The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo International Wine Competition  – Rodeo Uncorked! in cowboy shorthand – has two up-front goals: To showcase Texas wine and to showcase wines from the rest of the world, which is almost as big as Texas itself.

Actually, the competition is but one element in a wide range of events that share one over-arching goal – to raise funds for college scholarships for Texas youths. At this, it has been notably successful. Since 1957, when the organization, largely volunteer, began to underwrite education it has handed out more than $260 million in scholarships. Currently, some 2300 students at 80 Texas colleges and universities are benefitting from revenues generated by the livestock show, concerts, auctions, rodeo…and wine competition.

The results of last week’s 2023 Rodeo Uncorked! met both the competition’s underlying goals to an extent perhaps unprecedented, with top winners emerging from Texas as well as places more closely associated with fine wine, like France, Italy, California and Australia.

The Grand Champion Best of Show, the competition’s highest honor, is from France, but its backstory has a Texas twist. That wine is the Le Chemin du Roi Brut Champagne ($140), a brand owned by Houston rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. You will remember that in one of his early hits – “In da Club” – 50 Cent rhapsodized about a “bottle full of bub’.” The Le Chemin must have been his vision.

As a measure of Jackson’s focus on quality wine, his Champagne also won Reserve Grand Champion Best of Show at Rodeo Uncorked! two years ago. (In livestock-show tradition, Rodeo Uncorked! selects both grand champion and reserve grand champion to acknowledge both the highest scoring wine in each class and sweepstakes round as well as the next highest scoring wine.)

As to Jackson, earlier this year, at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo wine auction, he paid $125,000 for a six-liter bottle of the top Texas wine at last fall’s competition, the Hye Meadow Winery 2017 Texas High Plains Boooom ($86), a blend of grape varieties traditionally associated with Italy – Negroamaro, Montepulciano, Aglianico and Sangiovese.

To be designated Grand Champion Best of Show, the Le Chemin, which translates as “the path,” had to emerge from a long and winding course that started with nearly 3100 other wines tasted blind by 124 judges over three days.

To add credibility to its conclusions, the Houston competition boasts at least two strategies that separate it from most other wine competitions. For one, panels are made up of at least five judges; other competitions generally have three-person panels. The more persons on a panel, the more varied the backgrounds, perspectives and experiences of judges, often leading to more discussion and debate concerning a wine’s merits.

Secondly, Houston follows a judging format that gives judges either a day off or half a day off before they take their place for the semi-final and final rounds, the intent being to assure that fresh palates approach each crucial round.

At any rate, I was one of nine judges to form the competition’s final “super panel,” charged with selecting the champion sparkling, white, red and dessert wines, and ultimately the best-of-show winner. At the outset of this session, 46 wines representing the four groups were stretched out in front of each of the nine judges. No discussion takes place as each judge ponders the merits of each wine and casts secret ballots, which sometimes leads to revisits and revotes to break ties.

Of the 12 sparkling wines up for consideration as best bubbly, the Le Chemin got my top vote for how assuredly it represents the high traditions of classic Champagne – fine beads of bubbles, the melding of fruit and yeast, and its astounding richness, elegance and persistence. It’s dear, but it is Champagne, and not unreasonable for the authority it delivers.

Much as I liked the Le Chemin, however, in the final balloting to select the Grand Champion Best of Show I went with the wine that got my top vote in the best white-wine round, a Chardonnay. I am not a huge fan of Chardonnay, but this one was so layered with all sorts of unfolding fruit, from apple to mango to fig, so graceful, so long, and so beckoning in its overall delivery that I easily cast my vote its way. I was pretty sure it had to have originated in Burgundy, speculating in my notes, “Beaune?” But when results were revealed, the wine turned out to be the Bernhardt Winery 2020 Danube Plain Antiquity Reserve Chardonnay ($22). Where the heck is Danube Plain? Well, it isn’t in France. It is an area at Plantersville, just northwest of Houston, until now not exactly seen as prime grape and wine territory. It is a Texas Chardonnay, in other words, which helps account for that bargain price for such a composed and refined take on the variety.

The Le Chemin probably can be found in California, the Bernhardt Chardonnay probably not. Yet, Rodeo Uncorked! yielded plenty of other high-award wines that are readily accessible in and about Sacramento, many of them local releases:

The immense and leathery Klinker Brick 2020 Lodi Farrah Vineyard Syrah, one of 14 Syrahs priced $25 or less that our panel judged, was elected class champion for its careful integration of heft and balance.

The Petite Petit 2019 Lodi Petite Sirah, a brand of Michael David Winery of Lodi, was selected class champion among Petite Sirahs priced $30 or less. Michael David also won two reserve class championships, one for its Earthquake 2020 Lodi Cabernet Sauvignon (in the $23 to $29 class), the other for its Inkblot 2020 Lodi Cabernet Franc (in the $18 to $42 class).

