Texas Viticulture & Enology

We are ready to welcome our participants for the Winery Lab Techniques Workshop tomorrow!

This program is also part of the Viticulture and Wine Science Certificate Program, serving as one of the certificate’s hands-on components. It provides practical training in the most common and important laboratory analyses used in commercial wineries.

Enology grad students Esterak and Belz were hard at work these past few days getting things organized!

Howdy Texas Grape Growers and Winemakers, our June edition of our statewide newsletter is out. Take a look.

Join us for a 6-hour, in-person, hands-on winery lab workshop focused on the foundational analyses every winery needs to monitor grape, juice, and wine quality.

Participants will learn the importance of key parameters, including Brix, titratable acidity, pH, volatile acidity, and free and total SO₂, with emphasis on what each measurement tells us, why it matters, and how it informs winemaking decisions.

The workshop will combine practical background information, live demonstrations by our team, and guided hands-on activities where participants will perform selected analyses themselves.

By the end of the session, attendees will have a stronger understanding of core winery lab methods, how to interpret results, and how routine analysis supports better fermentation management, wine stability, and overall wine quality.

Registration closes on June 7th.

https://agriliferegister.tamu.edu/ereg/newreg.php?eventid=882166&

Our first Spanish language Enology Fact Sheet is available for download! Click on the link to access. https://agrilifelearn.tamu.edu/s/product/eliminando-el-defecto-de-corcho-en-el-vino/01tQn00000GHmtRIAT

"Eliminando el defecto de corcho en el vino"

¡Nuestra primera hoja informativa de enología en español ya está disponible para descargar!

Traducir al español nuestras hojas informativas de enología nos permite compartir conocimientos respaldados por la investigación con un público más amplio y diverso. En Texas, donde los trabajadores de viñedos y bodegas, el personal de bodega y producción, y los propietarios de negocios hispanohablantes desempeñan un papel importante en la industria del vino, este esfuerzo nos permite ofrecer recursos de Extensión más accesibles, prácticos y útiles para quienes los necesitan.

Al proporcionar estos materiales en español, podemos facilitar la comunicación dentro de las bodegas, fortalecer la capacitación del personal y promover la adopción de buenas prácticas en áreas como la limpieza y sanitización, el manejo de la fermentación, la prevención de alteraciones microbiológicas, la estabilidad del vino, la seguridad y el control de calidad. De esta manera, podemos servir mejor a la industria vitivinícola de Texas y asegurarnos de que la información técnica importante también esté al alcance de las comunidades hispanohablantes.

Translating our English enology fact sheets into Spanish allows us to share our research-based knowledge with a broader and more diverse audience. In Texas, where Spanish-speaking vineyard and winery employees, cellar workers, production staff, and business owners play an important role in the wine industry, this helps us make our Extension resources more accessible, practical, and useful to the people who need them most.

By providing these materials in Spanish, we can better support communication within wineries, strengthen workforce training, and encourage the adoption of best practices in areas such as sanitation, fermentation management, spoilage prevention, wine stability, safety, and quality control. This helps us serve the (Texas) wine industry more effectively and ensures that important technical information does not remain limited to English-speaking audiences.

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What do we know about the current state of U.S. wine consumption? Control States (where state governments manage alcohol sales) provide relatively recent data. As of March 2026, in 11 Control States, wine sales are still declining. Between Jan 2023 and Mar 2026, the 12-month avg has dropped from 1.4 million 9-liter cases to 1.219 million cases, down 12.9%.

Composition of U.S. Wine Consumption, 1967–2024
Compared to their 2021 peak, table wine consumption decreased by 9.3% in 2024. Sparkling and dessert wine consumption fell by 8.7% and 6.9%, respectively. RTD consumption grew by 122% but remains nowhere near the wine cooler consumption levels of the 1980s.