Since 2009, Bending Branch Winery in Comfort, Texas, has racked up more than 200 awards, but none like its most recent one. Last week, The Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) gave Bending Branch top honors at the organizations’ first annual Texas Sustainable Winegrowing Competition.
The award is bestowed not only on the winemaker ― based on an application detailing the winery’s sustainable practices, plus wines submitted for blind tasting ― but also on the vineyard behind the winning wine. Tallent Vineyards of Mason, Texas, shared the award as the source of grapes for Bending Branch Winery’s Tannat Rosé, Texas Hill Country 2018.
“BRIT is making [sustainability] something that will be recognized as important in our Texas wine industry,” says Dr. Bob Young, founder and owner of Bending Branch Winery. The BRIT award coincides with Bending Branch’s 10th anniversary.
“When we started this venture, sustainability was part of our mission from day one,” Young says. After experimenting with many grapes, tannat, the winery’s signature grape, was planted because it required less water than other vines, and was more disease-resistant, he says. The dark, tannic grape is native to Southwest France. Young pioneered planting tannat in Texas, and today more than 25 vineyards across the state plant the hardy grape.
Tallent Vineyards shares many of Bending Branch’s sustainable farming practices, which include the use of friendly insects to combat harmful ones, in lieu of pesticides; shunning pre-emergent herbicides; and planting natural vegetation between vineyard rows to prevent soil erosion and foster healthy soil development.
Young says sustainability factors into all aspects of Bending Branch Winery’s production, from indoor air quality and construction to innovative winemaking technologies that yield high-quality red wines, even as climate change shortens growing seasons.
Not content to rest on his laurels, Young is already planning new sustainability initiatives at Bending Branch. On the horizon is a solar energy program, and planting of a new disease-resistant varietal: crimson cabernet. “As we can afford it, we will try to do more things to improve sustainability,” he says.
Bending Branch wines are available for sale online at bendingbranchwinery.com. As of publication, four cases of the 2018 Tannat Rosé remain.
Tina Danze is a Dallas freelance writer.
