Pedernales Cellars

Glögg: The Pumpkin Spice Latte of Wine

Love them or hate them, you have to admit that Pumpkin Spice Lattes are the quintessential fall beverage. Its wild popularity is no doubt earned from the cozy, warm, traditional spice flavors that are uniquely tied to autumn.

Like the ubiquitous Pumpkin Spice Latte, the Pedernales Cellars Stonewall Glögg is incredibly appropriate for the season. The similarities don’t stop there. Our Glogg is also bursting with fun seasonal holiday flavors of baking spice like nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon. And it is also only available for a limited time. 

While Glögg is traditionally served at Christmas, it has also become a tradition for us to release Glögg at the end of Texas Wine Month, leaving plenty of time to purchase it before the holiday rush. Let’s face it, there is no reason to wait for Christmas to crack a bottle or two. This year, we are releasing our Glögg online and at the Pedernales Cellars tasting room on October 31.

What the Heck is Glögg Wine?

Glögg is the Swedish version of mulled wine. The Romans got the ball rolling for mulled wine by warming their wines in the winter to ward off sickness. Then, Europeans began adding spices to support their immune systems during cold and flu season. In the late 1800’s, a Cognac-Glögg was introduced and became associated with the holidays. Clearly, Glögg had a huge head-start on pumpkin spice lattes.

I lived in Sweden for several years and developed an affinity for Swedish-style mulled wine over mulled wine from other countries like Glühwein from Germany. Glühwein is primarily spiced with cinnamon, but traditional Swedish-style Glögg is more complex with cardamom, cloves, and nutmeg in the mix.

We’ve been making Glögg at Pedernales Cellars since 2009, and we are proud to be one of the first to make a traditional style mulled wine from Texas. We made our Glögg with a base wine blend of Tempranillo, Malbec, and Merlot this year. We make it in a Port wine style, and like other fine Ports, our base wine for the Glögg doesn’t go through a complete fermentation. We stop the fermentation when the ideal sugar level is reached by adding a dose of brandy. This addition of spirits stops the fermentation by putting the wine yeasts to sleep, so they stop converting sugar to alcohol. The result is a sweeter wine with a slightly higher alcohol content.

We then infuse the wine with our proprietary blend of Swedish spices that gives the Glögg an incredibly complex aroma bursting with holiday scents you will love. The flavor is absolutely “Christmas in a bottle.”

How to prepare Glögg

We warm our Glögg in a slow cooker set on low. While warming the wine, add sugar (1/4 - 1/2 cup per bottle of wine) depending on your taste. We also add dark raisins and almond slivers for flavor. Ladle the wine into mugs and serve hot with toasted almonds and dark raisins to garnish, and add citrus if desired.

Glögg is excellent on its own as an apéritif or a dessert. It also pairs incredibly well with cinnamon buns or gingerbread.

Cooking with Glögg

While it’s fantastic as a drink with dessert, it is also wonderful to include as an ingredient with dessert. We are fortunate to have Chef Leo Aguirre (eatfbgtx.com) preparing a Mexican Chocolate Cake made with Stonewall Glögg to serve at our Fall Feast on October 31. Chef Leo chose the cake to pair with Glögg for our dessert course for the complimentary flavors of chocolate infused with cinnamon. To enhance the marriage of flavors, he will make a reduction sauce with the Glögg to drizzle onto the cake, garnished with cocoa dust and black cherries marinated in the wine.

Glögg is also a fun ingredient for home chefs to use for any course of your meal. Cheer up a holiday salad with Glögg vinaigrette. Sweeten the main course with a delightful demi-glace to serve on pork loin.

Don’t worry if you open a bottle for cooking and don’t finish it the same night. The slightly higher alcohol content from the brandy helps it stay fresh for up to a week or so.  

Glöggfest at Pedernales Cellars

Our Annual Glöggfest is an excellent way for you to try our Glögg and experience its magic. Reserve a tasting for Saturday, December 5, between 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM at our estate tasting room to sample Glögg paired with Swedish spiced holiday cookies.  It is a great accompaniment to your holiday festivities, and at $20 per bottle, it is also a great gift.

