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Texas wine: travel guide plus 10 top bottles worth seeking out

As the second largest US state, Texas has 200 wineries and a number of official AVAs. Along her US wine roads less-travelled, Katie Kelly Bell recommends the top places to visit under the Texan sunshine, while Stacy Slinkard recommends 10 wines to try.

Texas is the second largest US state. For perspective, it’s about 20% larger than France, and has roughly 200 wineries and eight official AVAs (Bell Mountain, Escondido Valley, Fredericksburg, Mesilla Valley, Texas Davis Mountains, Texas High Plains, Texas Hill Country and Texoma).


See also: travel guides for Idaho, Colorado, North Carolina and Michigan


Despite its impressive size, winemaking is chiefly concentrated in two distinct areas: Texas Hill Country and High Plains. Most of the state’s grapes are cultivated in High Plains, while most of the tourism and consumption takes place in Texas Hill Country.

Spend a minute in the High Plains AVA and you’ll appreciate why – dominated by semi-arid, windy conditions, it’s a high-elevation, vastly flat region of roughly 3.2m hectares in west Texas.


Stacy Slinkard’s top 10 Texas wines:


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