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Review: Château Couhins “Les Demoiselles de Couhins” Pessac-Léognan Blanc (2019)
It’s time for some Thai food and Bordeaux–let’s go! Today’s bottle is a second wine from Château Couhins, a classified old Graves estate that is now owned by the French government’s wine research institute. This dry white wine is pale lemon with a frosty appearance (it’s very cold). Superbly aromatic with gooseberry (cats), pineapple, green…
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These are North Texas’s favorite wines: The People’s Choice Classic winners!
Thousands of GrapeFest revelers have turned in their ballots, and the results are in! The winners of the People’s Choice Wine Tasting Classic were revealed on the afternoon of Sunday, September 14 in Grapevine, Texas. All together, 34 wineries brought more than 120 wines to compete over the four days of GrapeFest. It’s all Texas…
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A celebration of Texas wine at GrapeFest 2025 (Grapevine, TX)
Turn down Texas’s thermostat by a few degrees, pack tens of thousands of wine lovers into an old railroad town, and you got yourself a party! GrapeFest is a wholesome (yet wholly wine-soaked) event that arrives in the Dallas suburb of Grapevine every September. With grape stomps on the schedule and BBQ smokers on every…
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Robert Biale Vineyards tasting at The Wine Authority (Richardson, TX)
In the Cabernet-obsessed realm of Napa Valley, Robert Biale Vineyards is an outlier: A heritage winery focused mainly on Zinfandel. When commercial winemaking was restored in California after Prohibition, the Biale family, as immigrants from Northern Italy, chose to cultivate (only) this flavorful and hardy grape. Aldo Biale’s homemade wines were sold–illicitly at first–beginning in…
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Big skies and big birds: A visit to Blue Ostrich Winery (Saint Jo, TX)
Eight hilltop acres, 10 Texas wines, and one lanky bird added up to a memorable Friday when we took the road north to Blue Ostrich Winery and Vineyard. This popular North Texas winery is located in Saint Jo, Texas and is part of the new-ish Texoma AVA. It’s about 90 minutes from DFW and practically…
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7 things to love at GrapeFest 2025 (Grapevine, TX)
We adore a big-city festival with a small-town feel, and GrapeFest checks all the boxes. Located in Grapevine, Texas (a few miles from DFW Airport), it’s a festive fall activity for all your favorite winos. And that’s not just our opinion: This year, GrapeFest snagged the #7 spot on the USA Today Readers’ Choice list…
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2025 TEXSOM Diaries: Sommer Camp Part Five
I’ve been at Sommer Camp for five days, volunteering and giving a behind-the-scenes account of the work and play that goes into producing the annual TEXSOM Conference. This article is the last of five installments of my 2025 TEXSOM Diaries. For more Sommer Camp stories, see Part One, Two, Three, and Four. An Enchanted Tuesday…
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2025 TEXSOM Diaries: Sommer Camp Part Four
The Wine Fairy is reporting from TEXSOM, a great big conference of sommeliers and wine educators in North Texas! I’ve been here for four days, volunteering from dawn to dusk in an effort to broaden my wine knowledge and experience. This is Part Four of the 2025 TEXSOM Diaries. For previous entries, check out Part…
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It’s here! The 2025 Costco Wine Advent-ure Calendar
Santa’s wine elves must have been working overtime this year. The Costco wine advent calendar is ready–and it’s only Labor Day Weekend! We don’t grumble about Christmas creep where wine is involved. Holiday wines are an absolute joy…from German Glühwein to little glasses of Port by the fireplace. The earlier they’re in stores, the longer…
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2025 TEXSOM Diaries: Sommer Camp Part Three
I spent five days volunteering at TEXSOM 2025 as part of the Sommer Camp program. These are my TEXSOM Diaries–a day-by-day, behind-the-scenes look at Texas’s premier wine education conference. Also check out Part One and Part Two! It’s Day Four of the wine wonderland that is Sommer Camp, and we’re getting started early: A Sunday…
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DFW Wine Events: September 2025
Harvest is underway in Texas, and our social media feeds are full of grape crushes from the High Plains and Hill Country. (Jealous!) Although few wine grapes are grown here in the DFW area, that doesn’t mean we have to miss out on the joy of the harvest season. Here’s where to get your wine…
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2025 TEXSOM Diaries: Sommer Camp Part Two
I’m a first-timer at TEXSOM’s Sommer Camp in Irving, Texas this year. I’ll be sharing my conference experiences here on The Wine Fairy blog. This is Part Two, in which we polish a billion glasses, drink a really old Napa Cab, and pair sweet Bordeaux with Tex-Mex. If you haven’t read Part One, you can…