First Lubbock Wine Festival Attracts Residents

Representatives from wineries across Texas traveled to the  Hub City for the Lubbock Wine Festival Nov. 6 to sample Texas wines, food from local restaurants, live music and several artist booths.

The event, themed “the Giant Sip of Texas,” took place at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Nov. 6  and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 7 and 8.

The festival was created by Dan Henly, owner of Southwestern Event Source, who said he attended a few wine festivals in the past and thought it would be great to have a similar event in Lubbock, especially in light of the growth in the Texas wine industry.

Texas is now the fifth leading grape and wine producing state in the nation with 177 commercial wineries, the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association reported,  with Texas’ wine production increasing more than 30 percent and contributing more than $1.35 billion in economic revenue for the past seven years.

“I believe it just took someone to be willing to go with this for a few years and to invest the money, and that’s what I’m willing to do,” Henly said.

Les Constable, owner of Brushy Creek Vineyards in Alvord, Texas, said he was at the festival to honor the grape growers in the Lubbock area.

“I get a lot of grapes from up around this area and so what I’m doing is showing off the wines that are made from local grapes,” Constable said.

West Texas is also home to seven wineries and 1,480 acres of wine grapes, more than any other region in Texas, according to the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association.

Lubbock resident Judy Helm, who attended the wine festival Friday night, said she believes it is important to support the wineries that are a part of the local community.

“This is nice because we have not only the local wineries, but wineries from throughout Texas,” Helm said. “It’s really fun to be able to try different wines and again support Lubbock and the other Texas wineries as well.”

Wine tasting festivals also offer a good opportunity for people to figure out which wines they like and which ones they do not like, said Don Bigbie, owner of Cross Timbers Winery in Grapevine, Texas.

“And the one thing to remember is, it doesn’t matter what I say as wine maker, it doesn’t matter what the sommelier says, it’s up to you. If you like it, it’s a good wine, if you don’t like it, it’s a bad wine,” he said. “Wine is meant to be savored, it’s going to be an easygoing process to really enjoy all the flavors of the wine itself.”

Bigbie said wine tasting is an experience, adding if he and his wife find a wine that they both like, they will buy six bottles and record where they were and who they were with when they first had it and recommended all wine connoisseurs do the same.

“One year later we will open the second bottle and then we will start a journal with that wine. By the time you get to the fifth or sixth year those bottles of wine can represent a memory that you can’t find anywhere else,” he said.

Henly said he hopes that the Lubbock Wine Festival will turn into an experience that the community can enjoy on a yearly basis and said he will put on a second wine festival in Lubbock, possibly in May, September and early November of next year.