The Sand Point 2019 California Zinfandel was named class champion among Zinfandels priced $20 or less. Sand Point is a brand of LangeTwins Family Winery and Vineyards at Lodi, which also won reserve grand champion in the class of Petite Sirahs priced $31 to $60 for the LangeTwins Family Winery and Vineyards 2019 San Joaquin One Hundred Vineyard Petite Sirah.

The McManis Family Vineyards 2021 San Joaquin Viognier was chosen class champion for Viogniers priced $13 to $28; not much of a surprise there, given the wine’s consistent delivery of telltale Viognier character – peach, honeysuckle, viscosity, balance, enlivening acidity.

Of nine wines entered by Bogle Vineyards of Clarksburg, two won bronze medals, four won silver and three gold. Two of its gold-medal wines also were crowned reserve class champion – the 2019 California Essential Red and the 2020 California Rosé.

Oak Farm Vineyards of Lodi also saw two of its wines anointed reserve class champions – the Oak Farm 2019 Mokelumne River Petit Verdot and the Oak Farm 2020 Lodi Red Blend Zinfandel.

From Yolo County, the reliable and readily accessible Matchbook Wine Company Toasted Head 2020 California Chardonnay was deemed reserve grand champion for the class of Chardonnays priced $15 or less.

The Dry Creek Vineyard 2021 Dry Creek Valley Sauvignon Blanc, as steady and as articulate as any take on the variety in California, was voted class champion among Sauvignon Blancs priced $15 to $22, an extremely competitive class.

Other impressions from Houston:

Of 15 wines up for consideration for best red wine, not a single one was Zinfandel. Earlier in the competition, however, our panel was assigned 16 Zinfandels priced $40 or more. Four won double-gold medals, meaning all five members of the panel agreed that they deserved gold. In a final-round runoff to select class champion and reserve class champion, the wine to win class champion was the elegant and finely structured BACA 2019 Dry Creek Valley Home Base Zinfandel ($40) which spoke with carefully modulated eloquence of the variety’s blackberry/raspberry fruit and spice. The reserve class champion was the fresh and lean Bent Oak Winery 2018 Russian River Valley Bertapelle Vineyard Zinfandel ($50), which carried a thread of eucalyptus, unusual for the variety but not unwelcome. (Bent Oak is an Austin-area winery but uses California grapes for several of its wines.)

Our panel also was assigned a class of Chardonnay that by its size (38 entries) and prices ($35 to $45) should have yielded several impressive wines, and it did. Not so long ago, this class would have run strongly to ripe, rich and sweet Chardonnays heavy on oak. But that wasn’t the case here. As a group, the wines were generally dry, fresh, bouncy and surprisingly balanced, their suggestions of apple, tropical and citric fruits underlined rather than struck through with wood. We found seven double-gold wines in the group, from which emerged our grand champion – the clear-cut, mature, off-dry and strapping Daou 2020 Santa Barbara County “Bodyguard” Chardonnay ($40).

Many members of the wine trade are fretting over how they can attract younger consumers, who they see being won over more by beer, spirits, kombucha and other beverages. This could explain why wines infused with fruit other than grapes look to be growing in popularity, or at least availability. More wines flavored with strawberry, cherry, apple and the like are seizing space on grocery-store and wine-shop shelves. They are to traditional wine what Fruit Loops are to homemade granola, but they can be surprisingly vibrant with refreshing flavor. At Houston, one fruit-flavored wine was crowned class champion and two were named reserve class champions. All were from California. The class champion was the Brightlands California Sweet Pineapple wine (in the class priced $13 to $27). The reserve class champions were the Cara Mello Pineapple wine (in the class priced $11 and less) and the Wilson Creek Winery & Vineyards Lodi Peach Bellini Flavored Sparkling Wine (in the class of flavored sparkling wines priced $25 or less).

The competition’s top-value wine emerged from our first-day panel and our very first class of wines, sparkling. It’s the Risata Wines 2021 Moscato d’Asti, a very floral, honeyed and gentle sparkling wine, fine for patient sipping on its own on a hot summer evening or for providing the base for a whole range of easy-going, novel takes on traditional cocktails, from negroni to cosmo punch. It commonly sells for between $10 and $14.

Vintner Alert

This year’s wine-competition action is winding down, but next year’s is gearing up, with entries already open for several competitions. Two have names so similar that they may confuse vintners. One is the Los Angeles Invitational Wine & Spirits Challenge, which is approaching just its second iteration. The other is the Los Angeles International Wine Competition, which is nearing its 84^th run.

The Los Angeles Invitational is tied in with the Los Angeles Times, but it is a Sonoma County production, one of several competitions run by the company Wine & Spirit Competitions Management & Production, which orchestrates a half dozen other competitions.

The Los Angeles International is a production of Fairplex at Pomona, which also oversees the Los Angeles County Fair, celebrating its 100^th birthday this year. During the fair’s run, several judges from the competition present educational tastings on the Pomona fairgrounds.