Texas Wine in Texas Restaurants: One Texan’s Journey 

Blog Contributed by John Harvey (Johnny Wine!), WSET II

Restaurant Ambassador, Texas Wine Lover

Advocate Member, Texas Wine Growers

I just sent off an email to my favorite restaurant to see if they would bring in a case of Texas wine I would drink, whenever I visit.

It is my latest attempt to try to get a restaurant to bring in Texas wines and put them on their list.

I am sure my attempts as a consumer are just like most Texas wine drinkers. I’m at my favorite restaurant looking at the wine list and just wondering why, why can’t there be some of the wonderful Texas wines on this list that I’ve experienced at wineries all over Texas?

My History in Texas Wine

I’ve been back in Texas for 15 years now after spending 20 years away in the Navy, drinking wine from all over the world. I was shocked to see how far the industry had come while I was away. 

A woman I was dating when I first got back invited me to help out as a “bar back” at Grapefest. I had heard about Grapefest over the years, but had never been to the event. When we got there, our only job was to open the bottles and hand them to whoever was representing our designated winery in the People’s Choice tent. As soon as she saw our assigned winery she said, “Oh don’t worry. This is going to be easy. I know this wine maker and he likes to open his own bottles.”

Sure enough, we were handing bottles to a large man in a Hawaiian shirt and a red cap. He looked like a cross between Santa Claus on summer vacation and Jerry Garcia, from the Grateful Dead. Crowds were coming up to him and surrounding him like he was a rock star. I had no idea who he was. But he obviously had a very big fan following.

After our shift, we got to go around and taste the wines like everyone else. I was centering on the dry reds and was shocked at the quality. These were like the Rioja I had been drinking in Spain. Except they tasted like Tempranillo on steroids compared to what I had had in Europe.

I was happy to see that Texas apparently had a new industry that had grown up while I was gone. I was looking forward to having more of these great wines the next time I went to a restaurant.

That’s when I discovered the awful truth. Outside of Grapevine, I wasn’t finding very many Texas wines in any restaurants at all.

I had retired from the Navy and was going to TCU on the new Post 911 G.I. Bill. By a twist of fate, there happened to be a job opening at a Texas winery called Messina Hof right when I was graduating. My curiosity drove me all the way down to Bryan, Texas. Paul Mitchell Bonarrigo apparently saw something in my Navy résumé that influenced him to offer me a job. I found out later that they had pretty much just made up a job for me. I would be working directly with his mom and dad, Paul and Merrill. The two had just taken over the company’s wholesale division.

The first day I walked in, I was shocked to see that Paul was the very same man I had been a barback for a couple years ago at Grapefest. I just don’t believe in coincidences anymore.

The job led me to placing and maintaining Messina Hof wines in the on premise accounts around Brian College Station. It was a great job that I loved very much.

As a recent widower, I was having trouble meeting anyone my same age in College Station, a town where the average age is 22 years old and it would always be 22 years old. College Station is a town of perpetual youth, and I was not getting any younger.

By another miracle, I met a woman in Houston who changed my life. The Bonarrigo family actually saw this as an opportunity to move me into the Houston market. After running around Bryan-College Station, I had gotten spoiled on the ease of selling wine to the local community. I would walk into accounts with my order pad already out just waiting to find out how many cases someone wanted. It was a real shock to walk into Houston and find out that a restaurant had no interest whatsoever in local wine, even when it was a restaurant that touted local food.

I actually seemed to have more success with restaurants run by first generation immigrants than locals. My first placement was at the Adriatic Café in Jersey Village, run by a Serbian family. The managers just said, “Of course we want to bring in Texas wine. It’s local. Of course we want to do local.” It was almost as if, as Europeans, they got it. I felt like, maybe, that was the difference I found in folks who grew up in a wine culture versus a state where wine, very likely, was not on the table for most families growing up in the middle of the Bible belt.

Advocating for Texas Wine, One Restaurant at a Time

Since leaving Messina Hof, I’ve done everything I can to try to get the restaurants I frequent to bring in Texas wines. Jeff Cope was good enough to let me add restaurants on to his Texas Wine Lover app, IF they confirmed that they carried some Texas wines. The work was quite daunting. I would call restaurants who I had heard, carried Texas wines, only to find out that customers were mistaken. I can’t tell you how many times I would hear reservation clerks tell me over the phone “Oh yes! Yes, we carry a Texas wine: Austin Hope. Isn’t that from Texas?”

Jeff even re-invented the cards that the Texas Department of Agriculture used to pass out freely, asking restaurants to bring in Texas wine. You can print Jeff’s cards out from his Texas Wine Lover website. (Resource links at the end of this blog post)

I have seen other programs like Ask for Texas Wines and using the hashtag on social media #AskForTexasWines to try to get restaurants to bring in more Texas wines.

