Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a passionate supporter of the Texas wine industry. When I completed work on the manuscript for my book, Texas on the Plate, which was published in 2002 and pairs Texas wines with foods, there were 42 wineries licensed in the state of Texas. Today, in just four short years, the number tops 104! And that’s just wineries, not even counting the number of growers who grow grapes solely for the wineries. It has been said that the Texas wine industry is in the same place that California was twenty or twenty-five years ago when they were trying to re-create French wines out there in Napa and Sonoma. May be true, but I certainly don’t believe it will take Texas winemakers twenty-five years to finally find their “niche” varietals like it did California! Texas wineries are producing some world-class wines – wines that are beating out big name competition left and right. Lots of folks from foreign parts are discovering the quality of Texas wines to be downright amazing. Imagine that! And we’re so close to the U.S. to boot!