Vinintell March 2015, Issue 23
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VININTELL March 2015, Issue 23 COUNTRY PROFILES USA – TEXAS STATE COUNTRY PROFILES USA Forthcoming profiles of specific states – ●New York • New Jersey • ●Massachusetts ●Rhode Island • ●Florida • Texas • North Carolina • South Carolina • Virginia Country Profiles is an integral part of the South African wine industry’s business intel ligence. Based on this, SAWIS has decided to compile, in collaboration with WOSA, a number of country profiles to assist exporters. These profiles cover a wide range of topics, including background to marketing thoughts and topics for strategic, tactical and operational decisionmaking. The comprehensive profile is available on the SAWIS website. CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 3 2. DEMOGRAPHICS ....................................................................................................... 5 3. PEOPLE AND SOCIETY .............................................................................................. 7 4. INFRASTRUCTURE ..................................................................................................... 8 5. ENVIRONMENT ........................................................................................................... 8 6. ECONOMIC SITUATION .............................................................................................. 9 7. AGRICULTURE .......................................................................................................... 10 8. WINE INDUSTRY ....................................................................................................... 10 9. CONSUMERS ........................................................................................................... 17 10. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 19 2 1. INTRODUCTION diversified economy and high tech industry in the mid20th century. As of 2010 it shares Texas is the second most populous (after the top of the list of the most Fortune 500 California) and the second largest of the 50 US companies with California at 57. With a states (after Alaska) in the US. Geographically growing base of industry, the state leads in located in the south central part of the country, many industries, including agriculture, petro Texas shares an international border with the chemicals, energy, computers and elec Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, tronics, aerospace and biomedical sciences. Nuevo León and Tamaulipas to the south and Texas has led the nation in export revenue borders the US states of New Mexico to the since 2002 and has the secondhighest west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the gross state product. northeast and Louisiana to the east. Texas has an area of 696,200 square kilometers and a In terms of wine, Texas is divided into three growing population of over 26.9 million resi main wine growing regions with a vast range dents (July 2014). of diversity and microclimates that allows many different types of grapevines to grow in Houston is the largest city in Texas and the the state. fourth largest in the US, while San Antonio is the second largest in the state and seventh • The NorthCentral Region spans the north largest in the US. Dallas–Fort Worth and ern third of the state from the border of Greater Houston are the fourth and fifth larg New Mexico across the Texas Panhandle est US metropolitan areas, respectively. and towards Dallas. This includes the Other major cities include El Paso and Aus Texas High Plains AVA which has the high tin, the state capital. Texas is nicknamed the est concentration of grape growers in the Lone Star State to signify Texas as a former state. The eastern third of the state makes independent republic and as a reminder of up the SouthEastern Region which en the state’s struggle for independence from compasses the area southeast of Austin Mexico. The Lone Star can be found on the and San Antonio and including Houston. In Texas state flag and on the Texas state seal recent years this area’s wine industry has today. The origin of the state name, Texas, is been hit by Pierce’s Disease. The high from the word, “Tejas”, which means ‘friends’ humidity around the northern end of this in the Caddo language. area makes it difficult to grow vinifera grapes, while vines in the Muscadine fam A Texas industry that thrived after the Civil ily flourish. War was cattle. Due to its long history as a centre of the industry, Texas is associated • Roughly in the centre is the Texas Hill with the image of the cowboy. The state’s Country AVA where vinifera is grown. At economic fortunes changed in the early 20th the far southwest end of this region, is the century, when oil discoveries initiated an eco state’s oldest winery, Val Verde, which has nomic boom in the state. With strong invest been in operation for over a century, mak ments in universities, Texas developed a ing sweet fortified wines. 3 • The centralwestern third of the state is that the earliest vineyards, thought to grow known as the TransPecos Regions which the mission varietal grape, no longer found in produces about 40 per cent of the state’s Texas, were planted by Franciscan priests as grape in the highest altitude vineyards of early as the 1650’s along the Rio Grande the area. More than two thirds of all the River near present day El Paso. Early Euro wine produced in Texas comes from this pean settlers in Texas also planted (for the area. The calcareous soil in the Texas High most part, unsuccessfully) European Vitis Plains is characterised as red sandy loam vinifera grape varietals in an effort to maintain (tiera roja) over caliche (limestone) with the wine culture they had enjoyed in their moderate low fertility, a terroir similar to homelands. German immigrants who settled that found in Coonawarra in Australia. The in New Braunfels and Fredericksburg had vines are exposed to long days of sunshine success producing wines from the native and cool nights due to an elevation of over mustang grapes, although those wines 1 060m. Cold temperatures during the would most likely not be palatable today. winter give the vines opportunity to shut According to the Texas wine industry, as down and go dormant before the growing European settlers followed the development season. The Ogallala Aquifer provides of mission outposts across the frontier, they water resources for irrigation and serves as brought more grapevine cuttings, further a tempering effect on the high summer developing the industry through the late temperatures and extreme winter hazards 1800s. Four hundred years later and grapes such as freezing temperatures and hail. are still being grown in Texas and bottled into The effects of constant wind over the flat wine, though the wine and grape industry terrain serve as a buffer against viticulture has changed greatly since those early days. diseases such as odium and powdery mil dew. Texas modern history with the grape started in the early 1880s. France was hit with a Harvest time in Texas is normally around the devastating grape disease that all but de end of July, two months earlier than in Cali stroyed the wine industry and French econo fornia and three months earlier than most of my. A French scientist, Pierre Viala, was the wine regions in France. Viewed in terms of its past, Texas winemak ing has a long and rich heritage from which to draw. The lands that now comprise the state of Texas are among the oldest wine producing regions in the US, but the newest to establish an industry of winemaking. In fact, wine grapes were planted in Texas more than a hundred years before they were planted in California. Most historians agree 4 tasked by French officials with finding a cure and commercial wine grape production in for the plague of the grape. Meanwhile Texas. Growing wine in Texas is very difficult. across the Atlantic, horticulturist, botanist, It was not however until the 1970s that there inventor, viticulturist and free thinker Thomas was a renewed interest in winemaking in Volney Munson was experimenting with Texas. By the mid1980s, vineyards had cross pollination and rootstocks in Denison, been planted all over Texas, with many even Texas. Munson had discovered that Texas tually becoming wineries.1 soils and climate were similar to many of the grape growing regions of France. He also 2. DEMOGRAPHICS found that Texas had many of its own grape Area: 696,200 km2 varieties with particular genetic properties, very different than the genetic makeup of the Climate: With 10 climatic regions, 14 soil French grapes. This allowed Munson to use regions and 11 distinct ecological regions, the Texas varieties, the wild Mustang and regional classification becomes problematic other domestic grapes collected mostly in with differences in soils, topography, geology, and around Ingleside, Texas (near Corpus rainfall and plant and animal communities. Christi), to develop phylloxeraresistant One classification system divides Texas into stocks. Working with Munson, Viala grafted the following: the Texas rootstocks with the French vines, • Gulf Coastal Plains allowing them to recover from the devastat • Interior Lowlands ing grape disease epidemic of the late 19th Century while still growing the ancient Vitis • Great Plains vinifera cultivars. The grafting still continues • Basin and Range Province today as researchers have discovered the The large size of Texas and its location at the wild