Thursday, October 1, 2009

From Vine to Basement


The winner of the Oklahoma State Wine Championship will be the newest label in the Tulsa Deco line of wines from Tulsa’s urban winery, Girouard Vines.

The labels are at the printer and prices are posted for the wine, dubbed Westhope. It’s slated for release Oct. 1, said Chris Girouard, president of Girouard Vines LLC.

The acclaimed Westhope is the latest chapter in the story of Girouard Vines, nearly 45 years in the making. The venture that has culminated into what Girouard wanted to be Tulsa’s own wine started in 1965 when his father, George Girouard, a Tulsa native and petroleum engineer, began a quest to breed wild Oklahoma grapes with those of vinifera species. The result was four plants with genetic growing characteristics naturally adapted to this region, including a resistance to fungus and disease and a tolerance of Oklahoma heat, that produced a highly acidic grape, perfect for blending with the blue-bloods of the grape world.

Read the rest of this story on the food page of this week's edition of Tulsa Business Journal.

3 comments:

ba_joker said...

I had to read the article about this to be sure (as I suspected) that this was named after the house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright here in Tulsa. You can see a picture of it, that I snapped and posted to the Wikimedia Commons here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WesthopeHomeJac.jpg

Michael said...

@ba_joker Thanks for the info about Westhope; you beat me to the punch. It's a beautiful home.

Also, hooray for local booze!

Jill of All Trades said...

I found this very interesting especially as I was tipping my wine glass to my lips.

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