The Galveston County Daily News

Fashion says you are not supposed to wear white after Labor Day. The rule holds true for wine, as well. Whites and rosés are for summer, reds for the fall and winter.

Or so goes the tradition. But just as the Labor Day rule is no longer an absolute so, too, have wine drinkers — and the people who make vino — decided that red, white and rosé are OK year-round.

Still, as we enter the fall wine season, red wines are the dominant pick. Not because some stuffy sommelier says so, but because of the harvest season for the grapes.

“From August to September is when you harvest the red wine grapes,” Robert Haak, owner of Haak Vineyards and Winery in Santa Fe, said. “In California they harvest around October.”

Haak doesn’t grow red grapes at his winery. Most of his land is reserved for his award-winning Blanc du Bois white grapes. However, Texas is home to some solid red-wine grapes, he said.

Some of the best red wine grapes are being grown in Brownfield, in the high plains area of the state between Amarillo and Midland. In particular, the Spanish grape Tempranillo does well in that region, as do the grapes that make the king of all red wines, cabernet sauvignon, Haak said.

Those who are not faint of heart and like the bolder taste a red wine can offer likely are to enjoy wine made from malbec grapes, which also thrive in the high plains of the state.

By far, though, the cabernet grapes dominate.

In fact, Haak recently took in 20 tons of red wine grapes from Reddy Vineyards in Brownfield, most of which are destined to fill the bottles of his cabernet and reserve cabernet selections.

Wayne Baker, a Clear Lake area wine aficionado, is not one to be a stickler for going sans white wines during the fall months.

Baker said he relishes in finding a wine no one has ever heard of and offering it up to friends to get reactions. That’s how a friend who sells wine introduced him to wine tasting 20 years ago.

“I’m a red wine drinker,” Baker said. “I do like Chardonnays when the weather is warm, but most of all I drink cabernet.”

Wine drinking is a lot like Baker’s other passion — cigar smoking; it takes a while to develop your palate.

“You pick up nuances,” Baker said. “You can taste if the grape picks up a berry flavor or even honey. There are different things you can taste. It depends what else is grown in the area.”

Michael Humphrey of Bayou Vista publishes the Galveston Wine Guy blog and is a wine expert for Specs Liquor. He said even wines grown in the same region will take on a different flavor because of soil makeup and weather.

He has one rule for wine drinking — “If you like it, drink it.”

“There are some general rules, but you don’t need to be a wine snob,” he said. “The right wine with food is key.”

For the fall, when hearty meats and starches are on the menu, he suggests an Australian Shiraz, cabernet or French Bordeaux.

On the Gulf Coast, fish is a staple no matter the season, and while normally a white wine would be the choice, Humphrey suggests to try a Pinot Noir, especially if cooking up some fresh snapper.

Still, in the United States, taste buds often lean to the sweet.

“We as Americans like the sweet stuff, so that is why the white wines are so popular even in the winter months,” Haak said. “In general, the palate in Texas is a sweet palate, too.”

So, for those who want to fudge the rules a bit, Haak has an alternative that has a distinctive Texas coast flair about it.

He has introduced three red beach wines that are lighter in nature but allow someone who prefers the white wines to stay within the rules.

Haak even has come up with some whimsical names for the rose and blush bottles: Purple Porpoise, Red Crab and Pink Pelican.

In the quest for journalistic research, we bought a few bottles of the Red Crab, which is the bolder of the trio of Haak’s beach wines, and found it to be smooth, with a nice finish.

And we didn’t break any wine rules.

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On The Web

www.haakwine.com

www.galvestonwineguy.blogspot.com