Like the Pumpkin Spice Latte, our Glögg will be gone before you know it. It typically sells out before holidays, as we only make a small amount. Get it while you can!

“We have a Glögg order with extra spice ready at the bar for Jooolie!” 

Cheers!

Toasting Texas Pecan Month with Texas Wine

Each October we celebrate two jewels of Texas agriculture with Texas Pecan and Texas Wine Months. For a unique opportunity to celebrate them together the Texas Pecan Board in collaboration with Texas Fine Wine will host a virtual pecan and wine tasting, led by sommelier and Texas culinary expert Jessica Dupuy and food historian Melissa Guerra on October 21, 2020, from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

"Considering the history and culture behind Texas pecans and Texas wine, it’s only fitting that we bring the two together to celebrate their place in Texas cuisine,” said Dupuy. “This tasting will be a great way to look at the different grape varieties that are doing well in Texas and taste how wines from these varieties are complemented by Texas pecans."

We love pecans. We love wine. But are they a good pairing? We think they are fantastic together. Take an opportunity to taste for yourself. The virtual pecan and wine tasting, A Toast to Texas Pecans, will feature Texas pecan recipes and wine pairings to help wine and food enthusiasts get the most out of these authentically Texas products. The interactive session will make participants feel like they are in the room with Dupuy and Guerra as the two experts talk about what wine pairs with pecans and the rich history and ties each has with the state of Texas.

Thank you to all who have signed up to participate. To give you a head start on your preparations for the evening, we’re sharing our wine and pecan pairing and the recipe that will be featured in the virtual tasting.

Pedernales Cellars 2018 Texas Tempranillo and Texas Pecan Jalapeño Cheese Ball

Pedernales Cellars is well known for specializing in Spanish and Rhône-style wines, including our benchmark Tempranillo. Our 2018 Texas Tempranillo has classic Spanish flavors married with distinct Texas terroir. It is a vibrant, lighter-bodied Tempranillo with red cherry, dried herbs, cedar, and vanilla flavors.  In Spain, Tempranillo wines are primarily served alongside grilled red meats and ham, but Tempranillo’s versatility makes it a handy pairing for a wide range of foods. Its bright red fruit characteristics make Tempranillo a sensational cheese pairing. Especially when herbaceous jalapeño and the buttery nuttiness of Texas pecans in this easy-to-make cheese ball.

Texas Pecan Jalapeño Cheese Ball

Y I E L D: 12, 2-ounce servings

I N G R E D I E N T S

• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 4 green onions, minced
• ½ cup chopped parsley
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 4 ounce can diced jalapeños, drained
• Pinch salt
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 cup chopped Texas pecans

 

D I R ECT I O N S

1. Place the softened cream cheese in a large mixing bowl. Add the minced onions, parsley, garlic, jalapeños and salt. Using an electric hand blender, mix the ingredients until well blended, about 2 minutes on medium speed. Add the shredded cheese and mix for another 30 seconds until the cheeses are well combined.
2. Place the chopped pecans in a glass pie dish. Using a rubber spatula, gather up the cheese mixture by scraping the sides of the bowl (Don’t forget any cheese that may have collected on the mixer beaters!) Form the cheese mixture into a ball with your hands. Roll the ball into the chopped pecans, coating the outside of the cheeseball thoroughly and evenly.
3. Wrap the cheeseball in waxed paper or plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour before serving. For best results, make one day in advance of serving. Garnish with fresh springs of parsley, whole pecans and a whole jalapeño as preferred.

We’re looking forward to tasting along with you on October 21. Our 2018 Texas Tempranillo is available in retail stores for your convenience. Happy Texas Wine Month! 

2020 Harvest or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Madness

By Nicholas Adcock, assistant winemaker, and Mike Conte, Cellar Hand

Harvest is an exhilarating time of year. It reminds me of getting geared up for playoffs when you play sports. You know it is going to be hard, but it's invigorating. David Kuhlken, who has been doing this for forever, still gets excited. It's almost like a mythical type event that happens once a year. Year-after-year, you know it is going to be a lot of work, but it is still exciting. We get pumped up for it.

