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Texas winery releases new low-alcohol, low-calorie chenin blanc

Fall Creek Vinyard’s Lescalo has 33 fewer calories than the average white wine.

Fall Creek’s Lescalo Chenin Blanc is the ideal summer wine. Besides showing refreshing citrus and mineral notes with vibrant acidity, it’s also much lower in alcohol, carbs and calories than most wines.

This tasty, dry white weighs in at 9.8% alcohol and — depending on which lab analysis you read — it’s 88 or 89 calories per 5-ounce serving. That’s about 33 fewer calories than the average white wine. White and rosé wines with less than 12% alcohol are considered low alcohol, and those under 10% qualify as very low alcohol.

Making a low-alcohol, reduced-calorie wine has been a relatively recent goal of Susan Auler, co-founder of Fall Creek Vineyards in the Texas Hill Country. She and her husband Ed launched the winery 42 years ago, and are among the pioneering families of modern Texas winemaking.

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Auler decided to make Lescalo after finding few lower calorie wines that she found palatable. Originally, Auler wanted a 50-calorie wine, but she was committed to making an all-natural wine — using no intervention to extract alcohol. When Fall Creek’s winemaker, Sergio Cuadra, produced a very quaffable first vintage, Auler was pleased and decided to make a 2020 vintage, which is now in stores.

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Wines naturally lower in alcohol are made by harvesting grapes a little early, when they have less sweetness and more acidity. The longer grapes ripen on the vine before harvest, the higher their sugar content. Sugars convert to alcohol during fermentation, so starting with less sugar will naturally yield a lower alcohol wine. Since alcohol isn’t what gives a wine its flavor, a lower alcohol wine can be made without sacrificing flavor or structure.

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To ensure enough fruity character in Lescalo, the Aulers chose to make it with chenin blanc grapes. “Chenin blanc has always been a favorite grape of mine. It naturally has this effusive round fruit,” Auler says. That fruity profile gives more leeway for harvesting early while still retaining varietal character.

Lescalo is much drier and livelier in acidity than Fall Creek Vineyard’s entry level chenin blanc, which has more residual sugar. In fact, Lescalo’s residual sugar is so low (0.15%) that it qualifies as zero sugar per federal and state regulations. The 2020 vintage shows lemon-lime notes and a stony minerality.

The Aulers chose the name Lescalo because it abbreviated and conjoined the words “less” and “caloric,” while having a European ring to it. “There is a tradition for [lower alcohol winemaking] in Europe,” Auler says. “Many vineyard families would make a low alcohol wine during harvest, because they’d harvest in the morning, break for lunch, and have communal lunch with wine. They found they had greater productivity when they drank the lower alcohol wine.”

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No one is suggesting you drink this wine during your workday. But the lower alcohol content makes it a good choice for daytime parties or luncheons, especially in hot weather. The lively acidity gives it a food-friendly edge for dinner, too. Auler says Lescalo pairs well with sushi. It would also be a good match for light fish dishes and fried foods.

Lescalo sells for $15.99 at Pogo’s, Dallas Fine Wines, Central Market on Lovers Lane, and Makarsee Market in Flower Mound.