Jester King to Offer Naturally Fermented Wines from La Cruz de Comal in Our Tasting Room

La Cruz de Comal

Starting this Friday, February 7th, we are pleased to announce that Jester King’s tasting room menu will include wines from La Cruz de Comal. Located about 45 minutes away from us in the beautiful Texas Hill Country, La Cruz de Comal is a very small, authentic maker of natural wines. They use only grapes consciously grown in the Texas Hill Country and ferment their wines solely with the native wild yeasts contained on the skins of the grapes. Their wine undergoes a long term, native wild native yeast fermentation which allows them to retain their remarkable, natural acidity. Their wine is then bottled by hand, without fining or filtration. Sulfites are never added at any stage, as they would kill off native wild yeasts and create a static product with no sense of place. They believe, as do we, that the native wild yeasts are in essence the “umbilical cord” between the vineyard and the wine in the bottle. Cut that off and you’ve separated Mother and Child. The result is wine with a true sense of place that’s reflective of the unique environment in which it originates. You can read a complete description of La Cruz de Comal’s philosophy here.

When we discovered La Cruz de Comal and connected with its proprietor, Lewis Dickson, we were very excited by the many close parallels between their approach and ours. In both cases, it’s about working in partnership with nature to create something that’s a unique, authentic expression of the place where it’s made. La Cruz de Comal is a natural fit in our tasting room and we couldn’t be more pleased to offer their wines.

The initial offerings on our menu will include 2008 Troubadour, a savory red wine, made from 47% Merlot, 41% Malbec & 12% Cabernet Sauvignon (future vintages will be made from 100% estate grown Black Spanish), 2010 Cohete Rojo, a dry red blend consisting of different grapes, depending upon the year (the 2010 is 75% Syrah from Mason County and 25% estate grown Black Spanish—a.k.a. Lenoir), and 2005 La Rosa, a lighter, tart red with almost a Pinot Noir-like feeling, made from a blend of estate grown grapes harvested for natural acidity (90% Norton with the balance being Black Spanish, Syrah, and Tannat). All of these will be available by the glass or bottle to drink on-site at Jester King, as well as by the bottle to go. Additional wines will be added as they become available.