We’re a small winemaking team at Pedernales Cellars with David, Joanna Wilczoch, the winemaker, Nick as assistant winemaker, Mike as cellar hand, and one intern, also named David. We of course must give the intern a nickname, so we don’t confuse him with David Kuhlken. Instead of calling the intern Big Dave, we call him Grande. Typically, the winemaking decisions are made by Joanna and David, and the work carried out by Nick and Mike. During harvest and crush, it is all hands on deck, and everyone shares roles.

This is my first harvest at Pedernales and seventh overall in the wine industry. It is also Mike’s first harvest at Pedernales and third overall. So, we both have some perspective on how this year is like other harvests, and how it is different.

How is This Year Like Any Harvest? 

This year, the general process of harvest ran just like any other year. It goes more or less as you would imagine. Grapes picked in the vineyard and then delivered to the winery. The rhythm of picking early in the morning and processing the grapes at night is similar every year.

We get up early to pick grapes before the heat of the day sets in. It’s exhilarating to see the sunrise over our estate vineyard in the Texas Hill Country. We start harvesting earlier in the season in the Hill Country, and a couple of weeks later in the Texas High Plains. There is a crossover time when we are crushing fruit from the Hill Country midday, and then a second wave of High Plains fruit comes in on refrigerated trucks late in the evening. Some nights we end up sleeping in a hammock at the winery because we are working so late at night and need to get back to work first thing in the morning.

Once they arrive on the crush pad behind the winery, we destem the fruit, hand-sort it to remove leaves and bad grapes, lightly crush it and move it to a bin to let the grapes settle and cold soak. Once the grapes are in a bin, fermentation begins.

During fermentation in the bin, yeast produces carbon dioxide, which causes grape solids to rise creating what we call a “cap.” We monitor each bin to make sure the cap is punched down with a big metal tool about twice a day. This keeps the skin and solids in contact with the juice, which helps get the tannins and colors into the wine. It usually takes about a week for primary fermentation to be completed in the bin. After that, we press the fruit and the juice goes either into a tank or a barrel. This is where malolactic—or secondary—fermentation happens and aging begins.

How is This Year's Harvest Different? 

What is different this year? We had smaller crops than usual because an early freeze in October 2019 caused significant damage to the vines at some of the biggest vineyards we work with. Not only did we have far fewer grapes, but we also had to source the grapes from many different vineyards. There are a lot of grape varietals, from more growers, and in smaller lots. Rather than processing 40 tons of grapes from 5 different lots, we crushed fewer tons from as many 37 individual lots. Takes just as much time to clean the equipment between each lot for 3 tons as it does for 40 tons.

The upside of this year’s harvest is that the quality of the grapes is really good. And because we didn’t receive a large volume of white grapes, we were able to do much more hands-on work with whole-cluster grapes. This lets us be much more meticulous in sorting the grapes to ensure only the highest quality fruit gets crushed.

The long hours and intense workload build bonds among the winery team. We all pitch in to do what it takes. The owners are extremely hands-on, which inspires us to work hard too. There’s a happy medium between working hard and having fun. We have a great time together and really enjoy each other’s company. There is an old saying that goes, “It takes a lot of beer to make great wine.” We can confirm that this is true.

One challenging and really satisfying thing we do during harvest time is to cook a lot. Instead of relaxing during our lunch break on a hectic day, we make elaborate meals for each other. It’s a great change of pace and a fun way to enjoy each other’s company. We’ve also done some silly stuff. We are in concept phase of designing a crush pad hot tub with bins and a pump. Because it's so hot in Texas, we actually want it to be a cold tub.

While we found ways to enjoy the long hours at work, our significant others didn’t enjoy it quite as much. It was Mike’s future wife’s first harvest, and it was a rude awakening for her to experience the hours that he’s working. It was my girlfriend’s first harvest too, and it has been a little frustrating for her to see my schedule be so crazy.   

Now that harvest is behind us, and the wine is aging in tanks and barrels, it’s easy to look back on it with fond memories. Once we get to taste the 2020 vintage, which we expect to be outstanding, we’ll remember this year’s harvest with even more nostalgia.

We can’t wait for you to taste the fruits of our labor.