Founded in 1883 as a railway water stop and freight station in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert, Marfa, Texas, is an unlikely tourist destination. But in the 1970s, minimalist artist Donald Judd packed up his life in New York City for the small settlement. Over the course of a few decades, he transformed the dusty no-stoplight town into a desert mecca for the arts.
These days, on most weekends, Marfa’s dusty roads are dotted with young urban creatives. They make the pilgrimage to view the town’s Dia Art Foundation-funded works and get a taste of the Texas high plains scene that’s been increasingly praised by publications like Vogue and the New York Times. But now, the constantly growing number of tourists have yet another reason to visit: wine.
A handful of intrepid producers are attempting to turn Marfa into a top wine destination in the Lone Star State. There are just five vineyards located in the Davis Mountains AVA, including Living Waters Vineyard, which was founded in 2019, and the circa 2011 Chateau Wright, which makes riper New World wines with more oak and higher alcohol from varieties like Mourvedre, Grenache, Malbec and Tempranillo. But leading the pack are husband-and-wife team Ricky Taylor and Katie Jablonski of Alta Marfa.
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A darling of the natural, low-intervention crowd, the two-year-old winery and tasting room is located just a mile from Judd’s famous Chinati Foundation. It offers a mix of low-intervention, low-alcohol and high-acid wines fermented onsite. The lineup currently features grapes from around New Mexico and Texas, as well as a growing assortment of bottles produced from local vines.
Of all Marfa’s wineries, so far Alta Marfa is the only one to snag spots on nationally acclaimed lists. Much of their success, of course, can be traced to Taylor and Jablonski’s dedication to their craft. But an additional and undeniable factor is Marfa itself.
Ricky & Katie, owners/winemakers at Alta Marfa Winery tasting room / Image Courtesy of Lauren Jablonski
Why Grape-Growers Are Drawn Here
At first blush, the area’s harsh desert environment seems more conducive to growing agave than grapes. In fact, the plant used to make sotol, which is often compared to tequila, is native to the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert.
However, when Taylor was researching the coolest places to grow grapes in Texas, he realized that the high altitude of the volcanically formed Davis Mountains translates to a climate even more temperate than traditional American Viticulture Areas (AVAs) near the California coast. Many of these regions have become more prone to extreme temperature fluctuations as the climate continues to change.
“It’s way less hot here than Sonoma County,” says Taylor. “It’s super confusing, because even in St. Helena [sometimes] it’s beautiful—then they get a heat wave, and it’s 120 degrees.”
The Davis Mountains AVA, which was established back in the 1990s, is thought by some to be the most conducive to growing high-quality grapes.
“There’s a longer ripening season at that elevation, based on heat intensity and sun exposure, but there’s also this major diurnal temperature swing that helps to produce wines that are more developed from a physiological standpoint,” says sommelier Justin Russell, who was one of Alta Marfa’s earliest supporters and recently began distributing the label in Texas under his Pangea Selections portfolio. “Those wines show a really beautiful soft-fruited component while still being fully developed.”
ittle Snack 2021 wine pour / Image Courtesy of Lauren Jablonski
Catching the Attention of Insiders
Alta Marfa’s Davis Mountain AVA wines have just begun to enter the market. However, its wines made from grapes grown in nearby regions have been featured on the wine lists at some of the state’s top restaurants including Pecan Square Cafe in Austin, Houston’s Wild Oats and the highly acclaimed Ronin Farm & Restaurant just outside College Station.
Nikita Malhotra, Michelin Guide Sommelier of the Year 2022 award winner and beverage manager for Momofuku Ko, has offered Alta Marfa’s Helping Hand Grüner Veltliner from Texas’s High Plains AVA, near Lubbock, on both its bottle and by-the-glass lists. Malhotra praises its acid, freshness and vegetal qualities, and plans to feature it again when it’s available. She’s also excited to feature the brand’s Davis Mountain-sourced Tempranillo, Volcanic, when it hits full distribution in New York.
“I think it’s really quite interesting,” says Malhotra, of the Davis Mountain AVA wines. “We all know Tempranillo does well in Texas, but you can feel the lift on the Volcanic more—it feels more cool climate.”
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Image Courtesy of Alta Marfa
A Long, Winding Road to Harvest
Getting to this point, where Alta Marfa can sell wines made from Marfa grapes has not been easy. Taylor is eager for the day when he can offer wines made from his own 20-acre plot on the outskirts of town. He and Jablonski have had to rip up and replant the vines on their steep and rocky hillside multiple times, but they’ve made steady improvements and learned much about their unique growing environment in the past couple of years.
“I started to enter a different point of the learning curve,” says Taylor. “We started tailoring the viticulture to the place in a way we wouldn’t have been able to do on day one because we didn’t have information we do now.”
The pair have abandoned the original tightly-spaced, grafted Bordeaux varieties they originally planted in 2018 (and again 2019 due to receiving a bad crop from the nursery the first time around). Initially, Taylor thought that the late bud break of said varietals would be ideal for oftentimes frosty springs of the high plateau. He’s since come to realize, however, that hardier grapes from similarly dry, rocky climates are better suited to the Davis Mountains’ terroir.
In their two vineyards, the duo is now focusing their efforts on ten-by-ten plantings of own-rooted varietals. The rhyolite-covered hillside of red vines boasts Cinsault and an array of red Portuguese varieties including Touriga Franca, Touriga Brasileira and Tinta Madeira. Rather than introduce new cover crops, Taylor allows native grasses to grow in the vineyards and various cacti are interspersed among the plantings.
The white vineyard includes a similarly wide mix of grapes, including Assyrtiko, Arinto and Riesling, rooted in slightly less rocky, denser clay soil that’s nearly ready to dry-farm.
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If things continue in the direction they’re going, Taylor and his crew will harvest their plots for research and development this year or next. He hopes to be able to harvest enough grapes to bring these wines to market probably in 2026.
Next up? Expanding the business. They plan to focus on increasing plantings, producing more wines and broadening distribution to more states. Their overall goal is to spread the word about the Davis Mountains AVA through wines that really showcase the unique high plains terroir.
“In places around the world that have been making wine for hundreds of years, the style of the wines are always in harmony with everything about that place,” Taylor says.
The post This Remote Arts Mecca Near Marfa Is Texas’s Latest Wine Destination appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.