I have met some great people throughout the years, who have been successful in getting the restaurants they frequent to add Texas wines to their lists. Rick Heiman has done a great job working with Chef Joe Bertuglia at Main 101 Grill and Bar in La Porte. Sharon Hardy-Easter has been coordinating Texas wine dinners all on her own for years at some of the restaurants that carry Texas wine in Fort Worth, like Bonnell’s. I am sure there are stories like theirs all over Texas: passionate customers and great, accommodating restaurant owners.

In my simple restaurant consumer mind, I just don’t understand why I can’t have what I want. It’s not like I want a list completely filled with just Texas wine. I still like to drink wine from all over the world. But it would be nice to have more local options available, especially in a state that prides itself on, well, itself.

But my rational mind gets it. The restaurant business is tough. Profit margins are slim. And every investment decision comes with a definite cost. Those extra cases a manager brought in could come at the expense of a server’s job, if they don’t move. A restaurant in Texas has 28 days to pay the invoice on a case of wine, once they receive it. After that, those pretty bottles are taking up valuable real estate.

Texas spirits seem to be doing better in restaurants. Liquor can keep longer, once the bottle is open. That’s another reason why your by-the-glass wine price will always be the cost of the bottle. Otherwise, the wine is only available by the whole bottle.

The restaurant manager has so many difficult decisions to make every day. I could understand their leaving the wine choices up to the easy-sell wines the distributors recommend. That’s just one less thing to worry about. And those sales reps work on commission. They are only going to want to recommend the wines they know will continue to have fast turnover.

That’s why I am asking my favorite restaurant to bring in one case of a wine I promise I will purchase myself. That’s why I post about every restaurant on social media that does carry a Texas wine. I know there are more restaurants out there. Little gems whose wine manager brought in a Texas wine they like. It may not even be on the wine list. That’s why I always ask.

Taking Action: What YOU Can Do!

So, maybe you too are already doing this. If you have been successful, this is great information to share with others. If you’re looking to start really trying to get Texas wine into a restaurant, then there are some pointers I have found out that have been successful with other consumers like us.

• Check out the article Jeff Cope posted on Texas Wine Lover on efforts going on throughout the state by consumers like you and me to get wine into restaurants

• Download and print out the “Support Texas Agriculture, Drink Texas Wine” cards from the Texas Wine Lover website

• Concentrate on a restaurant you personally frequent all the time. If you do, what I call, a “drive-by” and it’s a restaurant you’ve never been to before or don’t frequent that often, then passing them a card at the end of the evening and asking for Texas wine will probably not go very far. It can’t hurt, especially if we can flood the market with these cards. But there’s no guarantee that the card will even get to the manager by the server anyway. Asking to speak to the manager, obviously, would have more impact. I usually ask for the manager’s business card, so that I can email them. If you can’t find the manager’s contact information, then I can usually find their email address on the restaurant’s Facebook information page.

• You will probably have better luck getting a wine brought in by a locally owned restaurant versus a national chain. The actual wine buyer may be right there on sight.

• Ask for a specific wine that you are willing to buy versus just asking for “a Texas wine.” Asking for and writing down a specific name gives you another opportunity to lock a wine into the wine buyer’s head the next time they make an order.

• I try to ask for wines that I know are already out there in the on-premise market and have been successful. Kelsey Long, with William Chris Wine Company has done an amazing job getting their wines distributed through Maverick. William Chris wines are in over 200 bars and restaurants across the state. That may not sound like a lot. But, as you’ve probably realized, that’s a lot more than what you are probably seeing in other restaurants as you travel around the state. 

• If the restaurant is looking for exclusivity, then smaller wineries, without distributors, may be willing to self-distribute. This can also be a real cost saving option to restaurants since the wine prices are not adjusted for distributor fees. Talk to your favorite winery and see if they are willing to self-distribute to the location. Kristen Nelson, with Ab Astris Winery, has made several such deliveries. (Editor’s note: most of our Texas Wine Growers winery members are happy to coordinate deliveries to restaurants. Please reach out to our Executive Director, Kelly Olson, to learn more. She can work with all 14 winery members to support your goals!)

• One point to remember that impacted me from Kelsey Long: customers need to not only ask for Texas wines, but also PURCHASE those Texas wines they do find on the menu or even in the store.

• Making a big deal about the wine being on premise and posting photographs right then and there with the staff while you are in the restaurant can make a real impact. Don’t forget those hashtags, like #AskForTexasWines.

• Join Texas Wine Growers as an Advocate Member to support 100% Texas-grown wine

I am a consumer Advocate Member of Texas Wine Growers. I think we have some powerful tools in the Texas wine movement: our voice and our dollars. I look forward to hearing more success stories every day. If you care about the future of Texas wine, this is where your voice matters. Join us.