired with everyday meals. As the nation’s fifth largest wine-producing state and the fifth largest wine consumer, Texans are becoming well versed in the wine world.

The list of wineries that attended the festival spanned the globe, including Texas, California, New Zealand, Chile, New Mexico, Argentina, and others. Not to be forgotten, beer and spirits were represented by Fado, St. Arnold’s Brewery, Cuervo Traditional, Twin Liquors, Paula’s Texas Orange, and Live Oak Brewing Company. Each vendor provided extensive knowledge regarding their product’s specialty and left guests more informed on the food and wine industries.

After enjoying the vast array of food and wine samples, guests lounged on the banks of the San Gabriel River, underneath looming shade trees, to enjoy music form several bands, including Bonneville County Pine Box, Cedryl Ballou and the Zydeco Trendsetters, and The Gourds. Each musical act added unique flavor to the already delicious array of offerings, with their slow groove, Zydeco stylings.

The proceeds raised from the event’s sales benefit the Wine and Food Foundation of Texas, a non-profit that is dedicated to the advancement of the wine and food industries through education and research.

Tips for Wine Tasting:

The main goal in a wine tasting is to assess the wine’s quality, the wine’s maturity, to detect the wine’s aromas and flavors, and to gain an appreciation for it.

Blind Tasting - To ensure that judgment is impartial, the taster should not see the label. By protecting the wine’s identity, tasters may avoid preconceived prejudices against it because of its geographic origin, price, or reputation.

Serving temperature - Still wines should be served warm, because the aromas and flavors of the wine are believed to be most easily detectable. This ensures that the wines can be judged in a standardized method. The exception to this convention is sparkling wine, which is usually tasted chilled.

Order of Tasting - Tasting order is very important, as heavy or sweet wines can dominate lighter wines and affect the taster's assessment of those wines. Wines should be tasted in the following order: sparkling wines, light whites, heavy whites, roses, light reds, heavy reds, sweet wines.

Evaluation - Issues to discuss during a tasting include the wine’s color, aroma, and palate. These qualifications help to judge the wine’s age, intensity, complexity, acidity, and structure.

Photos courtesy of Chris Carpenter

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