2024 in Action: Cheers to an Incredible Year with Texas Wine Growers

Blog contributed by Valerie Elkins, Executive Director of Texas Wine Growers, Co-Founder of Texas Wine Auction, Co-Founder of Grafted and Managing Director of William Chris Wine Company

It’s funny how a year can go by so quickly! I am sure we all say things like that from time to time, right? Where did the time go? Everything moves so quickly! Breakfast was so long ago I already forgot what I ate. Or maybe that last one is just me.

This past week I had the honor and absolute pleasure of sitting down with one of our first Advocate members of Texas Wine Growers, Shelly Wilfong of the This is Texas Wine Podcast. When she reached out to invite me to be her last guest of the year, she mentioned she wanted to do a year-end review of the highlights in Texas wine in 2024. I thought that was a great idea until I had that initial moment of panic where I couldn’t remember a single thing about the last 12 months. I know some stuff happened, right? I started frantically trying to think of anything interesting I could remember. Thankfully her memory is much better than mine! This seemed like a great time to write it all down.

In 2023 our organization manifested a new vision; to educate consumers and industry representatives about Texas grown wine. By the end of the year our immediate mission had been fulfilled. We completed a brand refresh. We developed an engaging website that people could access for information about Texas grown wine and a corresponding booklet to give to each of our members to provide to their tasting room guests. We started an educational social media campaign that started to grow our following. Things were good and we were feeling like we had some momentum.

Texas Wine Growers started this year with a change in leadership. After a two-year term as President, Blake DeBerry of Torr Na Lochs was transitioning to our Member at Large Past President Board seat and John Rivenburg of Rivenburgh Wines was named as our new President. Joining our existing Treasurer, Tate Gregory was Bryan Chagoly of Sandy Road Vineyards who was elected as the Vice President and Doug Lewis as our Member at Large. We had also just been awarded a grant from the Texas Department of Agriculture for the purpose of wine marketing assistance and we had an outline of a plan we wanted to accomplish. That was it. But as it happens in life, once your purpose has been defined, you set your intention and you gain a little momentum, and the path you are on is the right path, a year passes by and suddenly we look back and are surprised and amazed at what we see. Here is a recap of some of the bigger things we worked on this year:

• We added one new winery member and two new grower members to our network!
• We responded to a request from TABC to provide a recommendation for a second type of winery permit. We did a lot of research and read a lot of legislative code from other states to develop our recommendation. It was our goal not to change anything in the existing permit structure but to develop a second permit type that would allow for some additional advantages for being a Texas producer solely utilizing Texas agricultural product. We named it a Farm Winery Permit. (Good time to do a callback to the podcast, check out episode 77 where Mike and Kristen Nelson of Ab Astris, a member of Texas Wine Growers, discuss the recommendation we made.)
• We launched two new ways to become a member of Texas Wine Growers. Traditionally our membership has included growers and wineries only. We were proud to announce our Advocate membership in the Spring. This membership allows anyone to be a part of our network as a supporter and brand ambassador for Texas wine. Those in the program get first access to Texas wine news, discounts on events, a monetary credit towards the Texas Wine Ambassador Certification class with the Hill Country Wine Academy and are provided with information on how to support Texas wine in your community. There are even ways to get involved at a deeper level as seen by some of our recent volunteers. In addition, we now have a business partner membership that allows those with goods and services pertaining to the wine industry to connect with us and provide products to our members.
• We were invited to sponsor an educational session for the judge’s panel for the TEXSOM International Wine Awards competition. It was an incredible opportunity for us to teach sommeliers, wine industry leaders and enthusiasts all about Texas.
• We gave presentations to several different Chambers of Commerce for cities in the Hill Country region. By helping those businesses understand what the Texas grown wine industry is and how it can support tourism for local businesses true synergies were formed. Look for more of this in 2025.
• We continued our social media campaign educating our followers about the current and proposed AVAs in the state, the life cycle of the vine, and interesting facts about the history and culture of wine. We also started our monthly blog series back in June for our advocates! 
• We supported members William Chris Vineyards and Ab Astris who participated in a sustainability study with Professor Dr Colleen Myles. (Callback number two to the podcast, check out episode 88 for more details on this program). This initial research sets the stage for developing a roadmap as to how grape growers and winemakers can adopt more sustainable practices. 
• We received an invitation from the Texas Department of Agriculture to sponsor an international summit on Pierce’s Disease where researchers and industry representatives from all over the world came to Austin to visit and share best practices. Our members John Rivenburgh and Chris Brundrett were participants on a panel and did an amazing job representing Texas.
• We held a consumer tasting festival to celebrate Texas Wine Month and the national Come Over October campaign tying into the broader cultural movement supporting friends and family celebrating together while promoting Texas as a distinctive and relevant wine region. Look for us to take that out into other cities around Texas in 2025.
• We hosted our first one of a kind wine writer’s media conference where we invited representatives from around the state to come to the Hill Country and experience true Texas hospitality and learn what our industry is all about. We had an amazing group of women join us. We hosted a dinner one evening at Pontotoc Vineyard Picnic Table in Hye with many of our members and the media representatives. My favorite thing that happened on the trip was seeing these ladies understand what the camaraderie is like in our industry. (By the way, camaraderie is code for giving each other shit which was constant throughout the night, including Benjamin Calais wearing the infamous Johnny Tannat t-shirt- IYKYK.) The quote of the trip was, “Wow, these guys really know each other, don’t they?” Yes they do!

We are so grateful for the support we have received for our education platform. We see you! The conversations we have with you in our tasting rooms, at our events (and even online) inspire us to do more, to get better and to continue to share with those around us. Seeing your passion reminds us of ours. 

So, what’s next? Our goal is to continue this momentum and spread the good word about Texas grown wine. We still need your help. Please keep it going! I am not sure how many times I have said this in the past couple of weeks, but I will say it again. Working in the wine industry, there is nowhere I would rather be right now than in Texas. We are doing some really incredible things! Oh, and give that podcast a listen!