A Texas Winery that will Rock Your World
After an evening with Monty I’m not sure which is more compelling: The man himself, or his statements…“Wine is the world’s only resurrected beverage” or “A 100% Texas grown, barreled, and bottled Pinot Noir that will knock your socks off”.
To be perfectly honest when we saw Bar Z Winery on the Harvest Hosts website I thought “Looks like a decent place to park but the wines will likely be rocket fuel!” I’m happy to say I was wrong on both accounts!
When we arrived to the Winery in Canyon, TX Monty told us to park it right up by the winery entrance so we could enjoy the beautiful view, he also offered up a 50A plug, fresh well water, and a sewer connection!
A few minutes later he brought out an absolutely yummy sherry and said “take a load off, but you better get your camera ready, you’ve got about 10 minutes before the show”. Well, that show lasted about an hour and I can honestly say it’s hard to beat a West Texas Sunset, you can’t argue with these photos.
Once the Mother Nature’s show came to an end we made our way into the tasting room and found some very heavy tasting pours. Monty says he may charge $10 for a tasting but he absolutely hates those “wimpy pours where the wine doesn’t even have a chance to open up”. At the first sip I could tell this wasn’t your average Texas wine. Monty focuses his energy on creating red wines, barrel aging, and in true monk tradition he only bottles on a waning moon. All his grapes are from Texas and the entire wine making process is completed in his very cool, eco friendly building.
All 3 wines we tasted are great, I’d go so far as to say better than 90% of what you’d find at the store, but then Monty pulled out the trump card…
“once you finish those glasses I’ll give you something to blog about”.
We made our way up the stairs to a large stainless barrel with a little faucet tap. “100% Texas Pinot Noir done in the delicate French style, whaddya think?”
Damn, that’s tasty is what I think! Smooth, light, full of delicate flavors…can we buy a bottle, or two? This is when he drops the bomb “No. I’m bottling it in 10 days when the full moon turns to a waning moon.” Seriously?!? “Hey if it worked for the monks for the past few thousand years it works for me!”
Monty is our kinda wine guy, he’s friendly, laid back, and full of great stories to be told over an open bottle. He grew up in Texas (not too far from where Nikki grew up in Hart, TX), learned how to make wine at school in the 4th grade, began making his own wine from wild grapes that very summer, and obviously became very popular with his schoolmates! We discussed important life facts like how the acronym S.H.I.T became a curse word, how one should never start drinking good coffee, how GMO’s are affecting the TX grape industry, how one should never order two beers in London while gesturing with a sideways hand, and most importantly how wine is the only “resurrected beverage”. I’d never heard that statement before and Monty said “cause I made it up…but think about it; the fruit is cut off the vine and revived into a living drink that continues to grow over time”. At this point I was nearly 2 bottles in so it made perfect sense to me!
So this overnight stay introduced us to a whole new side of TX wine, a super cool new friend, and some killer sunset photo opps, and that’s the beauty of the Harvest Hosts program. If you want to try Bar Z wine, stop by when you’re in the Texas Panhandle, or Monty does sell it on Amazon so here’s the link: Bar Z Wines
. We ended up taking home the 2006 Quattro, the 2007 Sassy S, and the 2007 Enigmatic. Needless to say Harvest Hosts is an inexpensive way to camp…but not so much when the wine is tasty! Cheers everyone!
Have you been to Bar Z? Are you a member of Harvest Hosts? Share with us in the comments below.
Disclaimer: All of our opinions are our own and we were not compensated in any way, we paid for our wines and enjoyed every drop!
